How to Make A Bertie Botts Display

We have made it a point in recent years to make our family Christmas gifts more 'experiences' than things. So for Christmas last year we bought tickets to spend a weekend at Universal Studios in January.

At this point in the calendar, we had several of the Harry Potter crafts for the Very Harry Birthday underway. We had made wands, signs, potion bottles, and were midway into scarves.

I knew that I wanted to do something more visually fun for our "Honeydukes" than glass jars sitting on a table, so I made the large Honeydukes sign... but I still felt that it wasn't quite "there" yet.

When we walked into Honeydukes at the Wizarding World in January and I saw the Bertie Botts display shelf, I knew THAT was what I wanted to do.

Once we returned home, I sketched out the general idea and bought my second piece of insulation foam to begin work. I purchased the 3/4" thick, 48" x 96" (4' x 8') sheet of insulation foam.

I made the overall width 30" as it gave me the best yield of foam:

(2) 30" x 48" pieces
(2) 15" x 48" pieces

Once the pieces were cut, I began working on one of the wide 30" pieces and set the other three aside.

I hand sketched the Bertie Botts banner and used a ruler to measure and draw even stripes and columns.

One major mistake I made was to not count the stripes correctly... I forgot to lay out the stripes from a single center stripe to make the two ends match in color... so ended up totally fudging this at the end by splitting two center stripes at the middle into three more narrow stripes. By the time I caught this mistake I had already etched the design into the foam, so it was the only way to avoid a complete mess. I may have experienced a mini meltdown over this mishap in the wee hours of the evening when I caught it.

Here is a closer detail. Once I was happy with everything lightly sketched onto the foam, I went over the final design with a sharp pencil, which etched the design into the foam.

After this front piece was done and completely cut out, I matched the new height at the sides (approx. 40" at the edges) on the other three pieces, cutting them down to that height:

Front panel 30"W x approx. 48"H at the very top
Back panel 30"W x approx. 40"H
Side panels 15"W x approx. 40"H

The stripes were added to the sides and back.

After everything was cut and sketched, I primed everything.

I didn't bother to add the text until everything was painted, I only sketched out the ribbons that the text fell within.

Once the primer was dry, I added painter's tape to every-other stripe to begin painting stripes.

Notice below where I finally caught that the left and right sides weren't going to match color?

Cue my meltdown, ripping off the tape, remeasuring, and re-taping...

In the photo below, I had split the center two stripes into three and re-taped with the new spacing. Most people wouldn't even notice it in the final design... (but I do...)

I painted the red first. If you are an experienced painter, you would know that it is way easier to use a grey primer with red... but I didn't want to buy a second can of primer and spot-prime this project, so I had to lay an extra coat or two of red paint to get the red color right.

Next, I painted the white stripes and aded the creamy yellow to the banners and columns.

After all of the painting was complete, I used a Sharpie Oil Pen to draw the details onto the columns and the ribbons. I really love this little pen, as it gives a nice glossy contrast to the more matte painted background colors. And since it is a pen, it also makes it very easy to control the application of color vs. using a paintbrush. I had ample experience with this pen during my playroom project at our previous house.

In the original Bertie Botts display at Universal Studios Honeydukes, the column and ribbon details had a very hand-painted feel to them, undulating between thick and thin lines and non-uniform sizes and distances between lines. Therefore, I only used a ruler for the overall outline of the columns and freehand drew the rest; intentionally making the lines a bit wavy and making some lines thicker than others. This was really hard for me, as I was just paranoid that the end result would look sloppy and ruin all of the work I put into this. The Sharpie Oil Marker is definitely considered 'permanent.'

Once this was finished, I took out a pencil and began to sketch the text of the "Bertie Botts Every-Flavour Beans." I didn't worry about this getting too detailed, I just made sure that each letter was spatially accurate. The top ribbon was bent in the middle, so the words "Bertie" and "Botts" were slanted away from each other and, even though they had a different number of letters, they needed to look spatially balanced. It took a little bit of finessing to make them sized correctly. Then I went over the sketched letters with the oil pen, making the letters look more detailed as I went along.

With the final details painted and drawn, it was time to assemble the box.

I purchased a special foam adhesive and used this to assemble the four sides. It did NOT work. It was a giant mess and I was not happy.

So I said, 'screw it' and went with a classic: DUCT TAPE.

Worked like a charm.

I used clear duct tape so it would be less obnoxiously obvious. You can see the faint yellowish color of the duct tape in the photo below in the primed interior.

My initial intent was to paint the interior, add faux 'dispensers' and put in a foam shelf. I was making this as a 'prop only' since a foam shelf wouldn't be able to support the weight of candy.

However, once this box was assembled,  I looked at it and thought, "Wait a minute... that looks like the exact size of a short bookshelf... like the one we already own that has a bunch of random junk toys on it in the basement..."

JACKPOT.

This totally made up for the snafu with the stripes. This sucker slid perfectly over a cheap white MDF bookshelf we had in the storage area of our basement.

Next I had to figure out how to make some fake jellybean dispensers. I didn't want to construct real dispensers as I wasn't up for putting the extra money or time into this level of detail.

I recycled six plastic water bottles as the dispensers. I used the Smart Water bottles as their taller, skinnier shape fit the spacing of the box best.

For a visual reference of the bean dispenser, see the Universal Studios Bertie Botts display below, a photo I took while we were at the park. I omitted making the top bean storage containers as mine was designed to sit on a tabletop, and the loss of height meant that I had to cut down what I put into the display.

We have several Mason canning jars that we use as drinking glasses at home. I had been storing the metal rim tops in our pantry for months, so I pulled them out and made use of them as a lip to transition from the clear bean holder to the 'metal dispenser.'

I cut off the bottoms of the bottles and glued these rims to the tops. Once the glue was dried, I painted the rims and necks of the bottles a gold color.

I found an image of jelly beans on the internet and printed out six copies of it onto cardstock.

I organically cut along one (long) side of each sheet and then slid these into the bottles so the jelly bean image was showing to give the illusion that the jars were full of jelly beans. Since the image was rotated a bit and cut to different heights from bottle to bottle, it looked more natural and appeared that some dispensers were lower on beans than others. It looks realistic from a few feet away, which was my goal.

Once the six bottles were done, I hot-glued them to a scrap piece of foam that I had primed white to blend in with the top of the bookshelf and taped the foam to the bookshelf using double-sided foam tape, which has a great hold.

I found a puck light we had left over from a three pack we purchased for our tornado shelter, so I mounted it to the top as well, which highlighted the dispensers.

Voila, a Bertie Botts Display!