Two days to a cheap Harry Potter party. How I did it.
Yesterday we made our five year old's dreams come true. His birthday was on June 12th, but he was with his dad on the east coast, so we weren't together to celebrate. As usual, I gave him the option of party in May or August. He picked August. Before he left, he was set on a superhero party. He said he wanted either a Hulk or Superman cake.
When I picked them up and brought them home on August 1st he was still talking about a Superman cake. Then, at the beginning of this week came the magic words: "mom can I have a Harry Potter birthday party? I want a wand."
And so it began.
I did what I do for every birthday party, started researching. In the sad lonely desolate time before pinterest, I used google images. I would google the kind of party, hit image, and then would find loads of pictures- most with links to blogs. It worked, but pinterest is a WAY better resource for party planning.
We did a Harry Potter party for Avery last April, but I wanted to make this one different, I wanted to make this one Rylan's party. So I knew going in that I would only re-use a few things: a banner and two posters I had ordered from Amazon and held on to.
So here's the breakdown of how I did Rylan's 5th birthday and how I put the entire party together in TWO DAYS. We didn't pick what day until Wednesday night, for a Friday night party- so I had to scramble pretty fast.
Go go Asiago dip from Tastefully Simple got the name Liquid Luck Dip for the Potion Felix Felicis.
We named a Caesar Salad Gillyweed Salad, the weed that helps Harry breathe underwater Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
We dipped pretzel sticks in chocolate and sprinkled them with sprinkles in the house colors to make Olivander's Wands.
Pumpkin pies made in muffin tins and mini muffin tins got the name for Pumpkin Pasties.
Pumpkin juice is one of the popular beverages in the books and movies. A recipe was very easy to find, it was very simple and delicious. Apple juice, pineapple juice, pumpkin puree, honey, and pumpkin pie spices.
Butterbeer, another popular beverage in the Harry Potter series was even easier to make. Cream soda and butterscotch syrup.
The Elixir of Life was simply a pitcher of ice water.
Wild Dragon Soup was the name we slapped on to Chicken Wild Rice soup.
Oreo balls are ALWAYS a birthday party hit. They are the #1 most requested thing I make. Last HP party I made them into golden snitches. This time I wanted to do them in the colors of the Hogwarts houses. Red with gold sprinkles for Gryffindor. Yellow with chocolate (we'll just call that black) sprinkles for Hufflepuff. Blue with bronze sprinkles for Ravenclaw. And finally green with silver sprinkles for Slytherin. We slapped on the name Oreo Quaffles because in Quidditch the balls are called Quaffles.
There was also a tray of macaroni and cheese at the request of the birthday boy that I couldn't come up with a name for, as well as two sandwich rings which we called Quidditch hoop bread.
When in doubt, look in kids' toys. Avery has a TON of Harry Potter lego sets. I had him digging through looking for all the right pieces that I needed from his Quidditch set.
What you see here took me about 15 minutes after the cake was cool. Ry wanted a funfetti cake with chocolate frosting. Chocolate frosting is the fastest to use because it covers completely on the first coat, great when you are busy doing 5,000 other things for a birthday party. I slapped on some vanilla frosting colored green for "grass" and plopped down the Lego Quidditch hoops Avery found for me. A row of candles, some edging, "Happy Birthday Rylan" and the cake was done.
One thing I've learned over time: boys don't care. If the edging isn't perfect, they don't notice. They won't notice if you get the cake topper from their toys or the store. So why waste extra money or stress about it?
Seriously. The twin ones are $5 (I remember them being cheaper in the lower 48, but in Alaska they are $5). They come in a pile of different colors. They are my secret to so many different things. Curtains. Picture backdrops. Table cloths. And let's now add this one to the list: costumes. I could just go out and buy fabric, but it's actually cheaper to get the sheets, plus the edges are already sewn, which saves tons of time.
I happened to have three black flat twin sheets in my fabric bin in the crawl space so I didn't have to go out and buy any. Look what I did with them.
