Making a Wand From Salad Tongs

Some time ago, I found these amazing salad tongs and immediately thought, “Wand.” So, I bought a second pair and made one. If you want to make your own, you can find similar things on Amazon. I haven’t been able to find these in store for a few years, now, but they do pop up on Amazon, occasionally.

Base Coat

I started by painting the wand black. This acts as a primer or base coat as well as the base shadow coat for the dry brushing.

Dry brushing is a painting technique were the paint brush is dry and the paint is lightly brushed back and forth over the top layer of whatever you’re painting. This creates a shadow effect. It’s important to avoid the crevices as painting the crevices will hinder the shadow effect.

When I dry brush, I try to remove most of the paint from my brush by painting back and forth on the pallet. This keeps the paint from seeping into the pores of my project while I paint.

Layers, Layers, Layers

The trick to dry brushing is the layers. Start with the darkest color first, generously applied. For the first layer, it’s ok to paint into the pores and crevices as this will be the basis for your color pallet.

I started with brown because I wanted the handle to look like bark.

Next, I mixed a light beige color into the brown on my palette to make it lighter. I then dry brushed the next layer. I lightened the brown and dry brushed several layers before ending with the light beige color.

I left the claw black, so I could paint it separately.

I kept the claw darker than the handle. I dry brushed lighter layers over the knuckles and around the finger tips. The talons I kept black, and painted the tips a bronze/copper color.

Once I was happy with the coloring, I lacquered the the whole thing.

Moss

While the lacquer was wet, I wrapped some Spanish moss around the handle. I tied it to itself at the bottom and around one of the “fingers” of the claw. I then sprayed it with a tiny (emphasis on tiny) amount of spray adhesive. In the claw palm, I hot glued a pinch of sponge moss. You can get all kinds of moss at Michaels or most craft stores.

Here you can see the moss and the painting details around the talons.