A Day at Hogwarts

Magic wands, wizard cloaks, and spell books- oh my! 

We had a lot of fun preparing for everything for Sarah's Harry Potter themed birthday party!

Earlier we had made magic wands for all the children. The wands were really easy to made and they looked pretty convincing. 

Invitations were printed on card stock in an old-fashioned calligraphy style. They read:

Dear Student,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been invited to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to participate in special mid-term classes in Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, and Care of Magical Creatures.

This special celebration is in honor of Gryfindor's newest head girl, Sarah Kingsley, International Confederation of Prefects. Classes will begin at the stroke of 2:00 on November-----.

Please come to our secret location, currently disguised as a Muggle (non-wizard) residence at -----. There you will find the magical door visible only to Hogwarts students and friends. The secret password is "Flibbertigibbet". The surrounding area is well-protected with Memory charms, so it will be safe to practice magic indoors and outdoors.

Feel free to dress in either wizard robes or Muggle clothing.

If you are unable to respond by Owl Post, please use the Muggle telephony system and dial ----.

We look forward to your arrival at Hogwarts!

Sincerely, 

Mrs. Renae Kingsley, Headmistress of Frolic and Feasts, Hogwarts Academy

The invitations were folded and sealed with red sealing wax. The name of each guest was written in calligraphy on the envelope. I also put a couple small feathers sticking out to make it look like an owl delivered it.

Our Secret Door to Hogwarts

I created a magic brick wall for the guests to run through as they entered the magical setting of Hogwarts.

Luckily I found a perfect brown canvas curtain at the thrift store, so I used that as my backdrop. 

I purchased a fat sponge from the hardware store and used 4 different colors of brown craft acrylic paint to create the bricks. I added shading and highlights in an attempt to create an old 'industrial' look so common in British railways. 

We simply suspended a curtain rod across our doorway and hung the curtain. 

The guests all giggled when they said "Flibbertigibbet!" and ran through the wall. 

They even remembered to say the magic password each time we went outside to play outdoor games.

The inside of the house felt magical as soon as they entered and saw the decorations and heard the magical soundtrack from the Harry Potter movies. It felt so delightfully festive!

As guests arrived, we provided their school supplies in the entryway. 

A table draped in black served as our 'store'. It held our black wizard cloaks (which I snagged for $2 each at the thrift store during Halloween) and spell books on one end. The children tried on the cloaks until they found one they liked. The spell books were simply made by cutting printer paper into halves, then folding those in half again. The cover is a half-sheet of black construction paper. We stapled the binding and wrote 'Spell Book' on the cover with a white crayon in scrolling letters.

Earlier that week I had made feather quill pens for the guests to use during 'classes'.

My children collected pretty feathers on our property (with 35 chickens, there's a lot of pretty feathers laying around!) and I trimmed them to accommodate a pen. We stripped ball point pens of their cases and taped the pen securely to a feather with silver duct tape. 

The children LOVED their quill pens and thought they were such a cool party favor. They really enjoyed taking notes during potions class with these pens.The nice part is I only spent around $3 to make 15 pens! 

Quills for class

The next station was the wand shop. I told a story that Ollivander (the wand craftsman in the books) couldn't make it to the party, so he left me a box of wands to use.

I had the children come up one at a time to find the right wand. (In the book the wands pick their owners rather than the other way around).

 I'd let them pick a wand to try out and I'd describe what magical item was in the core of each wand. (For example: Oh you picked a wand with a Pegasus feather core! Good pick! Now give it a swish in the air and see if it likes you! No? Let's try the pixie dust wand over here....)

The kids were SO excited to see which wand they had. I told them that the magical essence in the wand core was one of the following: a dragon heart-string, a Griffin feather, a strand of unicorn hair, a Pegasus feather, pixie dust, or a Phoenix feather. 

They were so delighted with their wands!

We used them to play games in the party, as you'll see later on.

Ollivanders Wand Shop

We also had a chest of 'wizard gold'. (It's actually Nathan's large coin collection. He collects coins from around the world. It was a perfect prop for the party!). After each game, I rewarded winning teams with coins to spend later at Honeydukes store. 

The kids marveled over the foreign coins and exclaimed how neat they looked. They were definitely better than using plastic pirate gold from the party store. 

In the kitchen I had set up the Potions Class with this decor:

Potions Class is ready to begin!

I collected apothecary jars from the thrift store and made potions labels to glue on them. The labels were printed on heavy card stock  I picked labels that looked a bit spooky so I use reuse these bottles as Halloween decor next year. (Won't that look so cool on the mantle?) 

Up-close view of an aged potion label: Dragon Scales

I painted the labels with thin washes of watercolor in an attempt to artificially age them so they wouldn't look unnaturally white and new. 

I applied labels with Mod Podge. Some bottles I wanted to reuse for other things, so I didn't glue labels on them. Instead I tied them to the bottle with string.

We also set up Honeydukes Candy Shop in our dining room hutch. 

We served pumpkin pasties, licorice wands, lemon drops, pixie dust (made with real Cornish pixies!), cockroach clusters, cauldron cakes, pretzel wands in two flavors, and Bernie Botts Beans. 

Sarah peruses Honeydukes to pick a treat

I'll write the details of our class activities and games (and potion recipes) in my next post.

Until then, here are some glimpses of our guests after the party ended. They had a lovely time playing with kittens, riding tree swings, and pretending to shoot spells at each other with their wands.

The following week lots of parents came to me and told me their children had a most wonderful time at our party. Sounds like it was a success!