Hey Potterheads and Wizarding fans alike, ever since I read the first Harry Potter novel - the wizarding world has had me hooked. For a long time, I have always wanted to carve and create my own wooden wand, as I am sure many of you have as well. However, I never got around to it until now.

Just recently I came upon a wonderful branch that I knew instantly would make a beautiful wand. I started work almost immediately, as I was extremely excited by my find. After a few hours of work, the finished product was a wickedly long 16 and a half inch (43cm) wand. As a beginner in wandlore, it is nowhere near as beautiful as the works of Ollivander, however I am proud of my work. Surprisingly this project took me less than 4 hours to complete and you can also make your very own wand in no time at all.

What you will need:

- Branch (of your choice)

- Knife

- Saw

- Sandpaper 120, 240, 360

- File

- Estapol Gloss (or any other wood gloss) (optional but recommended)

- Mouse Sander (optional)

- Some patience and spare time

Step 1: Handle and Pommel

After you have used the saw to cut your branch to the desired length the first step is to take your branch and your knife and to decide where your handle is going to be. I did this by placing my hand at the end of the branch and drew a line a cm in front of where the top of my hand rested allowing ample room for my hand. The length of the handle will differ from person to person so make sure you complete this step. Then I cut away some of the bark near the handle so it could be clearly seen where my handle was. The 'pommel' of the wand was very plain so I decided to round it of as a bit of a feature, though this is completely optional I think if your pommel is too plain for your liking this is a great way to improve the aesthetics of it.

Step 2: Stripping the Bark

After you have defined where your handle is you can then start to strip the bark from the branch. This step is fairly easy but if you cut too deep when stripping the bark it could prove to be disastrous depending on your design so be careful. Use your knife to carefully strip it away but start of shallowly until you determine the thickness of the bark.

Step 3: Design and Gloss

Start of by using a file to thin down the branch to the desired thickness and then use the sand paper to smooth it all over. To make the feature close to the handle I used a mixture of my knife, the mouse sander and sandpaper to create it after you have your design finished you can then finish it up. For this I used Wattyl Instant Estapol Gloss. Apply a thin layer all over the wand and handle with an old paintbrush and leave in the sun for 2-4 hours depending on the temperature. I stood my wand up on the Gloss can as to prevent much of the wand from touching the table, so the gloss did not rub off allowing the best shine.

Step 4: Have Fun! It's Ready to Use!

Now your wand is ready to use and enjoy. Thank you for following with me this far, if you make a wand yourself feel free to post a picture of it in the comments so I can see what you've made. I'm going to enter this into the Wizarding Contest so it would be greatly appreciated if you chucked me a vote. Well now you've finished reading this I'll end it with my favourite H.P. quote, "It is our choices that show what we truly are far more than our abilities" Albus Dumbledore

Farewell friends,

Mischief managed