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- Apr 5, 2019

Harry Potter Birthday Party

My son decided he wanted a Harry Potter themed birthday party this year. I thought, "YES! YES! YES!!" Poor kid didn't know what he was getting himself into haha! At one point he said, "Mommy, I think you are enjoying this more than I am!"

Of course we had to have Hedwig displaying the invitations at the party! We found the wax seal kit on Amazon. Super fun to make! Make sure you plan on sticking the envelope inside of another envelope if you plan on mailing them. The wax seals can get crushed. So, we ended up just hand delivering them.

After spending weeks planning and creating for this party, party day came and my son ended up getting sick that morning! We had to cancel just an hour before it started. I felt so awful for him! Party was all set up and the food was prepared and ready to go. I ended up just leaving everything up (except the food) until his re-do party. The rescheduled party followed 2 weeks later. What a nasty virus that was! He said, "I just need to sit here with my face towards the light." Wise boy.

My son doesn't like cake, so we settled for these AMAZING signature donuts from Duck Donuts in Herndon, VA. I personally LOVED the maple bacon!! I was originally going to try to make golden snitch donuts, but couldn't find a way to get the wings how I wanted. I'm glad I went with these fancy things instead! YUM! We had golden snitch Ferrero Rochers any ways! Printed out some wings online, traced them onto vellum paper, and then attached them with the Ferrero Rocher sticker and a glue dot.

A Harry Potter party wouldn't be the same with out chocolate frogs! I purchased a mold on Amazon, you can find it here. To make the frogs, I melted a bag of chocolate chips and butterscotch chips together and poured it into the mold. Stuck it in the fridge overnight and then popped them right out! Turned out beautifully! I highly recommend freezing them a bit though after you pop them out. We had them sitting out for quite a while and they ended up melting from the sun coming in our windows! There are also cute boxes you can print out and make for the frogs. My printer ran out of ink, so I decided to just have them out instead.

As far as food goes, ohhhh there were so many options!! If I were to do it again, I would probably have an entire Harry Potter feast. But, I settled for just a few treats (well, maybe a lot to some haha) and of course had to re-create Honeydukes!! My son drew on white treat bags that the kids could fill to take home.

Found these awesome chocolate bar printable wrappers online, you can download them here. I covered some Hershey's Dark Chocolate with these.

I was super excited to find these free printables for Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans! I found the cardstock containers at the Dollar Tree! $1 for 12 boxes! You can't beat that! These printables were supposed to just be taped to treat bags, but instead I cut and pasted them onto the boxes! Next time, I would probably buy plastic bags for candy to go inside instead of using snack bags. I also skipped out on the gross flavored beans and stuck with Welch's. I think the kids appreciated it, haha! We didn't tell them while they were eating them though! It was pretty funny watching their anticipation of a yucky flavor!

I found these cute swirly lollipops at Party City! The Honeydukes printable is below. I just taped them onto the lollipops and waa-laa! Next time, I will probably add the pop rocks to make them a bit more acid like! I think the kids liked them regardless!

I found the exploding bon bons at Party City also. They were chocolate balls filled with caramel. I liked that they had an orange wrapper like the real thing. Tried to come up with a triangle box to put them in, but ended up settling for a candy dish instead. I used elmers glue to put the Honeydukes label on. Should probably use hot glue instead, they started coming off.

For the Honeydukes candy cards, I printed out labels (I apologize, I can't find the website I printed them from!) and then glued them onto white cardstock. I used to love lemonheads, so I decided to have those instead of sherbet lemons since those are hard to find here.

As far as food goes, I thought these brooms turned out cute! I used small pretzels, mozzarella cheese sticks cut in half, and chives. Gently pull up the cheese to look like a broom. Don't pull up too far or the cheese will fall apart! I also found that it was easier to use the entire chive to tie it and then snip off the ends once you get it tied.

For the first party that didn't happen, I made these Pumpkin Pasties. They didn't turn out that great, so I ended up not making them the 2nd time around. I don't think I used enough pumpkin for the inside. It kept squirting out when I tried to close them. If I were to make them again, I would probably use a bigger piece of dough (I used a mason jar lid to cut the circles) so that I could add more filling. There are a ton of pumpkin pastie recipes to choose from online. I found the background for the food cards online and then added the text with a Harry Potter font in Photoshop. Then I cut them out and glued them to cardstock.

I thought this owl fruit tray turned out so adorable!! I got the gold plates from the Dollar Tree as well! Worked out perfectly!

For the sorting hats, I used Pillsbury crescent rolls and put pepperoni and cheese inside of them. Just stick the pepperoni and cheese at the bottom of the triangle and roll them up a quarter of the way up to make a hat! The kids loved them!

