This is a guest post by
Tiffany Ivanovsky who blogs over at
MyLitter. Tiffany has been married to her husband Paul for 14 years and together they have 7 kids ages 13, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 2 months. She works outside her home as the Director of a private Christian preschool. When she has the time, she loves to spend it outdoors with her kids, watching their sporting events and participating herself! She loves the thrill of getting a good deal and the satisfaction of helping others find them also!
We spent the weekend being crafty. My kids are on a BIG Harry Potter kick, about 5 years behind the times, but loving it none the less. We watched most of the movies in the car on the way to and from California and all over Arizona and Texas this past month. They turn everything from straws. to sticks to granola bars into magic wands.
I love listening to them and watching the big kids get completely involved and play along. In fact, we have made up a list of our own “Ivanovsky Spells.”
My Favorite? In place of one of the more popular Harry Potter spells “expelliarmus” the Ivanovsky version is “smelly lamas.” I am sure you can see how the rest of them go!

My oldest has a “real” Harry Potter wand he got one year from Santa, it was the pricy kind at $40 that is motion activated. The little kids drug it out and have been fighting I mean sharing it nicely all week. They had a lemonade stand earning $42 and decided to pool the money to buy another wand. Like that is going to go well…
My crafty 8 year old got online and found many different sets of instructions on how to make a wand. The other kids shook their heads and said “no!” She begged me to help her make one. Since I had just about everything I said sure, and we got started.
You will need:
- Glue Gun / Glue Sticks (about 3 large ones for each wand)
- Craft Paint (we liked metallic and glitter)
- Construction paper
- Chop Sticks or wooden dowels
- Elmers Glue
- Marble or something to put at the handle end. We found a bag of wedding gems at Walmart for $3.50 that worked perfectly.