Part of this will just be a photo dump of decor and such but I will also try and give details and links where applicable. I almost always used Pinterest.
This shot is from the dining room into the living room. I would have liked to have all the house banners together in the dining area but they are huge and there wasn't enough wall space so we spread them around. Emmeline loved it, so it all worked out. I will have close ups of the Honeydukes further down as well as close ups on the letters.
Here is one of the tables in the dining room. We did house colors streamers as well as some flying keys, a HP Happy Birthday Banner (which I bought) and a Whomping Willow Terrarium for the center piece.
For the flying keys I printed these wings and then hot glued them to these keys from Amazon. I then used fishing line to tie them up and make them look like they were flying.
I really fell in love with the terrarium. I bought the container last October on clearance at Target and FINALLY got around to make it for the party! I used this printable to make the car. It was a little tricky but totally worth it. I hung it with fishing line. I used brown paper twisted up and pipe cleaners for the Whomping Willow and rocks and moss from my yard for the terrain.
The other table had some owls for the center piece. I Also bought some craft bags and attached a Hogwarts crest to them for the guest to keep their shopping in.
Of course we had to have a sorting hat since most of the guests had never been sorted!
I found some Educational Decrees here and laminated them. I just stuck these on the wall mishmash.
Gotta keep this students in line!
I put up streamers in the house colors in each doorway.
I did a quick Photo Booth with wanted posters for the backdrop and a "Have You Seen This Wizard" frame. I did a Harry Potter Wanted Posters image search and printed them full page. I only did 5 different ones and just printed each 4 times or so. I made the frame with a foam poster board and these printables.
I also had a Daily Prophet cover wall if they wanted to use that instead.
They were super cute! I have individual shots of each guest but I try to be minimal in posting other people's children online.
The letters shooting out of the fireplace was a last minute add and I am SO glad I did!
I got some parchment looking envelopes, a Harry Potter rubber stamp with his address (which I for some reason can't seem to find on Amazon now) and some seal stickers. I have a wax seal kit that I used on the invitations but that would have taken WAY too long here. I then taped the envelopes to fishing line which I strung from the fireplace to the ceiling fan. It was super fun and the girls really liked it.
For the starry ceiling I used one of those Christmas outdoor light projectors I got on clearance a couple years ago.
I put up a poster of proper wand movements for basic spells in the hallway and they had so much fun perfecting their techniques!
Even though the blue quote isn't quite right I thought these were cute.
Emmeline claimed this seat on the couch as the Ravenclaw Common Room.
A big part of the party was getting their school supplies. This included getting a wand at Ollivanders, their school books at Flourish and Blotts, and an owl Eeylops Owl Emporium.
First up was Flourish and Blotts. They got a Standard Book of Spells, and a Monster Book of Monsters. I printed a Hogwarts crest in black and white on the cover so they could color and personalize their books. I spent several days formatting the Spell Book so it could be printed out, folded and stapled. If you want the spell book let me know. I used this tutorial for the MBOM. I also printed these bookmarks but we didn't get around to doing those.
Next we were on to Ollivanders. Isa and I made the wands out of chopsticks, beads, hot glue and modeling clay. I then painted them different colors, misted the tips with gold spray paint and then a clear coat to seal them. To select the wands we blindfolded each guest and had them pick their wand by touch. Each wand had a tag telling them the contents of their wand and they got to select a box. I printed the box numbers here, the labels here, and the Ollivanders logos here there are also directions for constructing the box at the same site. Each box was lined with quilt batting wrapped in satin fabric.
Since we were already near it we did in the Pick Your Patronus station next. I explained to the girls what a patrons was and let them each pick a little animal charm to be their patrons. I found the lot of charms to be so so. There weren't any repeats but there were quite a few of each animal. A lot of owls, elephants, tigers and birds. I then strung them onto stretchy cord at whatever length they liked for a necklace, bracelet or anklet.
Our last stop for supplies was Eeylops Owl Emporium.
I ordered the owls from Oriental Trading Company in sets of 12. Each guest got to select and color their own owl to take home. It was really fun to see all the different color combinations.
