Introduction: Movie Accurate Floo Powder! - Harry Potter DIY

By Visit my blog!
About: I love building replica props from films and TV shows. My main interests right now are Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts.

Floo powder - the quintessential method of wizarding transport that gets you from A to B quicker than you can say "diagonally"! You can buy this for just 2 Sickles a scoop in Diagon Alley, but if that's too expensive for your pockets - never fear! I've put together this quick and easy tutorial that will teach you how to make your own floo powder for free!

I've seen a lot of tutorials online that teach you how to make floo powder using sugar or salt - with some people just using green glitter - but after rewatching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I decided that none of these methods were accurate enough to the stuff we see on screen, so instead I decided to put together my own recipe.

Step 1: Ingredients

Compared to some of my other Harry Potter-related projects, there really isn't much to this one at all.

All you'll need is the following:

  • sand (ordinary sand from the beach will do just fine)
  • food colouring (blue and green)
  • a disposable plastic spoon to mix the sand
  • a tray
  • something to store the finished powder in

Step 2: Colouring the Sand

Begin by pouring some the sand into a suitable container (I used an old jam jar to avoid contaminating anything that may have food in at a later date).

Then, pour water into the container until it just covers the top of the sand. Water from the tap will be fine -- not too hot, not too cold.

Next, add two or three drops of green food colouring to the sand, and stir. (I also added 1 drop of blue, to make my floo powder as close to the movie version as possible).

Step 3: Draining the Sand

Once you have mixed in the food colouring, it is time to drain the water from your mixture. I did this by gently pouring it out of the container, making sure not to tip out any of the sand in the process.

Step 4: Finishing Off

Finally, remove the sand and leave it on a tray to dry out. The more spread out the sand is, the quicker it will dry. (It is important to cover your tray with a non-porous material (such as cling film, tinfoil or a piece of plastic -- not paper!) to prevent the food colouring from soaking through and staining it.)

Your floo powder should take roughly 48 hours to dry out completely, but don't be afraid to leave it for longer than that if it is still damp -- it needs to be fully dry before you put it in a container. Feel free to give the sand a stir every few hours to help it dry out quicker.

Step 5: The Container

You can use virtually anything to store your floo powder.

You could use a simple wooden bowl like in the movie, a small glass vial, or even a jar (personally, I chose to use a plastic test tube with a screw cap). To finish off, I searched Google for a floo powder label and printed one off to glue to my test tube.