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The magical DIY of the day is: a wand stand!

I love the official ones, but I wanted to try my hand at making one on a budget. You can either hang it (1st picture) or stand it up leaning against something (3rd picture)). It's made of a wooden picture frame, and screw-in hooks - you can also use hooks with a flat back that you can glue on.

You can still reinsert the glass and the backing if you want a cool picture in the background; I personally love the open look.

#Sweet is taking pictures #DIY #do it yourself #wand stand #wand display #Harry Potter #Fantastic Beasts

Ollivanders Wand Display

Bear with me, there’s going to be a lot of photos in this one, but I wanted to share my experience making a display rack for the wands my roommate and I have collected.

This is going to be a full DIY breakdown incase any of you would like to make something similar to hang your wands or whatever else it is you may collect!

First things first, I had to get the vinyl logo cut out. My friends at Signs of LA cut mine out for me since I don’t have an at home system to cut vinyl, but before any of that could happen, I had to make a design.

I downloaded a picture from Google of the Ollivanders logo and spent about a day turning it into a vector. For those of you who aren’t familiar, vector files are images made from math based curves and not pixels. They are designed so that you can make them as big or as small as you want without it getting pixellated. An added benefit is that the edge of the vector image becomes a cut line for vinyl cutters.

The top sign is the JPEG I found online, the bottom one is my version. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s close enough.

Once I had that finished and got it all cut out, it was time to assemble the actual sign. I wanted mine to go above the TV in my living room between two book cases so the size and color I’m going with were chosen to blend the sign into my current decor as much as possible.

My display was designed to be 36x14.5″ so I started with two 36″ strips of 1x8″ pine. Bear in mind, that is the size before pressure treating. The actual width of the wood was 7.25″ which was just what I needed.

I had to start by turning the two strips into a single board. seeing as I don’t own any bar clamps, this was going to be a bit difficult, so I improvised. I sanded the edges that would be in contact with each other so the glue would be able to stick and then glued the edges together. Then, while pulling the pieces together as hard as I could, I stapled the boards together on the back and sides of the seam.

After that dried, I sanded and hand planed the seam to remove all squeeze out and to make sure the edges were perfectly flush.

Next I made hooks for the wands to sit on using 1″ cup hooks.

I started by unbending the hooks and then cut off the ends of the metal so that there was only a small curve to hold the wands. I didn’t want them to obstruct the sign much so these needed to only be as big as necessary.

This was honestly the hardest step. Snipping off the ends of those hooks was murder on my hands, and I had to do it 24 times. While there are only 10 wands on display (needing 20 hooks), it is designed to hold 12 in case we end up getting any more (which we surely will).

Once the hooks were made, I had to plan out where they would end up going.

I started with a center line and measured an inch and a half on each edge to simulate the boarder pieces. The holes I planned were centered on each half 8″ apart. The top and bottom were also 8″ apart and I drilled 2 sets of holes. One to display 5 wands on each side (2″ apart) and one to display 6 wands for the future (1.6″ apart). The entire thing was lowered .75″ so the wands would be centered and not the hooks.

I drilled each of the holes and screwed a new cup hook into each hole ahead of time so I wouldn’t crack the polyurethane when I went to do it once everything was finished.

Once the holes were finished, I cut out the edge pieces - two 36″ strips and two 14.5″ strips with a 45 degree cut on each edge so they would fit together.

I don’t have a miter saw in my apartment, so I hand cut them with a miter box.

Now it was time to stain everything.

I gave everything a thin coat and buffed them with #0000 steel wool then did a second coat on everything.

This part takes forever. The first coat needed 24 hours to dry and the second coat needed just a bit less than that. Dry time is important, if you try to sand it before its fully dry, it will gunk up and peel off the wood.

After the second coat was dry I buffed it with steel wool again and sanded off about an inch of stain from each edge so the trim would stick.

I then glued the edges on and clamped it all together so it would dry straight. One of my sides was a bit curved and the edging had trouble sticking to it so I put a nail in every corner to hold the edges of each strip down

I gave the whole thing one more coat and buffed it all down. I then wet sanded the whole thing with 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper, and it was ready to apply the design to.

I applied the vinyl graphic that I had made to the center of the board. I did this by placing the image where I wanted it and taped it down with painters tape. I then lifted one side and cut the backing paper off and then slowly rubbed it against the wood starting from the center and moving my way out to avoid bubbles.

When that side was down, I took the tape off and peeled the rest of the backing paper, repeating the rubbing to the other side.

When I was satisfied with the application, I peeled off the contact paper 180 degrees to the wood. Essentially I peeled up an edge that didn’t have any graphics on it and folded that down to the wood and slid it back until the whole thing was off.

This is the best way to peel off the contact paper without the vinyl coming off of the wood.

Next, I screwed in the hooks at every 2″ interval so I could hang the 10 wands we have.

This part was a bit difficult because the bulk of the hook had been cut off. Imagine trying to screw in a screw without a screwdriver, and for added fun, the end of the screw is a sharp metal edge.

I probably should have used gloves while doing this but didn’t. Learn from my mistake - wear gloves.

Once the hooks were in, it was time to add the hangers to the back.

Ignoring the mess on the back of this, I drew a line 2 inches from the edge of the board and down the center. I drew two more marks 8 inches from the center line and attached my hangers at the center of each of those marks.

I copied this onto my wall with a ruler and bubble level and hammered a nail into each of the marks.

All that was left to do was hang the sign and put up my wands. I also got an LED strip for behind my TV to accent everything nicely.

It’s a beautiful new addition to the house. I hope you enjoyed. Let me know if you do anything like this for your house!

#DIY #diy ideas #harry potter #wands #wand display #Ollivanders #sign #art #woodworking #handmade #wood