Everyone knows that the most fun part about Halloween is the idea that witchcraft and magic is real – with a few ghosts and goblins thrown in. Similarly, it’s the best part about Harry Potter too. This Halloween a lot of our decor revolved around wizards and witches, and all good wizards and witches need to know how to make a DIY magic potion. Find out how to make Harry Potter potions and other witchy brews below!
Creating DIY Magic Potions
Our Witch and Wizard Halloween theme this year ran through the house with our Witchy Halloween Fireplace and our Harry Potter welcome nook. For both those spaces, I knew I would need to include some DIY magic potions.
I decided to create some generic magic potions that could work for my Witchy spaces and some Harry Potter specific magic potions. After all, the potions and spells are such a huge part of Harry Potter that I didn’t feel like the space would be complete without them. After some research and some experimenting, I learned how to make Harry Potter potions that I felt were worthy of the space.
Above all, my daughter loved the Harry Potter potions so much that she said she was going to steal them for her room after Halloween. It made me think that the DIY magic potions could be a great gift for anyone wrapped up in the witchy and wizarding world. If you have a little Harry Potter fan – or a big Harry Potter fan because I know you’re all out there – then these could be perfect for a birthday party craft, décor or even a fun holiday gift.
Things you need for this how to make Harry Potter potions and DIY Magic potions craft
Here is a list of the supplies you will need:
- Cookie sheet – I place the bottle on this in case of spills.
- Brown paint – This is used for aging the bottles. You don’t have to use it on all of your potions. I did it to some of them and you can really see it best on the Polyjuice potion.
- Paint brush
- Glass bottles with cork lids – You can easily find these at the craft store or you can or you can find a bunch of different selections {HERE}.
- A measuring cup with a pour spout for water
- Cotton balls – lots of these
- Food coloring in whatever color you want the potion to be
- Glitter in whatever color you want the potion to be
- A glue gun
- A funnel without a strainer
- Long bamboo skewers
- Embellishments for the bottles like thin twine, strings of leather and various charms like my Dragon Charm or key charms like I used on the Polyjuice Harry Potter potion and the various love potions.
- Labels for the potion bottles. You can download my FREE ones here –> {Potion Bottles}
How to make Harry Potter potions and DIY Magic potions
- If you decide you want to age the bottles, use the paint brush and the brown paint. Kind of swish it all around the entire surface of the bottle. Immediately wipe some of it off with a cotton ball to ensure it doesn’t stick too much.
- To make the Harry Potter potions and DIY magic potions, all you need to do is combine water, food coloring and glitter in the potion bottle using a funnel.
- Then, pull individual cotton balls a part so they are spread out. Stuff each one into the potion bottle using the skewer.
- You will need a lot of cotton balls to achieve this look. The idea is that you really don’t want any of the water to appear at the top of the jars. You want enough cotton balls in there to be soaking it all up.
- After that, use the skewer to adjust or move cotton balls around once things are inside.
- Continue to layer in the water, food coloring and the glitter with the cotton balls.Do this until you reach at least ¾ of the way up the jar. I would always recommend going ¾ of the way up or all the way up to the top with the potion combination.
- Then, using the glue gun, run some of the glue around the top of the jar opening and then push the cork in.
- After that add on your embellishments. Maybe you just want to wrap twine around the neck of the bottle. Use the glue gun to secure it and then you can tie it in back. Or tie it in front and add a charm. You can see how I tied off some of the bottles in the photos. Watch how I do it in the video above.
Tips for how to make Harry Potter potions and DIY magic potions
- I made my Harry Potter potions similar colors to those that are described. But really you can make your potions any color you like.
- Add as much or as little of the glitter as you like. I’m a glitter kind of girl so I loaded mine up. I combined different colors to really get cool effects in some of them like the Dragon’s Breath (orange, yellow and red) and Vampire Blood (red and black).
- You can use any size bottles for these – big or small. I have two sets of Harry Potter labels. One I made for the larger bottles like mine, and another set for slightly smaller bottles.
- The labels for the witches potions are made for smaller bottles like the size I used in the post. Hopefully you can see that relative to the other objects and spaces.
- There were three potions I made differently. The Pixie Dust is just various different kinds of white glitter. The spider eggs are actually just white beads. The Sand of Time are a mix of golf glitter and Kinetic Sand.
Don’t forget to check out the Witch Halloween Fireplace and the Wizard’s office nook!
Thank you so much for visiting today, friends! I hope you loved learning how to make Harry Potter potions and other DIY magic potions. This was such a fun craft for us and I hope you find it to be that way too.
This is such a fun idea. I am going to make these for my girls!
This is such a fun idea, I can’t wait to give this a try.
I love the look of these bottles. I will have to make them with my boys.
My Harry Potter nerdy heart loves these, such a cute idea
I love all of these bottle I am sure that my kids would enjoy making some potions!
I love these! We aren’t into Harry Potter, but they still look neat for Halloween.
A very imaginative craft for Potter fans! I love doing custom labels.
Fun idea and just in time for Halloween. I know a few Trick or Treaters who would love this.
I love the bottles! This is a very nice idea for this season. Thanks for sharing!
This would be a perfect Halloween decor and I love Harry Potter. Thanks for this tutorial!
This is so cool! Perfect gift for a Harry Potter fanatics. Thank you so much for sharing!
I love these diy magic potions label ideas, especially the purple and heart-shaped one!
I’m a huge fan of Harry Potter. I’m so glad I can make my own potions. It’s gonna be fun
These are really cute and I love this idea. I am all about making my own decor and this would be a lot of fun!
Perfect decoration for the Harry Potter lover!
Oh goodness, my boys just started getting into Harry Potter. We might have to make these, they turned out great!
I love the designs. I am a Harry Potter fan.
What a cute idea! I do have some great jars I could use for this, and I love using glitter versus liquid.
I love these! 🙂 it’s so creative and it almost looks like you bought it from an apothecary store. Amazing!
Oh how cute these are! I love the idea. it’s so fun and awesome!
These would be so cool for a Halloween movie night!
These turned out so perfect.
Hey, how long do these last?
hi i love these and will defenitly be making them 😀 thank you so much for a clear video of how to.
1 maybe weird question tho XD in the picture with the red potion and the purple one there is a pile of 5 books. 2 are from wellfleet press. and i googled but i can not find which ones they are XD they look awesome could you please tell me which ones they are?
Some of the books pictured are from vintage shops and some are from Amazon. Can you see the tile of the book? I’m not sure which photo you’re referring to.