Now these robes took me about half an hour each (less for the baby's). Between the cutting, sewing, fitting, hemming, and detail work.
I found basic directions- thanks google- http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/crafts/sewing/simplecanonrobes
So easy.
The ties were made of felt. I got the idea here (although I only looked at the picture, didn't even look at the tutorial) http://thebrilliantcraftytype.blogspot.com/2012/04/felt-hogwarts-ties-tutorial.html
I bought the colors for all the houses at Joanns on Wednesday night and made them bright and early on Thursday morning. I had done a quiz online to sort the boys into their houses. Avery and Rylan were sorted into Gryffindor, Payton into Hufflepuff, and our sweet baby boy Declan was sorted into Slytherin. So I made the ties in the colors of their houses.
The clothes they wore underneath the robes: the white shirts and the black/grey pants are all their church clothes.
So basically, I only part of these costumes that cost anything was the felt for the ties and the buttons holding their robes closed. Cheapest costumes I've ever done.
Since I'm now 7 months pregnant, the boys will be wearing these costumes for Halloween, as I'm due exactly a week after Halloween. So before Halloween I'm planning on adding hoods to the robes as well as the crests from each of their houses. Details I didn't have time for before the party.
Cheap domestic goddess trick #2: felt. Felt is usually around $4-$5 a yard. A yard is A LOT of felt. For this party I got 8 colors of felt (two colors for each of the Hogwarts houses). I only got 1/4 of a yard of each. Also I had a coupon. It was less than $8 for all this:
I used almost every single bit of all of this felt in the decorating and the making of the boys' ties.
My husband helped out by cutting most of this felt into circles, and then I sewed them together to make these:
Those garlands were easily my favorite thing I made. The banner in the middle of the garlands is one of the things we reused from Avery's party, bought on Amazon last year. http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Hogwarts-Printed-Banner/dp/B000U0CP44/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345313563&sr=8-1&keywords=harry+potter+banner
The labels on everything (including the food) were easy. When you want to use labels for a party, find a font that goes with your theme. In this case, I simply googled "Harry Potter font" downloaded a free one and printed them off. Then my friend Chelsea cut them out, used a glue stick to put them on scrapbook paper for reinforcement, and then she aged all the edges on everything with a candle flame.
There was also a wall in the living room I forgot to take pictures of. I had two posters up as well as printed off quotes from the HP books to cover up picture frames on the wall. Oh well. Can't remember everything!
And that is how a Harry Potter party is pulled off in two days! Avery is already asking if his next birthday can be Harry Potter again! We had a great time!
When I picked them up and brought them home on August 1st he was still talking about a Superman cake. Then, at the beginning of this week came the magic words: "mom can I have a Harry Potter birthday party? I want a wand."
And so it began.
I did what I do for every birthday party, started researching. In the sad lonely desolate time before pinterest, I used google images. I would google the kind of party, hit image, and then would find loads of pictures- most with links to blogs. It worked, but pinterest is a WAY better resource for party planning.
We did a Harry Potter party for Avery last April, but I wanted to make this one different, I wanted to make this one Rylan's party. So I knew going in that I would only re-use a few things: a banner and two posters I had ordered from Amazon and held on to.
So here's the breakdown of how I did Rylan's 5th birthday and how I put the entire party together in TWO DAYS. We didn't pick what day until Wednesday night, for a Friday night party- so I had to scramble pretty fast.
The Food:
Easiest thing to plan food, make your menu and then give your food names that go with your theme.
This is ranch dip. We decided to call it the House Elf Special because House elves do all the food preparation at Hogwarts.
Onto the Cake:
For Avery's party I tried out a fondant cake for the first time. I made a book and called it "Avery 7th edition." Once again, I wanted to go a completely different direction. I found a cake on pinterest that was set up like the Quidditch pitch, with pieces from a cake set. I didn't have time to order anything so I got inventive.When in doubt, look in kids' toys. Avery has a TON of Harry Potter lego sets. I had him digging through looking for all the right pieces that I needed from his Quidditch set.
