I took a bit of a break for the holidays. Christmas is often the only time we get to spend with one of my sisters and her son and then Hazel's birthday hits us. It is always a busy time and I decided to focus on family. It was wonderful.
This year Hazel has been very into Harry Potter and wanted to have a Harry Potter Slumber Party for her tenth birthday. There are so many ideas, printables and more out there for Harry Potter parties. Here are some that we found, thought of, and used. We had several ideas for an invitation but decided to go with an acceptance letter style. Oh, and she wanted it to be a combined Harry Potter and doll party.
Then we included a supply list. Hazel asked for donations to an animal shelter since she started a ministry but we found her friends wanted to purchase gifts for her instead. I did both of these using My Memories Software.
I bought this fabric at Joann's. I bought enough to make pajama bottoms for Hazel and to make sleep masks. I used a store bought sleep mask and traced it for a pattern. I also measured its elastic to know what to cut. I added half an inch and cut them at 13.5 inches. I cut the fabric about half an inch bigger than my pattern and cut a piece of quilt batting (cotton so it was thin) the size of the pattern. I basted the batting to wrong side of one piece of the mask. I sewed the elastic ends to the right side of one piece of the mask. Then I pinned right sides together and made sure the elastic was not caught in the pinned area. I stitched close to the batting but left an opening to turn them. I clipped the curves and then flipped it. Then I stitched all the way around the sleep mask closing the opening and giving the entire mask stitches through all the layers. The girls loved them!
Once they had their gold they needed to buy books at Flourish & Blotts. Again I printed a sign out from somewhere on the internet (like these). I didn't take a picture of our store, but the book was a folder.
I found the cover for them on-line. I also got this idea from East Coast Mommy. The original source had a list of spells and then some trivia. Since one of our possible activities was a trivia contest we decided not to include the trivia but I included things like this spell matching game and a character scramble game also available there, fortune teller sorting hat, a logic puzzle (I wanted to include the sudoku puzzle but it has a mistake in it and I didn't have time to fix it) and more like these.
Next they had to buy their quills. We used a sign from the quill shop in Hogsmeade since we couldn't find a name of one in Diagon Alley. We saw the idea of putting pens in feathers at East Coast Mommy as well.
Next they bought doll-sized cauldrons. We had a battery-operated tea light and some stuffing int hem to make them look like something was brewing. Then they had to get a broom. We bought personalized broom pens from Oriental Trading.
The final store was to get a pet. Since we had some last minute cancellations the girls could each get an owl and a cat. I decorated it with some of Hazel's stuffed animals. I forgot to take a picture of it and tired to redo it for you, but missed some of the animals.
After shopping was done they got their tickets for the Hogwarts Express and then had to go through a "brick" wall to the train. Our plan was for the girls to wait in this room "on the train" as others arrived, but our two guests arrived at exactly the same time.
I borrowed this shower curtain background from our local library since they had a Harry Potter party in October. Then we sorted the girls. We expected four girls so we made a sorting hat treat for each house. Hazel was automatically in Ravenclaw since that is her house.
Our sorting hat treats are ice cream cones, cookies, M&M's of one color (red, yellow, blue and green for each house) and chocolate decorating frosting. We stuck the M&M's in the cones and then put frosting on the cones and covered them with the cookies. Then Hazel added faces to the hats. Our original idea was to put a baby monitor in Hazel's old witch hat and have someone be the sorting hat in another room by speaking into the monitor. We got rid our of monitor and couldn't find one to borrow though.
Once sorted the girls were taken into Hogwarts where there was a scavenger hunt set up for them.
To make floating candles take battery operated tea lights and turn them on. Then take a piece of cardstock that will wrap around the candle. Cut two pieces of thread of fishing line and lay them on the paper. Put a strip of hot glue along the top of the paper and wrap it around the candle. The string should get caught in during this wrap to secure the ends. Then run glue done the edge of the paper to finish the candle. You can also drip hot glue down the top to be wax. I didn't do this since we were short on time. Hang the candles by the string.
We also had potions class. We bought a kit to make lava lamp lip gloss. We figured they were perfect doll sized lava lamps and a potion mixing class combined. The girls had fun making them.
The girls ate pizza and had pumpkin juice. I found a pumpkin apple cider at Whole Foods around Thanksgiving. It needed more pumpkin puree to taste like the pumpkin juice we had at Universal though. Hazel liked it much better with the additional pumpkin puree and all the girls drank it up.
Next the girls played for a bit. I had given Hazel some games I found on-line like a polyjuice guessing game and trivia, but they just wanted to play Harry Potter with each other. While they played I cleaned up potions and set up Honeydukes.
I made jars for Honeydukes by taking recycled jars and painting their lids. I glued on a colorful wooden bead I bought at Michaels this summer on clearance. For candy we had Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (well we used Jelly Belly and some of our favorite pectin jelly beans), lemon drops, homemade sugar quills (see below), chocolate frogs (I bought one for each girl), cockroach clusters (we used peanut butter cups), jelly slugs (I bought some and did not like them), homemade acid pops (see below), and homemade fizzing whizbees which are just Jolly Rangers dipped in honey and then in Pop Rocks. We had treat bags for the girls to fill with Honeydukes stickers on them. I found colorful ones on clearance after Halloween.
About a week before the party we saw on Facebook one of those videos that shared a quick version of how to make these and other Harry Potter craft ideas. We used four Jolly Rangers for each one. You crush them and then lay the pieces out in a feather shape. Put them in a preheated oven (300 degrees) and watch them. Once they are melted you quickly put the pens in them and if you want make lines to give them the feather texture/look. Let them cool. We put them in cellophane bags afterwards.
Our acid pops were made similar to our fizzing whizzbees. We took lollipops and dipped them in honey and then in Pop rocks.
After Honeydukes they enjoyed their candy while I made them butterbeer. All we did was use beer mugs with cream soda and vanilla ice cream. I also threw in butter rum candy canes because they had them at our favorite candy store. The girls liked them and the cake but couldn't finish either since they felt too sugared out. You can see the beer mugs and the goblets I got at the Dollar Tree for the party. The pumpkin juice was served in the goblets.
For the cake I made a rectangular yellow cake. We found gold wire bracelet forms and gold candles at Michaels. I put the bracelets on the candles and made it look like a quidditch field. Then I printed out some of the house crests from one of the many printable sets for parties and taped them onto small skewers. We wrote in black so we wouldn't be favoring one house over another.
After cake the girls went to play for a bit. Then around 9 we turned on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I made them hot chocolate and popped popcorn. We also had candy to add into both. They watched a portion of the movie and wanted to stay up to see the ball drop.
They discovered it was not that much fun to watch. Then it was time for bed. Hazel wore her new Ravenclaw flannel pajama bottoms I made for her and her doll, Lanie, had matching ones.
They finished the movie the next morning and played a bit. I made them pancakes. I also got them to pose with the photo props and poster we bought.
Then it was pick up time. They all had so much fun. I heard the words--best party ever uttered!!
Oh and some fun decorating ideas we used.
I attached some spider rings (bought after Halloween on clearance) to a wooden dowel and hung it below a window with this sign. Even though one guest just started the second book, we did some things past the first book.
I also hung flying keys in a corner as well as the third floor corridor warning from Dumbledore. I found the warning here. The corner had some of Hazel's things we didn't want touched like her dollhouses and such.
It was such a fun party and the girls had so much fun. Hazel discovered she really likes small parties better than big ones as well.
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