Ravenclaw and July in Review

July has been a crazy month of celebrations, activities, and makes. And as you know, I am once again way behind on posting. Allow me to catch you up...

When we left off, our heroine announced that she was giving out mass amounts of jam and marmalade and that she would be sending out/delivering that jam on July 6th. As it turns out, our heroine tends to over-complicate things and could not simply send out a jar of jam without some special packaging or cutesy hand-written note or something. So that jam and marmalade remains on her cute little jelly table with the best of intentions for sending it out sometime this week if all goes according to plan. Hang in there, preserve winners. Relish the anticipation.

So that brings us to the second week in July (6th-12th). As some of you may know, the week after that week held a very special event in my life: the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. So July's second and third weeks' makes were made in preparation for the show: a wand, a wand bag, and a gnargle necklace. (Note: the scarf was a present from Jason for my 23rd birthday.)

If you were in the Wheaton Order of the Phoenix, you know that I already had a very sweet vine-wood wand with a copper dragon heartstring core and a custom leather handle that I made back in those glory days of corporate nerd-dom. Unfortunately, sometime in my travels from Wheaton to Jersey 2 years ago, my wand suffered a Ron's-first-wand-like fate with a tragic snap. The copper core tried to hold it together, but in the end, the damage was irreparable. Unable to cope with the loss and immediate replacement of my wand, I have been wandless these past two years, which is probably why my life has been so lacking in magic. But with the new movie coming out, I thought it was time. So I found a nicely shaped stick which was a good weight and length and set out to make a new wand. This one is pine, so it is a little sturdier. I whittled it up and left it with a rough finish (partly by choice and partly because I didn't have any sandpaper). Then I stained it and wrapped the handle with some blue yarn that used to belong to my grandmother, which could only make the magic stronger. Although it is nowhere near as flashy as my first wand, and although the new feel, weight, and unicorn hair core have taken some getting used to, I am very happy to no longer be as defenseless as an average muggle. *blex*

The wand bag is a simple drawstring bag I made from some spare fabric. It proved much more convenient than always having my wand in hand (like I did at the last movie premier). I went to that one with Hannah, and we both dressed up like Hogwarts students (in my old high school uniforms). My outfit made a reappearance for HPatHBP, but without my dad's blue and silver striped tie, I needed something a little extra and decided to craft a gnargle necklace out of a few strands of beads I got at a yard sale and a cork from an old bottle of wine. The necklace was very effective. The gnargles kept their distance that whole night as I shepherded youth group kids through a very crowded movie theater into the early hours of the morning.

(Sidenote: The movie itself did not disappoint. I've seen it twice so far, and although a lot was left out about horcruxes and Voldemort's history, the movie was well-done and an enjoyable experience, and I think they'll make up for the missing parts in the next two movies. HPatDH is being done in two installments, which I'm sure will illicit even more nerdyness and dressing up and HP makes in 2010 and 2011. Consider yourself warned.)