We Threw a Harry Potter Party

Last year my good friend Monica threw an AMAZING Harry Potter birthday party for her daughter's 7th birthday. I remember that Mike and I were impressed by the invitation alone that we were joking about drawing straws to see who would be the lucky one to take Aidan to this party (We are Harry Potter fans). Aidan had such a great time at the party that afterwards he begged me to throw him one too. I knew my friend had put A LOT of time into prepping for her daughter's party, so I told Aidan that I would throw him a Harry Potter birthday party the following year for his 8th birthday (clearly someone had cast the Imperio curse on me). A few weeks later I found out that I was pregnant with Jaken, and I knew that prepping for this Harry Potter party was going to have to start early because it going to be a lot harder when the baby was born. So about 6 months before December , Mike and I were not only getting ready for our 3rd kid, but we were also like elves doing all sorts of things for this party in our spare time: sewing sorting scarves, making wand boxes, putting together costumes, making floating candles, creating Diagon Alley shops and signs, creating the various wizardry classes, making invitations, and designing the Hogwart's castle birthday cake.
We are very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends that love Aidan, because it was with their help and participation that made this party truly a 5 star event. We definitely had a cast and crew for this party. My brother-in-law was willing to dress up as Hagrid to meet the kids at Platform 9 3/4  and show them through the "brick wall" to Diagon Alley, my friend Monica lent the sorting hat and taught the Care of Magical Creatures class where the kids hatched dragon eggs in their cauldrons, my brother Alex and his girlfirend not only helped me decorate the Great Hall but they also taught the Transfiguration class where the kids turned water into snow, my husband dressed up as Ollivander and ran the wand shop, I taught the Potions class where the kids made Felix Felicis potion bottle necklaces, Monica's daughter ran our Honeydukes shop, my mother-in-law bought and made the food for the feast in the Great Hall, my sister videotaped the party, my piano student, Sofia, lent us the house banners to hang in the Great Hall and her family bought the chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Jelly Beans for our Honeydukes shop, my Tita Rosie took care of the baby during the party, and my honorary brother Andrew took pictures during the party. Whew! Listing that all off almost sounded like it could be a variation to the "Twelve Days of Christmas", huh? What can I say, Aidan is a special boy :)  But I must say, that as incredible and fun as it was throwing this party, Mike and I agreed that we will not being throwing something this elaborate for at least another couple of years! However, if you want to know exactly how we Muggle parents put this party together just click on the any of the links above and confirm your suspicions on  how nuts we are, heehee!

Diagon Alley and the Shops

For the party we decided to set up a mini Diagon Alley with 4 shops and a "Have you seen this Wizard" photo booth for when the kids passed through the brick wall backdrop from Platform 9 3/4.

For the beginning of the party we set up the two shops “Flourish and Blotts” and “Potages Cauldrons” where the kids could get their cauldrons and Hogwart’s Special Session Booklets.

 I bought the cauldrons in bulk from the actual supplier which made them much cheaper than buying them off different party websites. The booklet took a bit of time to write because in Harry Potter there isn’t anything about hatching dragon eggs in water, or turning water into snow, or an actual recipe for “Felix Felicis” potion. So I had to make a lot of it up creatively to fit within our party theme classes. After I finished writing the booklet, Mike added various graphics to the pages and edited the fonts. We printed the booklet on aged paper and then used black cardstock for the cover and twine to bind the book together. This booklet was very useful when needing to burn a few minutes while waiting for the next class to finish.

For the rest of the party we had Ollivander’s wand shop which we quickly switched into Honeydukes at the end of the party. If it wasn’t for my piano student’s family helping us out with getting the chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans as a birthday present to Aidan then we would have never had a Honeydukes shop (the chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans would have sent us over our party budget ). Luckily, there was also Oriental Trading that had plenty of inexpensive candies that we were able to create labels to fit within our Harry Potter theme to keep us in budget.

After eating the birthday cake, the kids were super excited to go downstairs and spend the Gringott galleons they had earned during their classes on various candies at our Honeydukes.

Ollivander Wand Boxes

Over the summer I was able to find good deal for the wands on Etsy.com. At first I was just going to hand out the wands to the kids at the party but Mike was so excited to help me out with this party theme that he insisted that he would be able to create a Ollivander's wand shop for the party if I would make boxes for the wands. When I finally found the right size boxes that would fit the wands it was clear that the white color on the boxes was not going to cut it. Mike and I agreed that they needed to be painted in order to give them an "old antique" look (like most of the things in Harry Potter look in the movie). I spent the next couple of days spray painting the boxes dark navy blue. Next, I found free printables to use for the labels on the boxes at http://sugiai.blogspot.com/2013/03/diy-harry-potter-wand-boxes.html. I had Mike print them out for me on clear stick paper, stuck the labels onto gold cardstock, cut them out, and then glued the cardstock labels to the boxes. Another thing I needed Mike to create was small labels for me to glue to the other end of the boxes that described the wand's wood and core. Lastly, I lined the inside of the boxes with cotton and placed the wand inside. Tah Dah!

