I know I have featured these light switches in a previous article but I have had a lot of people ask me how I created them. So for your crafty viewing pleasure here is a DIY guide to making Harry Potter light switch covers.
Materials you will need:
-Metal Light Switch covers from any hardware store
-Tracing paper
-Paint markers or Sharpies
-Painters Tape
-Cool design approx 5X3 inches printed out.
First let me emphasize that when you purchase the light switch covers they need to be metal painted with white paint. Do not buy the plastic covers, the plastic coating will not take to any type of marker or paint and you’ll end up with all over your hands and face. Once you have your materials take the tracing paper and cut it down to just a little bigger than the light switch cover. Take your painters tape and tape the tracing paper ( with the lead side down) to the back of your design. Then take the whole thing and tape it to the light switch cover.
Using a pencil or pen trace the design onto the light switch cover making sure not to move the paper while you do so. Just a fair warning, the light switch surface is going to be bumpy depending on whether the manufacturer used a textured paint. Most metal light switch covers I’ve come across have this texture but if you can find one that is smooth, all the better.
Once your design is completely traced onto the cover remove it and the tracing paper and do any touch ups you might have missed with a pencil.
Now, for those of you not artistically inclined the next part may be frightening but it is very simple. Using the paint markers or Sharpies color in the design as you like. I usually start with the outline and then fill in the colors after. Be careful if you are going to erase any pencil lines after you’ve used the markers. Sometimes the eraser can also smear the marker or erase it so you’ll have to redo those lines.A big thing to keep in mind is that the ink from markers tend to get on your hands as you go and can smear on the cover. Take a small paper towel and lay down over the area where you are going to put your hand to keep this from happening and try to rotate the cover as you go.
Once you’ve colored in everything the next step is just cleaning up your lines. You can do this by taking a dab of white acrylic paint and a thin brush and just cleaning up around the edges. If you don’t have paint you could use white out, but it might have a different hue than the rest of the cover so it might look strange.
One everything is cleaned up, unscrew the light switch cover you currently have and mount the new and improved one. This project is great for people who rent their home as it’s a great way to add detail to the room without causing permanent change. You can even make different themed light switches for each room and when you need to change the theme, you just unscrew the plate and put in a new one.
Laurel Way is a writer for film, television, websites, and blogs. She is based in Phoenix, Arizona in the U.S., and has two fat cats and a loving husband. Laurel is a geek to her core and loves all things within horror, sci-fi/fantasy, and more. When she is not writing films, she is watching them, and her go-to movie snack is popcorn and Milkduds.
