A Very Potter Christmas!

In keeping with the Harry Potter theme, I thought I'd do a quick post showing a few items I made last year for some friends for Christmas. Every once in a while, I manage to tear myself away from the digital medium and make something tangible. All of this stuff was a lot of fun to make...and of course I kept some for myself as well. 

The first things I made were some personalized signs, Honeydukes for myself, Flourish and Blotts for my friend Carrie, and Hogsmeade Apothecary for my friend Cindi.

Honeydukes of Hogsmeade

Flourish and Blotts of Diagon Alley

Hogsmeade Apothecary

Each sign was painstakingly done by hand. I'm telling you, painting all that fancy text is no easy task! However, it was a lot of fun to see them materialize. I'm probably going to make a couple more just for the heck of it. 

Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean

Thankfully, I've yet to run across anything gross...except "jalapeno," that should never be in bean form! Ever!

("Flavor,"  spelled the American way for yanks! ...Not because I just totally forgot to spell it the proper, British way. "Flavour" ...you Brits and your superflous usage of 'u'!)

Acid Pops, a special Christmas edition

 Honeydukes Best Chocolate

"Mildly sweet chocolate for pleasure and use against dementor effects"

Honeydukes Ice Mice. These were especially fun to make.

Honeydukes Holiday Collection!

So there you go, fun with packaging design! The best part, each of the packs contains actual candy...of course! The Acid Pops contain green, Christmas tree shaped pops, the beans are of course, beans, the chocolate bar is a huge chocolate bar, and yes, the ice mice pack is actually filled with white gummy mice!

I included a few other things as well, just your basic Hogwarts necessities...

Hogwarts Letter and school supply list!

Easily done with some sketchbook paper, a little tea, and a printer, oh and minor skills with a quill. 

A wand, of course! 

What Wizard or Witch worth their salt would be caught without one? Yep, made these as well...even cored them! Ollivander, you got nothing on me! ;)

Now, to make sure all of these items got to their respective destinations, I didn't bother with the Muggle Postal Service. Thankfully, the wizarding world has its own delivery systems...

Owl Post boxes!

(The Owl Post image is from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Postcard Book, so I can't take credit for that. I did however clean it up, vectorize it, and apply it to the boxes.)

It was a very fun project and Cindi and Carrie were both happy with their gifts. Stuff like this makes me realize how very much I 'd love design, especially something with a strong theme. I haven't gotten to do much this year since I'm still in the middle of the world's most ridiculous house purchase/move, but maybe I'll get a few Christmas ornaments made before the year's out. I've really only got one more post until I'm caught up and it's been what I've been doing with my life since July.