What you see here took me about 15 minutes after the cake was cool. Ry wanted a funfetti cake with chocolate frosting. Chocolate frosting is the fastest to use because it covers completely on the first coat, great when you are busy doing 5,000 other things for a birthday party. I slapped on some vanilla frosting colored green for "grass" and plopped down the Lego Quidditch hoops Avery found for me. A row of candles, some edging, "Happy Birthday Rylan" and the cake was done.
The Costumes:
This is part where I share my biggest Domestic Goddess Secret. Ready for it? Flat sheets from Walmart.Seriously. The twin ones are $5 (I remember them being cheaper in the lower 48, but in Alaska they are $5). They come in a pile of different colors. They are my secret to so many different things. Curtains. Picture backdrops. Table cloths. And let's now add this one to the list: costumes. I could just go out and buy fabric, but it's actually cheaper to get the sheets, plus the edges are already sewn, which saves tons of time.
I happened to have three black flat twin sheets in my fabric bin in the crawl space so I didn't have to go out and buy any. Look what I did with them.
I found basic directions- thanks google- http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/crafts/sewing/simplecanonrobes
So easy.
The ties were made of felt. I got the idea here (although I only looked at the picture, didn't even look at the tutorial) http://thebrilliantcraftytype.blogspot.com/2012/04/felt-hogwarts-ties-tutorial.html
I bought the colors for all the houses at Joanns on Wednesday night and made them bright and early on Thursday morning. I had done a quiz online to sort the boys into their houses. Avery and Rylan were sorted into Gryffindor, Payton into Hufflepuff, and our sweet baby boy Declan was sorted into Slytherin. So I made the ties in the colors of their houses.
The clothes they wore underneath the robes: the white shirts and the black/grey pants are all their church clothes.
So basically, I only part of these costumes that cost anything was the felt for the ties and the buttons holding their robes closed. Cheapest costumes I've ever done.
Since I'm now 7 months pregnant, the boys will be wearing these costumes for Halloween, as I'm due exactly a week after Halloween. So before Halloween I'm planning on adding hoods to the robes as well as the crests from each of their houses. Details I didn't have time for before the party.
The Decorations:
MY FAVORITE part of parties. I love decorating.Cheap domestic goddess trick #2: felt. Felt is usually around $4-$5 a yard. A yard is A LOT of felt. For this party I got 8 colors of felt (two colors for each of the Hogwarts houses). I only got 1/4 of a yard of each. Also I had a coupon. It was less than $8 for all this:
My husband helped out by cutting most of this felt into circles, and then I sewed them together to make these:
The labels on everything (including the food) were easy. When you want to use labels for a party, find a font that goes with your theme. In this case, I simply googled "Harry Potter font" downloaded a free one and printed them off. Then my friend Chelsea cut them out, used a glue stick to put them on scrapbook paper for reinforcement, and then she aged all the edges on everything with a candle flame.
There were also several printables that I used throughout the party. The marauder's map.
The sorting hat.
And Platform 9 3/4 (which was on the front door seen here in the background)
I found all of the printables on this blog post http://justsweetandsimple.blogspot.com/2011/07/harry-potter-party.html
Owls. They are a huge part of Harry Potter. So made them a big part of the party. Hubby was able to bring home some white balloons before the party and using sharpies- hubby, his mother, and my friend Chelsea made them into our owl friends seen throughout the party.
Besides the owl balloons, there were also several other owl friends- who belong to my friend Chelsea. One was hanging out with the desserts, the other two were chilling in the Owlery.
Chelsea also brought with her the sorting hat, which was handed down to her from a friend who had a Harry Potter wedding.
And while we are talking about Chelsea's contributions, she made the birthday boy a wand. She could go into business, it's pretty cool.
Another part of the decorations was another toy box contribution. Avery and Chelsea spent most of Thursday putting the Weasley's house (The Burrows) together as well as countless characters.
And that is how a Harry Potter party is pulled off in two days! Avery is already asking if his next birthday can be Harry Potter again! We had a great time!
Comments