How to make magic wands

Sarah has been obsessed with the Harry Potter books this year, and she's begged me to throw a Harry Potter birthday party next month. These are one of the party favors we'll be giving each guest.

I had seen lots of different ideas online on how to make magic wands, but most of the ideas were either 

1- too stupid-looking (seriously. A plain dowel painted brown? Boooring!)

or

2- way too time-consuming (I refuse to hand-carve customized wands for a dozen kids!)

Thanks to Pinterest, I found a perfect solution:

Hot glue wands.

First purchase a box of chopsticks. 

Drizzle liberal amounts of hot glue onto the end of the chopstick. Rotate the chopstick so the glue doesn't fall off as it begins to cool. 

If  you're impatient like me, you can speed the cooling process by dipped the handle of the wand into a large bowl of cold water. When the glue is ALMOST cool, it can be sculpted in a variety of ways to add interesting details. Small beads can also be added to create a knobby look on the handles. 

Here are the wands before receiving a coat of acrylic craft paint. Not very convincing, but just wait and see what happens later. 

Here is a finished product. Ta-Da!

I experimented with different techniques to get slightly different looks.

 This wand was shaped by pressing on the cool glue with a chopstick to create ridges. 

This wand was shaped by pinching the cool glue between my fingers to shape swirled ridges. It really helps to dip your fingers in cold water before handling the glue- otherwise it leaves a bumpy effect because the glue sticks slightly to your skin and leaves marks on the wand. Wet fingers leave a smooth finish.

This wand handle was shaped by pinching the cool glue and twirling the chop stick.

Here is a detail of the knobby end of the wand created by pressing various beads into the glue.

This wand handle was shaped by rolling the wand between my hands.

This wand has a wooden bead glued on the end to add a touch of interest.

Another technique I used was to lightly scrape the cool glue with the tines of a fork. It gave the handle a very woody look.

After applying my first coat of brown craft paint, the wands all looked like chocolate-dipped candies. Yikes!  They were like cartoon wands, not nearly convincing enough for me.

I applied a glaze with watered-down black paint and removed most of the glaze, leaving behind paint in the crevices. I did this a couple times with each wand to build the layers of color, blotting it carefully to leave behind mottled bits of contrast. Some wands were treated with a white wash instead of a black one. 

I like the variety we ended up with.

Her birthday is in a couple of weeks. We are doing "A Day at Hogwarts School" for her party, with classes in Potions, Charms, Care of Magical Creatures, and Transfiguration.

We're stocked with wizard cloaks, wands, class supplies, a secret passageway, and lots of magical games.

Have any suggestions for a Harry Potter cake?