diy bubbly cauldron tutorial with alcohol ink

I’ve seen a few of these DIY bubble cauldron projects out there, but none quite like mine! Most of what I’ve seen have used clear crystal balls, which is super cute! BUT, when I think of witches at a cauldron, I think of bubby bright liquid, like the neon green potion in Hocus Pocus!

So I set out to make a bubbly, but colorful, cauldron of my own!

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DIY Bubbly Cauldron – What You’ll Need:

DIY Bubbly Cauldron – How To:

Step 1: Remove the ornament hangers from your Christmas balls. Pour 2-3 drops of rubbing alcohol into each of your plastic Christmas balls. Turn the ball around a few times to distribute the alcohol. Now use your compressed air with short bursts inside the ball to help further distribute the alcohol while also helping it to dry.

You do NOT want lots of liquid inside your balls or the alcohol paint will not dry. So be sure you’re only using a few drops and also using the compressed air to help the alcohol dry faster!

Step 2: Now add 2-3 drops of one color of alcohol ink to your ball. Again using short bursts of air, use the compressed air to move around that alcohol paint. I found that the darker colors (purple in my case) worked best and created the coolest effects. The orange and green worked as well, but they became a lot less saturated. No matter they still turned out great!

PRO TIP: I recommend using only 2 colors of alcohol ink in your smaller balls. The larger balls can accommodate 3 colors, but try to avoid mixing all three colors at once – it tends to just turn into a brown color (well, depending on the colors your choose). Regardless, 2 colors is a safe bet for everything looking really pretty!

Step 3: You can also add glitter to your balls, because who doesn’t love glitter?! Drop some glitter into your ball and then carefully use a few more short bursts of air to distribute it. Hold the opening of the ball away from you here, because the glitter has a tendency to fly out a bit. My apologies to your floors!

adding glitter to your bubbles for your cauldron

PRO TIP: If you find any pooling of liquid inside any of your balls, grab that compressed air and again use short bursts of air to help aid in the drying process.

Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3 with all of your Christmas balls and allow to dry. I placed my balls in egg cartons as they dried, which kept them nice and separate (and not rolling)! So long as you don’t have liquid pooling, the alcohol ink and glitter should take no more than 30 minutes to really dry. While alcohol paint normally needs to be sealed, you don’t need to do that here because the paint is on the inside of your balls. Hooray!

Step 5: Replace all the ornament caps onto your plastic balls.

Step 6: Now comes the fun part! If your cauldron is solid, crumple up some paper and place it at the bottom. This will allow you to use up some of the unseen space inside the cauldron for far less than trying to fill it completely with plastic balls!

If your cauldron is open like mine is, you’ll likely want to fill it completely with your plastic balls.

Step 7: As you place your balls into the cauldron, throw in some battery-powered fairy lights. I used a cool blue color and purple, which create the absolute coolest colors as they shine through the plastic at different directions! Just make sure your battery switch is easily accessible!

diy bubbly cauldron with color hocus pocus

Step 8: If your cauldron has a handle, you can wire it in place so it stays upright. I also added a cute light-up skeleton from the dollar store to mine as well. His eyes light up and he makes some creepy noises – I love it!

PRO TIP: You can absolutely hot glue your balls together and inside of your cauldron so they stay put. I specifically didn’t because I want the option to use my cauldron for another purpose, like candy, in the future. I’m also not a fan of how you can see the hot glue through the plastic.

Step 9: Turn on your fairy lights, and enjoy!

diy lighted spooky cauldron

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This DIY bubbly cauldron is the perfect centerpiece for your Halloween table, or move it outside on Halloween night as you hand out candy. Either way, it’s an absolute show-stopper!

Let me know if you make one of these cuties, I’d love to see it!

Until next time…


diy lighted bubbly cauldron

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