ANOTHER Harry Potter Party - Adults and Children

Since the final movie of the Harry Potter series just came out a month and half ago, and because my mom is a huge Harry Potter fan - or "Potty" as we call it, I decided to throw her a Harry Potter Party. I did one for my son and also helped my sister throw one for her older son, but his one needed to be different. We had invited adults and children so it needed to be fun for both. I decided to go on the premise that everyone coming would be Hogwarts Alumni, rather than the tradition house sorting and Hogwarts classes. The wizards and witches would arrive by floo powder rather than the Hogwarts express. So here is a breakdown of the party.

INVITATIONS: I found examples of the Daily Prophet online and turned it into my own. Icreated it on Scrapbook Max.
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Since my mom was going to be going as Professor McGonagall, the headline read: Professor McGonagall celebrates 60th birthday! It then read like a newspaper article on a celebration dessert feast at Hogwarts, and invited everyone to come to the bi-centennial Hogwarts Wizarding Tournament, and included the time and date. I found a great article about the heros who lost their lives during the final battle with Voldemort and I used that as the second page. The 3rd and 4th pages were made of of little articles I found online as well as classifieds. It was 11 x 17 and printed double-sided and folded.





I then used some small glass bottles (syrup bottles from the Cracker Barrel, washed out) and made a floo power label and mod-podged it onto the bottle. I made some gray sugar candy to fill it with.
These were delivered with the daily Prophet invite.

Sugar Candy Recipe:
Put 1 cup sugar into the blender and blend on high until it is a fine powder. Add 1 koolaid packet, and blend in. (I used grape because I wanted a grayish powder ) Add a few drops food coloring to get the desired color. (I used 3 drops od red and 3 drops of blue.)

DECORATIONS: Because we wanted people to arrive by "floo powder" we built a fireplace to the side of our house. We covered it in stone plastic, added a mantle (a wall shelf we had) and put books, candles, and a cauldron on the mantle. This was the entrance to party and the guests walked into the fireplace. I used the Hogwarts sign I had made from my sons previous party. I printed a large banner for my mom's party. It read, " Happy 60th birthday to a truly magical lady."
We had invited the guests to dress up in their favorite Harry Potter Characters. Upon their arrival we took pictures of them in front of the fireplace.

We took some more of the stone plastic covering and covered the entire fence, making it look like the grand hall. I printed some large house crests and glued them on colored butcher paper to make the house banners, and hung them on the stone. We made 50 golden snitches and had them hung above (we used these for a game.) We had a broom that moved by itself. The tables were set up with benches, just like in the grand hall.

Shown here with the HufflePuff Banner

I printed up "Wanted" signs and had them posted all over the party. " It read, "Have you seen this -cute little - Witch? It had her birthday in the numbers on the front. It said underneath, "Approach with exteme caution, but don't forget to wish her a happy birthday!'" And at the very bottom it siad in small print, "no need to notify the ministry of magic." I also had someone put this up at the school where she teaches.

TEAMS:
I made up 4 teams and crests for the party. They would be the owls, the centaurs, the dragons, and the thestrals. Each team was a different color. Blue, red, yellow, and green. Each table was decorated in these colors from the tablecloths, to the cups, to the napkins. I created a crest for each team and printed up a large sign, along with badges for each team. After the guests arrived they were sorted into teams. I had 4 large glass steins with the team badges taped to them. This was to put marbles into to show who was winning.

Teams could earn points (marbles) - whoever ended up with the most would win the silver cup. I bought a large wooden cup and painted it silver and then I bought small silver trophy cups at the Dollar Store for each person on that team.

SORTING:

I bought golden rod paper from Steve Spangler Science online. This is a special paper used for science experiments. I cut them into small pieces and I wrote the first letters of the 4 teams on each of the different pieces of paper with wax. The guests drew a pieces of paper and squirted it with a spray bottle mixture of water and baking soda. The paper turned red, but where the wax letter stayed white, so the team they would be on "magically" appeared. I put a badge on them and they went to their team table.