We also had professor sprouts veggie garden and popcorn/pretzel bags that looked like brooms! Just cut up brown lunch bags about a quarter the way up, fill them with popcorn, add a pretzel to the top, and then tie with whatever string you have. A little tip, don't cut the bags before you put the popcorn in them! If you cut them first, it makes it much more difficult to get the popcorn in! I would probably add a little wax paper in them next time, too. That way the butter won't show through the bag.

I will save the best goodie for last! The BUTTERBEER! Oh my goodness! Everyone loved this stuff!! Don't worry, there is NO BEER in this! I purchased some cute mugs at the Dollar Tree and filled them with 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream, cream soda, and topped them with whipped cream, and butterscotch syrup. I think this was everyone's favorite! I'm normally not a fan of cream soda, but I liked this combination! We drank these two different ways, blended like a milkshake and like a float.

As for more decor, activities, and games at this party...

First, we had the kids come through Platform 9 3/4. I purchased a Platform 9 3/4 shower curtain from Amazon, you can find that here. I hung it on my photography backdrop stand. Originally, I was going to cut a slit up it so that the kids could actually walk through it. But, we decided not to so that my son can use it in his bathroom! Win win!

On the other side of it where the party room was, I hung a white shower curtain, some fairy lights (would have been nicer if we were doing the party at night), and a Harry Potter birthday banner (purchased all on Amazon). Have I mentioned how much I love Amazon Prime? Haha! No affiliation, I just shop there for just about everything!

This room worked out great to have the party in. We are in the process of re-modeling so all of the furniture was out of the room. I had fun setting up waaaay before the party started, haha! This was the party half set up. Not really sure why I didn't get a final photo! Ooops!

Thanks to my mom for helping with the adorable owl balloons! She did a great job drawing the owl faces!! Both she and my dad helped so much with the first party. They were in town visiting, but unfortunately couldn't make the 2nd party. My in laws were here for the 2nd one! So grateful to have had all of them here! Thank you for all of your help moms and dads!!

I absolutely LOVED creating the flying keys for decoration! I ordered these vintage keys on Amazon for only a few dollars, traced wings on onto vellum, hot glued them onto the keys, and hung them with clear fishing wire. They were a bit tricky to tie up, but definitely worth it!

After the kids entered the party room, we had each of them wear the talking sorting hat to find out which house they would be in. They were pretty adorable! I believe you can find the talking hat at Target. I think my mom got this one on Ebay.

After they found out which house they were in, I gave them a little card that had which each house represented. I printed these on cardstock.

After house sorting, we had Potions Class!! We made glitter slime! I wish I would have had someone take a photo of me! I dressed up like Professor Mcgonagall. I messed up a bit on this one, the kids made fun of me for it. One of my sons friends actually fired me from being Professor Mcgonnegal, haha! I purchased glitter glue from the dollar store instead of Elmers. Big no no! It didn't work, but the kids still had fun making it! I told them to come up with some cool names for their potions and to tell us what powers they had. It was a lot of fun and the kids came up with some really creative potions!

I also had some potions on display that my son and I made together. I got the bottles at Michael's (my favorite store!) and we filled them with water, glitter, and food coloring. I would use corn syrup or clear hair gel next time instead of water to make it a better consistency and to keep the glitter from rising to the top. I found the free printable labels online and laminated them.

After our potions class we played a game where we looked for the golden egg. It is close to Easter, so I was lucky enough to find a big golden Easter egg to use! We put a little prize inside and whoever found the egg got the prize! This was a great time to take the party outside and let the kids burn off some energy! I also put together a Harry Potter activity booklet for each of the kids. You can find those below. I of course had to make some Harry Potter pencil quills to go with it! Just hot glue the pencils and feathers together and you have quills! I got the Harry Potter pencils on Amazon here as well as the feathers here.

Harry Potter Crossword

Harry Potter Scramble

Harry Potter Word Search

Harry Potter Secret Decoder

Harry Potter Mad Libs

The golden cup we painted for something else in the past, made a beautiful holder for the quills! I ordered the plates and napkins from Amazon as well. You can find them here.

Party wouldn't be complete with out Olivander's Wand shop! These wands were really fun to make! All you need is chopsticks, hot glue, and some paint! Add the hot glue to make your handle and design, let it dry, and then paint! You can get so creative with these!

After the kids played their games, they came in for some fake tattoos! I found these death eater tats on Amazon as well. You can find them here.

I was in awe to see how sweet my son and his friends are to each other. They all seemed to have so much fun! Thanks to everyone who came and for all of the thoughtful gifts!! Your friendship is much appreciated!

If I forgot to credit/mention any webistes/blogs that I got the free printables from, please let me know! I would be happy to credit you and direct readers to your website! Thanks so much for taking the time and energy to inspire others! I hope my readers enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed reading yours! Always looking for ways to creatively love others!