"Trust me, I know what I'm doing... or at least, Felix does."
—Harry Potter after drinking Felix Felicis for the first time
Who doesn't wish they had a little bit of Liquid Luck now and then?! This potion quickly rose to the top of my most favorite Wizarding World potions when it was introduced in the Half Blood Prince.
You see, I've always felt blessed with a little bit of my own natural luck. I can spot a 4-leaf clover in a clover patch from several feet away. Often while taking a walk with my family, I've paused to swiftly stoop down to snatch one up. I have them pressed in a large book and have been known to add them to greeting cards when someone I know needs a bit of extra luck. I also seem to have been blessed with the ability come through even the most messy piles of crud that life throws at me, seemingly unscathed. No matter how bad the bad gets, things turn out alright in the end.
I love the shape of the little phial of Felix that Professor Slughorn presented Harry with in the movie. Like an elongated teardrop, delicate and unique. I saw a very small one in the jewelry section of the craft store that was an excellent teardrop shape. Nearly perfect, except for it's size, which made it suitable for earrings or a necklace, but much too small to be a proper Christmas ornament.
Then I noticed one day that the candelabra light bulbs used in chandeliers were a very good shape. The problem is that it's quite a challenge to remove the guts of a light bulb without breaking the bulb itself.
Having mentioned this conundrum to my dear friend Daphne, she filed away the information in her brain, and solved it for me within a few weeks. That's what friends do ... they remember what crazy item you're looking for and find it for you! ><
She text me a photo of some light bulb ornaments from Hobby Lobby. I had not made it out to craft stores since Halloween ended and Christmas items took over retail shelves, or I might have seen them myself. They're exactly what I needed! And they were 50% off, score! Two boxes, please!
Next conundrum: what to put inside the bulb-shaped bottles. I knew I wanted the finished ornament to look like it was filled with real potion. That ruled out the method of coating the inside of the bulb with paint. I also knew I did not want to fill them with glitter. The books specifically describe the Felix Felicis potion as looking like "molten gold" and that is the look I wanted.
In the unfortunate event of an ornament drop and breakage, I wanted to avoid using any kind of liquid that could potentially damage the floor or carpet. So, no liquid paint, no oils or gels or slimes. Someone suggested filling the bulbs with gold nail polish, and letting it harden, but even purchasing the cheapest nail polish on the market, I'd need at least one full bottle per ornament. Also that sounded like a messy and smelly plan.
I finally settled on RESIN. This was my very first time working with resin, so I did plenty of research online before picking up a 2-part resin kit at the craft store with a coupon. Always with a coupon! At 50% off, the kit ended up being $13, and enough volume to fill all 12 of the bulbs, with some left over for another small project.
Let's get started!
Supply List
Clear glass Light Bulb ornaments
2-part resin kit
metallic gold paint or gold mica powder
disposable cup and sticks for mixing (if your kit does not come with any)
Toothpick
disposable gloves
Paper towels
Twine in the color of your choice
Tacky Glue
Hot Glue
Decorative parchment-style paper or Plain paper plus paint to age the paper
Small star-shaped beads or charms
Swirly ornament hooks
A note on the bulb ornaments: These may be a challenge to find in stores outside of the Christmas holiday season. Ordering online is possible, but there's potential for breakage during shipping. If you are reading this during the off season, file it away for later! Add a calendar notification to your phone to remind you to grab bulb ornaments next year as soon as the holiday season starts!
Step 1: How much resin do you need?
Measure the liquid volume of your ornaments to determine how much resin you should mix. Resin is a bit pricey, so you don't want to over-mix and waste any. I filled one of my bulbs with water, measured that volume, and multiplied by 12 since I was going to make 12 ornaments.
Step 2: Protect your work space and yourself.
Be sure to protect your work surface with something spilled resin can not seep through: parchment paper, a vinyl tablecloth, a trash bag. Just don't use paper to protect your work surface. I also had paper towels to wipe up drips, and a paper plate on which to rest my stick sticks and pour cups.
Protect your hands using disposable gloves.
Step 3: Prepare the resin.
Read the manufacturer instructions completely before starting. My resin was a 1:1 mix ration of resin to hardener. Also be sure to check with the manufacturer on how much paint you can use in coloring resin. Too much moisture from a water-based paint and your resin will not harden properly. According to the website Resin Obsession, you can mix 1 part acrylic paint to 10 parts mixed resin.
You can also use a powdered pigment such as gold mica.
You do not want to use food coloring, which will fade quickly.
My resin kit came with tiny mixing cups and stick sticks, but I opted to mix in a large disposable cup, since I needed a larger volume. I measured equal amounts of resin and hardener in separate cups to ensure they were as close to equal as possible, then combined them into a single cup and stirred in about a teaspoon of gold paint.
Again, follow the manufacturer instructions that comes with your kit for measuring, mixing, stirring, and coloring.
Such a lovely shade of liquid gold!
Step 4: Fill the ornaments.
I used the clamshell insert from the bulb packaging along with some wadded up paper towels to prop up the bulbs vertically. I over-filled my first bulb by a bit, so then marked on the outside of each remaining bulb with a Sharpie where I wanted the fill line to be.
Step 5: Wait a few minutes, pop bubbles.
Many resin crafters use a heat gun, or a flame from a lighter or torch to pop surface bubbles in poured resin. I've also read that you can spritz a small project with alcohol. Due to the tiny opening of these bulbs, neither heat nor alcohol was going to be helpful. Instead, I waited 5 minutes after pouring and then popped tiny bubbles inside the bulbs with a toothpick.
Step 6: Allow to fully cure.
I left mine overnight.
Step 7: Secure the lids.
I had to shorten the wires on the ornament lids with some wire cutters so they would fit back in the bottles, as the resin fill interfered with the wires. I used some hot glue inside the cap threads to to make sure the lids wouldn't come off.
I would love to find some tiny cork stoppers and re-create these with corks at a later date. Cork would be so lovely!
Step 8: Wrap the lids with twine.
I tried several materials on the lids before settling on this cream and gold bakers twine. I tried jute. I tried linen fabric, plain. I tried linen fabric painted gold. I tried washi tape. I tried a strip of textured paper.
Twine was my favorite look, and a preferred choice of all the people I asked (like 3 people). I found this particular twine in the dollar bins at Michael's. Below is a photo of all the other looks I tried, in case you might like something different!
I used a dollop of hot glue to secure the top of the twine with an end poking down inside the hold in the lid, and a bit more hot glue to hold the twine in place as I wrapped around the top of the lid. I don't recommend this method for wrapping all of the lid, as hot glue is thick and cools quickly, so you have to work just a small section at a time. However, it holds faster than Tacky glue, and you need a fast hold on the top or the twine will slide all over the place.
For the sides, I coated the lid with Tacky glue and wrapped the twine tightly going down. I secured the end of the twine in the back of the ornament with one last dollop of hot glue.
I tried starting at the bottom of the lid, and starting at the top. Starting at the top was much easier!
Step 9: Label and Embellish
You can find my little mini printable Felix labels below. I printed each little label at around 3/4" tall.
If you have a Cricut or SIlhouette, you can print and cut these by machine. You can also print and cut by hand if you have some small precision point scissors.
You can print these on a parchment-style paper, or you can print on plain paper and age the paper with paint. I opted for the latter. I aged my labels with a bit of brown water-based paint dabbed and rubbed on with a paper towel.
I glued my labels to the bulbs with a very thin layer of tacky glue.
The last thing I added to my bulbs is some tiny star beads. I separated a strand of baker's twine into individual strings, threaded a couple of beads on the string, and tied to the bulbs.
Finite!
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