GAMES & ACTIVITIES:

1. Hogwarts Test - I printed up a Hogwarts test. It had listed the letters A-Z. They were to think of something from Harry Potter that began with that letter. Each person who completed it won a marble for their team.

2.Door Prizes - I came up with words and scramble them (potions, wizards, and spells) whoever could unscramble all 3 was entered into a drawing for a door prize. They worked on the Hogwart's test and the door prizes while other finished getting sorted.

3. Costume Contest: I made ballots so that each person could vote on the costumes. We had funniest, most authentic, best overall, best couple, and best group. My family went as the Weasley's.

4. Bertie Botts Challenge - I bought 8 different flavors of "jelly belly" jelly beans. 6 people from each team had to eat the jelly bean and guess which flavor it was. They got marbles for each correct guess. Then we moved on to the Russian Roulette Challenge. I bought the real Bertie Bott's every flavor beans. Anyone who was brave enough to reach into the bag and try one, got an instant point. If they got a gross one, they got an extra point. We were lucky (or unlucky) enough to get pepper, soap, grass, and vomit.

We then opened up the Honeydukes store and The Three Broomsticks Inn. This is the dessert feadt buffet that we had prepared.

My cousin's, Jennifer, is super talented and awesome. She made all the food, authentic from the books and movies. We had Butter Beer, Pumpkin Juice, Hagrid's Rock Cakes, Treacles Tarts, Pumpkin Pasties, Cockroach Clusters, Butterbeer Cupcakes, Cauldron Cakes, Treacle Fudge, Ton Tongue Toffee, and and assortment of candy.

Acid Pops - Suckers rolled in pop rock candy.

Cockroach clusters - chow mein noodles and raisins in chocolate.

I purchased several glass jars at the thrift store, labeled them, and filled them with the candy.

I tried to find candy that was a close to possible as the real stuff. Some candy I made up fun names for. We had chips and salsa, popcorn, and gilly -water on the table too. I bought these cute mini cauldrons from partycity.com and everyone could fill them with the candy.

Next we played FIND THE REAL GOLDEN SNITCH:We made 50 little golden snitches and hung them from fishing line. (forgot to take a pic and they were so cute) They pulled open to reveal a number and one of them had a star in it. (my mom made these to open because of the snitch Harry Potter had that said, "I open at the close") Guests would send a seeker from their team to pull down one of the snitches. They would open it a tell me the number. I had printed up 50 Harry Potter trivia questions and would read the number they chose. If they could correctly answer it their team got a point. If thry couldn't answer it, it was passed to the next team and they could answer it for 2 points. Once they found the one with the star they got 10 extra points and the game was over. (It could also be played until all the snitches are gone.)

COSTUME CONTEST AWARDS and SILVER CUP WINNERS: We had someone tally up the votes for the costume awards. I had printed up award certificates and presented them to the winners. They also were able to pick a prize for the prize table. Then I drew 10 names for the door prizes and awarded those prizes as well.

Here is a picture of the wands my husband made the day of the party for our costumes.

We made these with directions from this cool site.
http://alisonswonderscraporium.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-make-harry-potter-wand-tutorial.html

The party was so much fun.

I hope you can use some of these ides to make a fun party of your own!
Thanks!

Momma

Ultimate Harry Potter Party

I am a total Harry Potter fan. So when it was time to figure out my son's 6th birthday party, I went all out planning this one. I started several months before hand, so I could order things online for cheap. I orderd most things off Ebay, and this gives me time to watch things and get things for really good deals. This was my favorite party of all. Luckily my family are all Harry Potter Fans as well, and I have a VERY CREATIVE mother. Oh, and the weather was perfect since it was a winter's day, we were lucky to have it outside.

