Morbidly Beautiful

Your Home for Horror

Posts

The perfect book for muggles and wizards everywhere!

The-Unofficial-Guide-To-Crafting-The-World-Of-Harry-Potter-By-Jamie-HarringtonWhen I was asked to look at and review a craft book for Harry Potter items, I was happy to do it. In addition to being a horror lover, I am a mom, was a Girl Scout leader, and I do a lot of crafts. When the first Harry Potter book came out, (“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”) I read it in one afternoon and was hooked. I decided to read each book, ahead of my daughter, to make sure they weren’t too scary. I loved them all! So I can honestly say I am a Harry Potter fan.

When I told my daughter, who is now 18, that I had a cool Harry Potter craft book, she gave me the look that only teens can do. “Why would I need a book, when I have the entire internet to look up craft ideas?”

Well, on one side she is right. With the internet — specifically Pinterest — I can find out how to do just about any type of creative thing on earth. But, I love books. I love the way they feel, smell, look… well, I just love them! Being able to have the book laying right in front of me like a cookbook while I do the craft is, for me, the best way. I also believe that we as humans need to get off the computer once in a while. (I know, where am I right now? Yup, on the computer!)

Madison and shrinky dinks

Author Jamie Harrington has produced a lovely book with creative crafts, beautiful illustrations, and wonderful photography. Her instructions are very simple to follow, and most of the crafts look fairly uncomplicated to do. Some of the crafts are similar to those I found on the internet, but some seem to be unique to her book. Most are pretty affordable and can be done in a very short time. I like that. Having been a Girl Scout leader for many years, I know if I still had young Girl Scouts I would be having them do a lot of Harry Potter crafts. I think it is a great book for parents, Scout leaders, teachers, camp counselors, kids and even themed event planners.

The part I want to mention again is what a beautiful book it is, full of wonderful stories and illustrations to go along with the photos of the crafts. Jamie’s love for everything Harry Potter is very apparent in the clever “Potterisms” in the book and the way the crafts are placed into different Harry Potter categories. I feel like all the crafts can be fine-tuned to your own personal tastes, too. You don’t have to do them exactly the same as in the book. Using your own creativity and different products, you can easily personalize the projects to make each one perfect for you.

wand steps

After enlisting a young friend named Madison and her mom, we tried a couple of items to make. First I made the pencil wands. Very easy and fun. If you take out paint drying time, they only took about 10 minutes. Madison was willing to be my model wizard holding my finished product. Madison herself, with mom’s help, made the Lightning Bolt Earrings. She said they were fun and super easy to make.

Wizard Wand from a pencil

I have a couple more favorite crafts I want to try in the future. First is the Monster Book of Monsters Tablet Cover which I plan to do soon, but I intend to use much more real looking faux-fur. My second favorite is the Butter Beer lip balm, which I plan to make and then make a Butter Beer body scrub to go with it!

So, yes, we enjoyed the book. Thanks Jamie for giving us a fun collection of Harry Potter crafts!


Interested in purchasing the book? Please go to Amazon, Overstock.com and many other sites to get the paperback or download for Kindle.

Leave a Reply

Allowed tags:  you may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="">, <strong>, <em>, <h1>, <h2>, <h3>
Please note:  all comments go through moderation.
Overall Rating

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Hungry for more killer content? Sign up for our FREE weekly newsletter to ensure you never miss a thing.

You'll never receive more than one email per week, and you can unsubscribe anytime.