Making a Witch Broom

Millie wanted to be a witch for Halloween this year. We didn't have a good broom to use as a costume prop, so I told her we could make one. I took a deadwood stick from the woods in back of my office, and cut some dead weeds around the edge of the parking lot. We got started on the Saturday before Halloween.

I whittled the bark and nubs off the stick, then gave it a light sanding and finally a buffing with a non-woven abrasive pad. In the course of this, the end was rounded off.

We separated the grasses and threw out the ones that were too short. I had gathered two kinds, and one had a soft brush type feature at the top. These were saved for the middle of the broom bristle bunch, while the others were to be arrayed around it.

The bristles were arranged into small bunches. We used some extra wool yarn to bind the bunches together, with a clove hitch around the top of each.

Millie fired up the hot glue gun to assist us in attaching the bristles to the stick.

A little glue was put under each bunch of bristles as they were layed in around the stick.

The same yarn was used to make a bigger binding wrap, two layers thick, around the whole brush.

Finally, we trimmed the bottom of the bristles even and gave the tops some additional shaping.

Turned out great!

Millie was very pleased with it.

She rode it around witch style to try it out.

It did drop some bristles, but generally held up pretty well.

Violet and Millie worked on the rest of their costumes, which involved stringing and gluing plastic beads and feather boas.

Violet was a Snow Fairy, building on a white bride dress I made her a few years ago.

Millie's costume utilized a black dress I made the girls a while ago for my grandmother's funeral.

They were both very pleased with their costumes. Violet broke her wrist a couple days after these pictures and was worried her cast wouldn't fit through the costume. We got it in there though.

Child 1 wore a cute lion costume which Becky's friend Kelly brought us.

We also made jack-o-lanterns using the pumpkins we got when we went apple picking this year.