Lately I've been reading (and listening to) a lot of the Harry Potter series (for the first time). Since I prefer to be doing something while listening I've been crafting a lot. This is the result of wanting more Harry Potter items in my house and having quite a few seed packets to start.

Note: I'm not really sure why some of my photos won't format correctly and are sideways. Sorry about that, if anyone has any ideas for fixing that I would love them. This hasn't happened before and hopefully I will figure out how to correct it in the future.

UPDATE: patterns have been added but may have shrunk since I had to use my phone. I will add to scale patterns as soon as my scanner is fixed or my local library opens back up, sorry about that. 4/28

patterns.pdf
Download

Supplies

Plastic drink bottles, 1 for each planter
Xacto knife or similar
Paint and brushes
Marker
Printable patterns

Optional

Lighter
Iron
Parchment Paper

Step 1: Prepare Bottle

Take all the wrappers off your bottle and measure (or guesstimate) about a third of the way up from the bottom. Mark all the way around your bottle and cut apart. To make it a little easier you can carefully heat your blade with a lighter. This will make it easier to cut the bottle initially. Once cut your bottle tops should nestle upside down inside the bottom.

Step 2: Iron

This step is not completely necessary and I recommend skipping it if you are going to transplant your plants into the ground or a larger pot eventually. Since my plants are flowers and cat grass I do not plant to transplant them so I decided to curl the edges over to make them a little more even and less sharp. To do this I first tried a lighter and while it mostly worked it was uneven and shrunk the rim in quite a bit. Using an iron made them much more even and kept the edges from shrinking inward. To do this you will need an iron and some parchment paper.

Plug your iron in and turn it to the highest setting without steam.
Place your top piece inside the bottom.
Cut a piece of parchment paper to cover your bottle opening.
Set the parchment piece on top of your opening and hold your iron firmly on top for a couple minutes.

Check every once in a while to see how much it has curled. Some edges might get warbly first, that's okay, just keep the iron on it a little longer. Make sure to keep even pressure on the iron otherwise you might melt the edge unevenly

Step 3: Draw Out the Pattern

To make the scarf, on your bottom pieces draw vertical lines from the edge down to where it meets the ground. Most bottles have bumps of a pattern on the bottom, space these lines so that there is a line dividing each bump and each indent or 10 lines around the entirety. For the face, print out the face patterns and set your top piece inside the bottom piece cover-end down. Cut along the lines and curl the pattern to fit inside your bottle. line up with top of your bottle and trace over the lines.

I have included patterns for Luna, Hermione, Hagrid, Ron and Harry for both 18oz and 1 liter bottles.

Step 4: Paint

Paint in your lines from the previous step. Alternating house colors on the bottom for the scarf. Some colors might work better with a white base coat, for me my red and silver both did. If you choose a dark haired or dark skinned character, you may want to not paint it and let the dirt be that color, I did this for Harry, Hermione and Hagrid's hair and I think it turned out pretty well.

While your scarves are drying paint in your faces. I started with the skin tone, painting around the facial features and going back in with a smaller brush for touch ups later. I think had it been a sunnier day I could have painted over my black sharpie marks and held it up to a window like a makeshift light table. After the face I outlined the hair and Luna's glasses then painted those in.

Step 5: Drain Holes

Before filling with dirt I stabbed a few holes in the bottom and cut and X in the cover. I wasn't sure where the water would drain from best so I cut in the dome part 'above' the cover and the cover itself. This worked significantly better when I heated the blade over a flame before each cut.