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A Recipe for a Newfie-Sized Cauldron

Oct 3 2026 | By: Terri Jacobson Photography

Katharine dressed as a witch, sharing a kiss with her Newfoundland on a broomstick in front of a pink full moon.

Meet Katharine.

Traveler, Newfoundland enthusiast, and a woman willing to spend months building a cauldron for a photograph.

Last Halloween, we photographed her sharing a kiss with one of her Newfoundlands aboard a broomstick. This year, the plans became considerably more elaborate.

The Floofy Newfie World Tour is Katharine’s own “land of counterpane”—a world of imagined adventures with her Newfoundlands. This time, we were heading to Transylvania.

Katharine wanted a Newfie-sized cauldron. With a sprinkle of pixie dust, four tufts of Newfie fluff, and guidance from the Department of Applied Witchcraft, she set about making it herself.

The preparations also gave rise to Witch in a Hurry, a questionable rat-rental enterprise, and the Witch World Classifieds. Our correspondence is now available for public inspection. Please direct all complaints to the appropriate witch.

Handmade cauldron with rising fog above glowing faux embers, beneath floating candles against a backdrop of roses and a full moon.

A Recipe for a Newfie-Sized Cauldron

From Katharine’s Department of Applied Witchcraft

Ingredients

  • 1 giant yoga ball

  • 2 gallons of Elmer’s glue, diluted with 4 gallons of water

  • A generous portion of a five-pound supply of newsprint—with some left over

  • 2 layers of fabric reinforcement

  • 2 handles, procured from the enchanted aisles of Home Depot

  • 2 pool noodles for a suitably substantial rim

  • Black latex house paint and spar varnish

  • Copper, midnight blue, and rust-colored highlights

  • A sprinkle of pixie dust and four tufts of Newfie fluff

Method

Begin in December. Cover your giant yoga ball with 8 base layers of papier-mâché, incorporating 2 layers of fabric reinforcement for structural sorcery.

Attach the handles and fashion a rim from 2 pool noodles. Apply another 4–5 layers of papier-mâché to blend everything together. By now, your cauldron should be taking shape. Resist the urge to climb in.

Apply 2 coats of black latex house paint, followed by 2 coats of spar varnish. Sand and repeat. Finish with copper, midnight blue, and rust-colored highlights to suggest centuries of questionable brewing.

Devote approximately 2 hours a day for 3 months. Allow the remaining 22 hours for drying—and the occasional consultation with the University of YouTube.

To Conjure the Fire

Combine 13 cans of spray foam, 200 Christmas lights, and assorted wood gathered from the garden. No dragon required.

Finish around March, just in time to put down the glue and begin sewing Dutch Duds for the trip to Holland.

Yield: One Newfie-sized cauldron. Actual Newfie sold separately.

To Complete the Enchantment

Add a glowing fire beneath the cauldron, a swirl of mysterious fog, and 40 floating candles overhead.

After three months of construction, even the candles were excused from obeying gravity.

Along the way, Katharine sent photographs and progress reports by text. Here’s how it took shape.

Construction photographs and text messages courtesy of Katharine.

Large gray yoga ball used as the mold for Katharine’s handmade Newfie-sized cauldron.
Colorful fabric scraps reinforcing the papier-mâché shell of Katharine’s handmade cauldron, supported on a cardboard box beside a mixing bucket.
Katharine’s unfinished papier-mâché cauldron with a black pool noodle rim, resting on a cardboard box in her workshop.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 4, 2026

And so it begins. Not very cauldron like yet - but a good half hour of foot pumping. Tuesday they deliver 5 pounds of paper - because there’s no point in asking neighbors anymore. Now (and my Great Depression parents are spinning in their graves) we buy it.

————————————

SATURDAY, JANUARY 24

Do you see a cauldron yet?😀 I am on layer three and have added my first layer of scrap fabric as reinforcement. I also ordered metal ring handles and the material to make the rim. All should be ready to paint by mid to late February and then I’ll build the fire pit. There’s a fair bit of waiting for things to dry as the advice becomes ominous - and not in a fun Halloween way, if one does not. 

————————————

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6

It’s beginning to look like a cauldron - and I checked yesterday, it does still fit through the door. I was going to have words with it if it didn’t. Obviously this is very middle of the project where you have to use lots of imagination but add texture, paint, ring handles and a fire pit and voilà!

Katharine’s handmade papier-mâché cauldron with a thick rounded rim and textured black paint, drying on a cardboard box.
Green-lit fog rising from Katharine’s handmade black cauldron during a test in her workshop.
Cauldron wrapped in protective plastic above a faux fire base made with spray foam, garden branches, and glowing orange Christmas lights.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19

Very unfinished. It’s not even fully painted here much less patinated and it’s missing its handles. But looking more cauldron like. 

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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23

No words, just a bubbling cauldron

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FRIDAY, MARCH 13

Okay, now I’m getting excited. (Cauldron is wrapped in trash bags to keep the foam from sticking) still a ways to go, but you can see where it’s headed. 

Follow the Floofy Newfie World Tour

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