INVITATIONS: I made the invitation to go in a business size envelope. I printed 2 invitations on an 8 1/2 x 11 page and cut them out. I made them to look as authentic as I could, on older parchment-type paper and the used the same fonts as the ones from the movie. I make all my invitation, sigs, etc., on the scrapbook program Scrapbook Max, and love it. Under the logo it read: HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE. Order of Merlin, First Class,Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards. Under that it read: Dear Tom, We are pleased to inform you that you have been invited to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Celebration in honor of our newest Head Boy, BIRTHDAY CHILD. This 6th Birthday Celebration will be held DATE. Students are required to arrive promptly at TIME at the muggle location ADDRESS, Magical delights and surprises await, including shopping at Diagon Alley, introductory Hogwarts classes, and a grand feast, (cake & ice cream) ending at approximately TIME. We await your RSVP by owl or by muggle phone at PHONE NUMBER. The envelope had the Hogwarts Logo in the top right corner and I printed a sticker seal of Hogwarts to close the envelope with. My son handed them out at school, and we mailed some.
DECORATIONS: I turned our entire carport in the Grand Hall. I bought some plastic wall stone cover online, and covered the entire wall, making it look like stone. I printed large house banners and hung them on the wall. I blew up a large Hedwig Balloon. I had electric lit candles hanging from the ceiling.

On the front of the house I made a large sign, using a large piece of cardboard, and a overhead projector, and made the Hogwarts School of Withcraft and Wizardry Logo.

I printed a sign that said King’s Cross Railway Station 9 ¾. This is where the kids lined up to get on the Hogwarts Express. I also made signs for each class, so the kids knew where to go. We had music from Harry Potter playing.

THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS: We have a barrel train and we made the Hogwarts Express logo and put in on the front. When the kids arrived at the front of the house they boarded the train which took them on a train ride, and around the back of the house to be dropped off at Diagon Alley.

DIAGION ALLEY – This is the first stop where the kids get off. There are 2 shops here. Ollivander's Wand Shop and Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
OLLIVANDER'S WAND SHOP - We took dowels and cut them into wands, complete with spirals and points. We painted them. The all looked different. The student’s would hold up a wand. If that wand picked that student a sound would go off. (My sister had a noise maker in her pocket and would push the buttons.) The kids faces grew so excited to think that the wand picked them. We also gave each student a gallon-size Ziploc bag with their name written on it. This would hold all the things they got throughout the party and what candy they got from the piñata.
MADAM MALKIN’S ROBES FOR ALL OCCASIONS- Student’s get their robes. We used large 33 gallon black garbage bags. My mom figured out a way to cut them into robes, complete with hoods. We had them pre-cut before the party and helped the kids put them on.
The robes we made. This one was cut tiny for little kids. Most were longer. Then the kids moved into the Grand Hall for House Sorting.

This shows the kids with their robes, wands, and bags. They are being welcomed by "Dumbledore"and getting ready to be sorted into houses. HOUSE SORTING: My husband was dressed as Dumbledore and welcomed all the students to Hogwarts. We bought a sorting hat and had it sitting on a stool. We had a voice thing inside the hat and my brother-in-law in the other room called out houses. So it seemed like the sorting hat was talking. We had all the kids names written down beforehand and already sorted into house to make them about the same size.
The Sorting hat begins by saying:
"Oh you may not think me pretty, but don't judge on what you see, I'll eat myself if you can find a smarter hat than me. You can keep your bowlers black,your top hats sleek and tall, for I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat, and I can cap them all. There's nothing hidden in your head, the Sorting Hat can't see, so try me on and I will tell you where you ought to be."Depending on which house the kids were going to be in, my brother-in-law said the following different things.
"I know… Hufflepuff! "
"I know just what to do with you!"
"Hmmmm… Difficult, very difficult."
"Plenty of courage I see. Not a bad mind, either."
"There’s talent, oh yes, and a thirst to prove yourself… But where to put you?"
"Gryffindor!"
"Slytherin!"I had printed sticker badges from each house and we put them on their robes. I also had printed class schedules for each house to rotate to. This way we could have each class (activity) going on simultaneously, since we had over 30 kids there. We also had 4 older kids get to be prefects and they got a prefect badge. Of course, the birthday child was the Head Boy. One thing though was nobody really wanted to be in Slytherin, but it worked out ok.

