Today we hosted a super fun Harry Potter Themed birthday party for my youngest dude, who turned six and is completely cuckoo for all things Hogwarts. We made pretty much everything for the party using my printer, a hot glue gun, and acrylic paints. If you missed it, here's a link to our OWL party invites, which were as much fun to deliver as they were to make.
When the guests arrived the first stop was Diagon Alley to pick up their supplies. Each child got to choose a wand (bamboo chopstick, glue gun, plus acrylic paints from my stash). Each one was slightly different and it was a difficult choice for the Hogwarts students. They also grabbed some Harry Potter glasses, but we made them wait to visit Honeydukes until they were leaving the party. You can find the printables I used (plus much more Harry Potter goodness) on my Partytime Pinterest board. You can also see where we added signs to my unfinished wall projects to let the guests know it's ok - Muggles can't see those photos.
Next stop was the Azkaban photo booth where we took these cute Have You Seen This Wizard? photos of each of the party guests. I'm planning to use their photos on thank you cards soon, and the kids' faces were priceless. We presented two mini Hogwarts classes. One was a potions class (where we made balloons magically inflate using chemistry and slime to take home). The other was a charms class (with a Hogwarts themed freeze dance that included a spell to make everyone dance uncontrollably) and the classic Wingardium Leviosa charm to make balloons stay in the air with our wands. Then we repaired to the Great Hall to feast!
Max specifically requested Hagrid's birthday cake for Harry in the first novel. He helped me bake three layers of our favorite Quinoa Chocolate cake, which we adapted to be gluten free and dairy free to make sure all our guests could have some cake. I know the writing was supposed to be green, but I didn't have any green coloring agents, and Max was okay with the white writing, done with a ziploc baggie. I cannot tell you how hard it was to stack up that cake so nice and tall and then squish it down and cover it with the messiest frosting job ever...but it did make the job quick since it was supposed to look like someone sat on it! Behind the cake you can see the Indoor Quidditch ping pong ball game we built for the kids, since there currently snow up your knees in the backyard, so my hula hoop Quidditch plan got shut down. That was a huge hit with the party goers!
Almost every surface in my house had a bit of Hogwarts magic: notices from Filch to the packing paper Devil's Snare we built onto the stair case, paper spiders the boys helped me craft (requiring a ton of wiggly eyes) to show the way to Aragog's lair, and even signs pointing the way to the Ministry of Magic...if you know what I mean. My fussy cutting skills came in handy, as you can see here in my selfie with Moaning Myrtle. The party was a hit, and now I'm gonna hit the hay!
No comments:
Post a Comment