Make Your Own Golden Snitch Ornaments!

Calling all Harry Potter fans! These golden snitch ornaments are PERFECT for this year's Christmas tree:

They'd also make a magical mobile for a nursery, don't you think? So if it's still too early for you to even THINK about Christmas, then, uh... this is totally a mobile tutorial. {nodding emphatically} 

I've seen a couple of snitch tutorials in the past, but I wanted one to more closely match the silver metal wings of the movie version:

I skipped the body detail, though, both to keep it simple and because it's a lot shinier that way:

 

Shiny.

(If you want that body detail, though, I'd try some gold puff paint.)

And the best part? SO CHEAP TO MAKE. And easy! John and I knocked out all 30 in a single evening. So let's get to it!

First, you will need:

 - One disapproving cat named Tonks [optional]

- Small plastic gold ornaments (These tubes of 15 are $1 each at Dollar Tree. Score!)

 - Thin wire, around 22 or 26 gauge (That giant roll was $2.99 at JoAnn's.)

- Tin Foil

-  Spray adhesive (check your craft store; it's basically glue in a spray paint can)

[Alternate: Instead of foil & spray adhesive, you can also substitute metal tape.]

- Dremel with a drill bit just larger than your wire

To begin, cut off a bunch of 8-inch pieces of wire. (You'll need one piece of wire for each ornament.) The wires need to be as straight as possible, so here's a cool trick I learned to get the kinks out:

 

Hold the end of the wire firmly with a pair of pliers, and then gently pull a pair of nylon-jawed pliers down the length of the wire. Don't squeeze too hard with the nylon-jawed pliers; you only want a little pressure. (You can see I only had a curved pair to use, but it still worked fine.) Two or three runs should remove all the kinks:

The bottom wire is what I started with, the top have all been straightened.

Next, drill holes in your ornaments so the wires can be threaded through like so:

Important: Make sure your drill bit is at the same angle you see my wire here; otherwise, the wire won't feed through properly. 

I found it was easiest to drill the hole straight down first, and then gently turn the Dremel so the drill bit was at the proper angle, kind of pumping the drill bit up and down a bit as I turned.

Once the holes are drilled, feed your wire through. This will be a bit fiddly and may take a minute, but take your time, and try not to bend the wire.

Once I got the hang of it I zipped through all 30 snitches in no time. It was actually pretty fun, since I was dancing around to the radio in the garage at the time. (Pretty sure I'm the crazy neighbor... and I'm ok with that.)

Now, prepare the wings! Carefully lay out a large sheet of tin foil (try not to crinkle it), and cut it into rectangles measuring 2 X 3.5 inches each.

When you have a dozen or so done, lay the foil squares shiny side down, and spray with a light coat of spray adhesive. (What's that, you've never used spray adhesive? GET SOME. You'll find yourself using it for everything!) Make sure you spray outside, though, to avoid fumes and sticky overspray.

Alternate: Since some of you just reminded me it's FREEZING where most of you are, you can easily substitute metal tape for the tin foil & spray adhesive. The tape may gum up your scissors a bit, so just have a rag on hand to clean off the adhesive every few slices.

Next, carefully pick up a square of foil, and line up your wire down the center, like this:

 Get the foil as close to the ornament as you can, almost touching.

Gently press down with the wire (gently!!) until it sticks, and then carefully fold the foil over the wire. Try to keep the foil as smooth as possible, but don't panic if you get wrinkles; most of those will roll out later.

 A lot of times your foil won't line up perfectly on the edges, but don't worry about that, either; we're going to be trimming most of that end off anyway.

Repeat for the other side of the snitch, but be sure to hold the first wing straight up and down (as I am above) when you do! Otherwise your wings will stick out in different directions. 

And again, make sure you get that foil as close to the ornament as possible.

Your snitch should look something like this when you're done. If there are any large crinkles, use a pen like a rolling pin and smooth them out. (I was amazed how many wrinkles John got out that way!)

Next, trim your wings. I sketched a paper template for this to keep them consistent, which John folded over each wing to use as a guide:

We had quite the assembly line going, with me attaching the wings, and then John cutting them out:

 Almost ready for take off!

Finally, use a small scrap of wire or a toothpick to firmly draw small lines down the length of each wing. It will help to brace the wing on a book, like so:

(Shameless Girl Genius plug? HECK YEAH.)

Don't worry about making the lines too perfect; I found a little inconsistency actually looked really cool:

 And so long as you press hard enough, the lines will show clearly on both sides of the wing.

Now the fun part: posing your snitch! Odds are your wings are upside down at this point, so go ahead and gently twist them around, and then pose the wires however you like. You can bend the wings up, down, and even add a little curve in the middle, like so:

If your foil isn't close enough to the ornament the wings may want to flop down or spin. In that case, either bend the wires up a bit more to brace them, or try a dot of super glue right at the base.

For most of mine I left the wings straight out, and just bent them up slightly:

And I really like them with those decorative swirly hooks, which we found at Wal-Mart for $1.

Having a few different wing positions really adds to the flying illusion, though!

And that's it! 

 Now go forth, my friends, and unleash your golden snitch hordes!! MWUAH-HA-HA-HAA!

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Update: Welcome, new visitors! Thanks for dropping by! And since you like Harry Potter crafts, you might also be interested in some of my past Potter goodies:

- Ollivander's Wand Display
- DIY Light-Up Wands
- Death Eater Mask

Or check my Craft Page for photos of all my tutorials. Enjoy!

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Where my pinners at?