Class Schedules and Badges. Also shown is the potion recipe card each child took home.

Next we moved on to Classes:The first class was done all together.POTIONS: My brother-in-law was dressed as Snape. We had a cauldron and we made homemade root beer. I took the root beer extract, and all the other ingredients and replaced the labels. The Root beer extract was Basilik Venom, The Dry Ice was Frozen Dragon’s Breath, the water was Phoenix Tears, and the sugar was Crushed Horn of Unicorn. Snape read the recipe card and told them how to make the potion, as he made them. The kids loved it when he added the dry ice for the cool effect it made. Each child got their own potion card to take home. The recipe was for Felix Felicis, the lucky potion. This was what the kids would drink later.

TRANSFIGURATION: - My mom was dressed as Prof. McGonagall – She taught each student a few spells that she made up and had them practice turning into the animals she called out as she pointed her wand at them. It is kinda of like charades and the kids love pretending to be different things. MAGICAL CREATURES – My dad who is 6’ 5”, was dressed as Hagrid. My mom, who is a science teacher, taught me how to make homemade slime using borax and some other things. I bought miniature silver pewter dragons off eBay and put them in the slime, inside a plastic Easter egg. The kids we taught how to take care of a baby dragon before trying to hatch one from their own egg. Each kid got to keep the egg, slime, and dragon. CHARMS - In this class we played music and the kids got to dance around. When I pointed my wand at them and said, “Immobulus” They had to freeze in whatever position they were in. It was real funny. BROOM TRAINING – My sister was dressed as Prof. Hooch. I had 2 witches brooms from Halloween. After teaching them how to mount their brooms and how the game is played, the kids had relay races on the brooms. DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS – All the kids came together and we had a piñata that I bought on clearance after Halloween. It was a large ghost with flowing streamers. We said it was a dementor. We played scary music from the movie while the kids got to break open the piñata.

PRESENTS: After this we opened presents.
THE GRAND FEAST:SNITCH CAKE-My mother-in-law made a giant snitch cake for display (this was the family cake since his actual birthday was the next day) and snitch cupcakes for each child. She used a soccer ball cake pan. It was decorated in gold frosting and I ordered gold decorating flakes online and we sprinkled it over the cake and cupcakes. My mom made snitch wings from transparency paper and we cut them and taped them onto toothpicks and inserted them into each cupcake and the main cake. It turned out so cool. BERTIE BOTT'S BEANS – I bought gourmet jelly beans and put them in little plastic bags .I made label toppers that said Bertie Bott’s Bean’s and stapled them across the top. They turned out so cute. CHOCOLATE FROGS- I bought a frog mold online and melted chocolate chips into the molds. I bought gold foil and wrapped each frog. I printed trading card with the characters on them, just like the real trading cards, to go with each frog.FELIX FELICIS: Homemade root beer made during potions.
ICE CREAM CUPS- Easy and less mess.GIFT BAGS: Since his birthday is only a few months later, I buy lots of Candy on clearance from Halloween too to fill the piñata and gift bags too. It works great as long as it regular candy, like skittles, smarties, suckers, etc., not chocolate. I buy that right before the party. But since it was a Harry Potter party, I used some cool Halloween candy and if fit right in.
OWL REPORT THANK YOU CARD - I made an Ordinary Wizarding Levels report card for each student. Of course, each student got an "Outstanding" This was the thank you card. At the bottom it said that you for coming to my party and for the wonderful gift. Sincerely, Birthday Kids Name, Head Boy. My son signed them all beforehand.
WHAT THE KIDS TOOK HOME: Wand, robe with house badge, class schedule, potion recipe, dragon egg with slime, Bertie Bott’s Beans, Chocolate Frog with trading card, snitch cupacake(if they didn’t eat it), bag of candy from piñata, goody bag, and OWL report card.
If you need something else while waiting for the parents play MOANING MYRTLE: Blind fold one kid. Everyone else cries and moans. Blindfolded person find them and the guesses who it is.

The was one of the funnest parties ever. It really went off without a hitch. My sons friends still talk about how fun it was.