How to make Witches Potion Props for your Halloween Party

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Halloween Apothecary

This blog gives some ideas on how to turn basic everyday items and found objects into weird and wonderful Halloween props.

Plastic Bottles

Examples of household bottles

Rinse out your bottles and paint with Acrylic Paint or Gesso and leave to dry. Popping the bottles on the end of a brush allows you to paint the whole bottle without covering yourself in paint and provides somewhere to leave the bottles whilst they dry.

Applying decoration to a bottle with Marabu Relief Paste

Add decoration with relief paste...

Decorative writing and images made with Marabu Relief Paste

and leave to thoroughly dry for a couple of hours.

Dry brushing metallic Acrylic Paint to achieve bronze effect

Dry Brush some metallic Acrylic Paint – we have used Liquitex Iridescent Rich Bronze – over the whole bottle.

Creating a bronze effect on plastic with Acrylic Paint

Once the bronze effect is complete…

Painted plastic bottles with Liquitex Acrylic Paint

you can add colour with Acrylics…

Treasure Gold White Fire

Gilding Wax or metallic highlights on raised areas with Gilding Wax.

String

String

Use string to cover items to give them texture.

String used to disguise a plastic bottle cap

Glue the string in place and paint with the black and bronze Acrylic Paint to match the bottle. For additional ‘weirdness’, we glued the cap back onto the bottle upside down. The golden sphere feature was created with modelling clay covered in Gilding Wax.

Pebbles

Gluing a pebble to a plastic bottle cap

Take an interesting looking pebble and glue to the bottle cap with PVA. Make sure you leave it for a few hours to dry.

Gilded Pebble Classic Treasure Gold

Gilding Wax again adds interest.

Dusters

 Take an old duster and cut it into strips.

Take an old duster and cut it into strips.

Colouring strips of duster with Acrylic Paint

Add a bit of Burnt Umber Acrylic Paint to some water and submerge your strips in it. Hang up to dry overnight.

Duster made to look like leather

The finished strips look and feel remarkably like suede leather and add an ‘olde worlde’ look to the bottles. With the addition of a few bits of feather, your bottles of witches brew are ready!