Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Harry Potter Birthday Party

My 10 year old son just recently decided he liked Harry Potter.  He made a goal to read all of the books before his 10th birthday party.  He made his goal and we planned a Harry Potter birthday party for him.
 As you walked to our house, I tried to have the porch set up like the train station.
I made a platform 9 3/4 sign for the door using my Silhouette.
 I set out vintage suitcases, a white Hedwig owl in a bird cage and even a broom.
I decorated everywhere with as many candles as I could find as well.
When you walked in the front door, I had a banner hanging that said Hogwarts. I made the banner from an old Harry Potter book.  I cut the letters out on my Silhouette using the Harry P font.
 In my entry I have a little alcove.  I made it into my Honeydukes candy store.
 We had jars of all sorts of Harry Potter candy.  I got the labels for the jars from Two Delighted.
 More candles, Harry Potter books and another owl.
I had empty treat bags so they could fill their own up.
 Just inside the house was the sorting hat.    I made the hat just by covering a witch's hat with brown fabric and hot glue.  I made a sort of pocket inside to put a walkie talkie and had my hubby on the other side of the wall assign houses.  I made the ties but just glueing felt stripes on felt ties.  When they were sorted into the houses, they were given the appropriate tie.  I got the tie pattern and tutorial on The Brilliant Crafty Type.
 I bought cheap glasses on Amazon and every kid had their own pair of Harry Potter glasses.
I had a table mostly just for decor with more candles, a quidditch cup trophy filled with golden snitches and some fake Quibbler magazines.  I got the free printable for the magazines on Just Sweet and Simple.
 I set up a table that was Olivander's wand shop.
  Brenner and I made wands for everyone out of wooden dowels, hot glue, seed beads and paint.  I think the best tutorial I found was here.
I copied a book of spells and made covers and book marks out of felt and ribbon.  I got the potions book printable on Just Another Day in Paradise.

Outside on the back patio I set up the potions class. 
 Brenner insisted that everything had to be edible.  So we got different liquids... juices and sodas. then we had different stuff to go in them like pop rocks, kool-aid powder, etc.  We got our potions class idea from Puddle Wonderful Learning.
I made a potions book with the recipes inside.
I had recently been cleaning up our science lab and came across some awesome old bottles.  I filled them with colored water and just had them sitting out for display.
I think this was the kids' favorite part of the whole party.
 After potions class, we played a game of Quidditch. My hubby and I made the hoops out of pvc pipe and small hula hoops from the dollar store. We pounded rebar into the ground then just put the pvc pipe over the rebar.
The team that won got to share the Quiddich cup and the "golden snitches (truffles)" inside.
 After quidditch, we came in the house for cake and ice cream.  
Brenner's cake was a snitch cake.   The cake idea came from Home Stories A to Z.

I had to have more cute owls in cages:)
 I set up the table with tons of candles. We closed all of the blinds and made it as dark as we could in the house.
Brenner loved his party. He planned everything and helped me make most everything too.