Harry Potter Wizardry classes

For Aidan's Harry Potter party we decided that we would rotate the 4 houses of kids through 4 classes. The 4 classes we devised for this party were Potions class, Care of Magical Creatures class, Transfiguration class, and a field trip to Ollivanders wand shop with Hagrid.

I taught the Potions class where the kids made “Felix Felicis” (liquid luck) potion bottle necklaces. I ordered bottle necklaces from Etsy.com a couple months before the party and had Mike create the bottle labels which he printed out on adhesive gold foil. Next I won an AMAZING deal for chemistry shot glasses off of ebay.com which I used to hold the natural cane syrup for the potion’s recipe. I had the kids use disposable eye droppers to fill their bottles with natural cane syrup (Middlemist Camellia honey), then I had the kids use disposable tweezers to put a pinch of Wilton Edible Gold Star Glitter (light powder) into their bottles. I borrowed motar and pestles from nearby relatives and had the kids crush pearls into powder to sprinkle into their bottles (Wilton candy pearls). With all the ingredients to the potion added to the bottle, I finally had the kids cork the tops of their necklace bottles tightly and then give the bottle a good shake. Poof! “Felix Felicis” J

My friend Monica taught the Care of Magical Creatures class where we had the kids hatch dragon eggs.

For this class I was able to get a good deal from a vendor on Etsy.com who was willing to make me bath fizzy eggs with little toy dragons inside, https://www.etsy.com/shop/TwoSistersSpa

I simply had to find little toy dragons that were small enough. Luckily I stumbled across a website that sold dragon paratrooper party favors. I was able to snag the last 24 dragons (they were apparently discontinued and those were the last 24 in stock!) and had them shipped to the vendor. She simply cut the parachutes off the little dragons and enclosed them within tiny plastic capsules. Then she molded the bath fizz around the capsules in the shape of an egg.

To add more pizzaz to this class than just simply dropping a dragon bath fizz egg into the cauldron. I bought some multi colored glitter (powdered mermaid scales) and had the kids add a pinch of the glitter to the warm water in their cauldrons first before dropping in their dragon eggs.

When the kids dropped their dragon eggs into the water of their cauldrons the effect was more awesome than I thought it would be. The eggs bubbled and fizzed in the cauldrons dissolving to leave behind the capsule with the tiny plastic baby dragon inside. The kids got to check their class booklet to see what kind of dragon they had hatched.

  For the Transfiguration class I had my brother use “Insta-snow”. Since my brother has been “pulling one over me” since we were little, I knew he would be perfect for creating an illusion to the kids that they were creating snow from their wands. He and his girlfriend did a great job leading this class and I also bought containers to package up the snow so that the kids could bring home to play with (I didn’t want all that snow staying at my house).

The creation of Ollivander’s wand shop was all Mike. As much as we both wanted to create an effect from the movie with a gold light shining along with gust of air blowing at the kids when they were given the right wand, it was pretty evident that we were on a budget and that we were running out of time because of how neurotic we were both being towards every detail of this party. So Mike came up with the idea to use our TV to play wand casting effects that he could control from the laptop when the kids were given the right wand. It was truly brilliant! When the kids got a wrong wand, he set up his shop so that either a bell would go off (tied with invisible string), or books would fall out (painted cereal boxes with legos inside tied with invisible string), or that candles would blow out (remote controled LED candles).

Hogwart's Castle Cake

If there was one thing that I was nervous about making for Aidan's Harry Potter party, I would have to say that it was the Hogwart's castle cake that Aidan wanted. My friend Monica made her daughter an impressive Hogwart's castle cake for her party and Aidan wanted one too.

 I happened to stumble across a Wilton Castle Cake kit and decided that I would use it to make the Hogwart's castle cake. After throwing a bunch of parties, I've come to notice that kids honestly can't tell whether a cake is made from scratch or not, so to save myself some time and unnecessary stress I simply baked a chocolate cake from a box mix and frosted it with vanilla frosting that I colored using grey, brown, and green food coloring. Since I absolutely hate fondant, I coated the towers of the cake in colored white chocolate. This part proved to be harder than I thought and if I ever visit “crazy town”  and decide to do this party and cake again, I will definitely being doing it my friend’s way. Using ice cream cones for the towers the way she did was definitely the smart way to go, plus you can actually eat them. Anyways, for the bottom part of the cake I used a mini oval cutter that my friend let me borrow to make rock imprints in the grey frosting, then I used a grass tip to pipe grass frosting around the base of the castle. I finished the castle off with chocolate bar doors and Harry Potter lego figures. Ta Dah!

Harry Potter Party Invitations

During November, Mike and I started putting together the Harry Potter invitations. I was able to find a pic online of a "non-mean" looking white owl and Mike was able to clean up the graphic enough for me to use on the envelopes  (most of the owl images online looked mean and as if they were going to “claw-out” the kid who tries to open the envelope).

I bought aged paper and envelopes to print on (No folks, I'm not crazy enough to age my own paper, I do have 3 kids afterall...), and then wrote the wording of the invitations. Next, we downloaded Harry Potter fonts to use with the wording on the invitations and envelopes (there are many websites that show you how to do this). Mike downloaded an image of the Hogwarts crest to use on the top of the invitations and the back of the envelopes. Just when I thought we were done, Mike told me that he thought the paper didn't look "old" enough and that it would look even better if the edges were aged more. So I went to Michaels and bought some distressing ink and aged the edges to the invites.

Since we were planning on having a Platform 9 3/4, Mike thought it would be great to also include a ticket to the Hogwart's Express in the invitation. So he printed out tickets from a free printable I found online at:

http://harrypotterparaphernalia.blogspot.com/2012/01/lettersinvitations-platform-9-34-ticket.html

Finally I melted red wax, dripped it to the back of the envelopes, and sealed them with an “H” seal stamp that my friend Monica let me borrow. 

Caleb was so impressed with the invitation that he asked for me to make one for him too.

The Great Hall Party Room

For the Hogwart's Great Hall I bought 3 packages of  “Design-A-Room Mad Scientist Wall Background” for the walls. I won a bid on ebay.com for 2 LED flame lights to hang from the walls along with the house banners that I was able to borrow from my piano student. Of course no Great Hall would be complete without floating candles so once Halloween came, I purchased tea lights in bulk and proceeded to wrap them in cardstock and used my hot glue gun to create wax along the tops of the candles. As the hot glue dried, I attached invisible string to the candles so that when they were hung they would look as if they were floating. To hang the candles in the Great Hall without damaging the paint on my ceiling I used Command Decorating Clips and had my brother 30 min before the guests arrived switch on the candles using a chopstick. I was EXTREMELY blessed that my brother’s girlfriend had read all the Harry Potter books and knew exactly how I wanted my living room to be decorated with all these supplies I had prepared, because I had to put all my time into the Hogwart’s Castle birthday cake on the day of the party. She and my brother did a wonderful job! The room looked truly amazing when they put up all the decorations and set the tables with the gold goblets and gold paper plates. 

Hogwarts Sorting Scarves

Aidan still has the Gryffindor scarf he received from his friend’s Harry Potter party and uses it often. Seeing how much he liked his scarf sold me into the idea of doing the same thing for his party. Sewing the “sorting scarves” was the first thing I tackled for Aidan’s Harry Potter party. First I purchased fleece fabric and thread from the fabric store. Then I cut and pinned the fabric together to run through the sewing machine. Except….I hadn’t used a sewing machine since I was 14 years old and was completely clueless as to how to work one. Luckily, there was good ‘ol YouTube, and after studying a couple videos I was able to feel confident enough to attempt sewing these scarves. The first one was probably the worst, but after sewing the third scarf it was smooth sailing. 

Hagrid's Costume

When I told my friend Monica that I too was crazy enough to try throwing this party, she advised me to go on a shopping spree when Halloween sales kicked in.

It was great advice! I purchased robes, witches hats, potion bottles, backdrops, cauldrons, etc... as they all went on sale during Halloween.

At her daughter’s party, her husband dressed up like Hagrid and Aidan loved him! I remember Aidan walking up to him a couple of times during the party and saying, “Hi Hagrid!” So over the summer I asked my brother-in-law if he would be willing to dress up as Hagrid during Aidan's party (besides being blessed with major cooking skills, my brother-in-law is also blessed with quite the tall gene). He was such a sweetie and said "yes". So during Halloween, I started piecing together his Hagrid costume. If you want to design a Hagrid costume on a budget, this is what I did:

For Hagrid’s trenchcoat I purchased the “Adult's Adult Plus Jonah Hex Quentin Turnbull Costume”. I bought the “Mountain Man Wig and Beard Set” for Hagrid’s hair and beard. And for the rest of the costume I bought a burgundy shirt and belt from Sears.com using my reward points. The only thing I asked my brother-in-law was if he could just bring dark pants and boots to wear with his costume on the day of the party. He looked amazing!