Before snacks and the real cake we had to do sorting! For this I made plain cake pops with different color fillings for each house. I put the hat on their heads, they chose a pop and whatever color they got was their house. I for some reason didn't take a picture of the cake pops but they were just dipped in chocolate. We took pictures of each guest but again, other people's kids.
Since quite a few guests didn't know about Harry Potter I made some bookmarks with the common traits for each house.
Ravenclaw!
May had to be sorted as well. And the winner is...
Also Ravenclaw!! I couldn't resist, and got May a bandana and her and Emmeline matching Harry Potter bows from K9 Inspired Crafts!
I honestly feel like the cake should get it's own post. It. Was. Amazing. I had a very, very hard time cutting into it. A dear friend that really helped(s) me through all the 4 Paws For Ability process also makes gorgeous cakes! I am so glad I didn't attempt this myself and that she was kind enough to squeeze us in on her already full September schedule.
BEHOLD!
Seriously, I have so many pictures of this cakes. Emmeline picked out red velvet for the top tier and chocolate for the bottom tier with cream cheese butter cream icing, and it was delicious! It was so good that I gave myself another cheat day just so I could eat more cakes guilt free ;)
To wrap up the party (because there is no way I was going to let them eat all that sugar at my house) they got to go to Honeydukes. This took the most prep by far. The shop included; Candy Floss, Chocolate Wands, Unicorn Horns, Golden Snitches, Cockroach Clusters, Ton-Tongue Toffee, Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, Peppermint Toads, Dementor Relief, and of course Chocolate Frogs. I used this website for the candy shop labels, BBEFB boxes, Chocolate Frog Boxes, and Dementor Relief labels. Be prepared for so. much. cutting out. I got the banner here. In all honesty I didn't notice that she had blank labels until I had already made the other labels and her's are pretty cute so you could go either way. I also laminated the banner so I can use it again. I used 3X4 ziplock closure jewelry bags from the craft store for most of the sweets. Not ideal for display but given that they were all going in a paper bag it was a must to keep things neat and unsticky.
BBEFB came in second for candy prep time. The boxes and all the windows took quite a while to cut out. I have ZERO interest in eating a vomit flavor jelly bean so I went with the bulk jelly beans at Sam's Club.
For the Wands I used pretzel rods, chocolate bark and rainbow sprinkles. They even have pretzel rod bags at Walmart!
I used this candy mold for the Peppermint Toads and Chocolate Frogs . Even if you don't need the chopsticks I recommend the set since it gives you 3 molds. The Ton-Tongue Toffee is the Saltine Toffee recipe from Pinterest.
Cockroach Clusters (chocolate covered peanuts) and Unicorn Horns
The Golden Snitches were super easy, but be prepared to burn your fingers. I printed these wings, front and back to get the look on both sides and hot glued them to the Ferreo Rocher.
So, let's talk chocolate frog cards. I really wanted to have tradable chocolate frog cards in the boxes, complete with bios for each character. Not the lame heads of house that you get at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter either, I wanted ones from the main series. I used the card fronts found here. I especially like this set because it uses the original Richard Harris Dumbledore. Josh helped with sizing the cards and formatting bios for the backs. We ended up doing a separate card for the bio and then gluing it on the back. I then laminated the lot with extra thick laminating sheets so they would last. All in all, I cut out each card 4 times. If anyone is interested in our formatting and bios let me know :). I need to just make a google drive of all this stuff. Maybe in my free time...
To make it even more of a "Megan Project", after making the whole set of cards, I realized that I didn't account for the lamination trim when sizing the cards ,and none of the cards fit in the boxes! 36 cards worth! So I ended up resizing and doing the whole set again. Oh well, at least now the cards are done for Harry Potter Finals at work. Totally worth it in the end.
Needless to say I am pretty sure Honeydukes was the hit of the party :)
I also couldn't let a weekend go by without trying a new weekend bake! I didn't get a finished picture but here is a Treacle Tart with my first lattice top! It tasted good (think fig newton without the seeds). I'm not sure I will make it again though. Just a little one note for me.
I am so glad Emmeline came back around and was OK with the theme and that she really ended up LOVING it! I did my very best to be a grown up about it but I would have been super sad if she had not wanted a Harry Potter party this year. It was also super fun to work with all my helpers, Isa, my sister Samantha and Josh during prep. Thanks everyone!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment