How to Throw a Spectacular, Homemade, Harry Potter Party

Books! We love them here and that means we also love book themed birthday parties. We've done Little House on the Prairie, Alice in Wonderland, The Green Ember, and now on to Harry Potter. Now I know Harry Potter could also be a movie themed party, but I only watched through movie 3, and the kids haven't seen any of them.

So, this is the Harry Potter book-themed birthday party my now double-digit, bookworm daughter wanted.

One challenge we had when throwing the party was not making it all about Harry. You see, my daughter is obviously a Ravenclaw who behaves much like Hermione, and with 4 kids, I have somehow managed to have 1 in each house, so a party that concentrated on Harry or was all Gryffindor colors wasn't going to do. 

To start with we had to find an invitation that included all the houses, and we found a gorgeous one on Etsy. Seriously, I've had people, Harry Potter fans, tell me they are keeping her invitation forever.

Harry Potter Themed Decorations

This Harry Potter theme made it super easy to come up with decorations. I mean everything is described so well, and there are so many fantastic places described to choose from.

Now, I am kicking myself a bit right now because I did not take nearly as many pictures as I should have. That is an oddity for me, but I guess I was too busy preparing and then helping kids to worry about it. I have half a mind to redecorate the house to get more pictures.

One thing I knew we had to have was floating candles. The way we made ours was to get the little LED tealights and hang them from fishing line; then using double sides tape, I wrapped a sheet of white paper around each one. Unfortunately that last part had to be done the day of, or I couldn't get to the little switch to turn the candle on.

I also really, really wanted to make platform 9 3/4. Before they enter the house, I wanted guests to walk through a brick wall. I took different colors of red and brown card stock and cut them to brick size. Then I taped them to fishing line so each line had bricks filling an alternate space, and I printed our a 9 3/4 symbol to tape in the middle. 

My over zealous excitement ended when it was too windy to hang on the porch. Instead I hung it between the kitchen and laundry room, so at least I still got to use it.  Guests were instead greeted by a Hogwarts sign on the door.

For table ware we used black tablecloths sprinkled with sliver confetti and the books were displayed on the table as well. 

Since we were at Hogwarts, at least that is what the large sign on my door said, I offered plates and napkins in each house color for guests to pick from.

Like I said earlier, there are so many amazing places in the wizarding world, that I had to bring some of them in. My son's love of owls aided that. We gathered all the owls, printed out an owl post sign, and turned the piano into the owl post. We also included Ollivanders, Honeydukes, and the Three Broomsticks (more on those later).

 

We didn't have a real sorting hat, but I did tape a picture and a description of each house on our coat closet door. Most of the kids already knew what house they belonged to though.

I couldn't leave out potions either. I mean potions = chemistry, and any form of science is great to me! I found these cute little labels and taped them to vases, and flasks, and whatever little glass container I could find. And we made some potions. Water, corn syrup, glycerin, food coloring, and glitter took care of most of our potions. I did use white glue and water for our skele-gro, and some cinnamon flavoring got added to the pepper up potion for added effect.

Now one of my favorite parts was the dry ice. I couldn't find any in my town, but a sister came to the rescue,and I added a skull mug with dry ice and water to my potions area. The dry ice effect gave it an extra spooky feel. Plus, dry ice for fun experiments!

I ended up with a vase of dry ice and water at the wand making station too; because dry ice!

Harry Potter Themed Party Food

Of course I needed to have food just as magical as the decorations. I did not serve a whole meal this party, it was basically just sweets. Lots and lots of sweets. Magical sweets to be sure.

The cake was fairly simple. Decorated with a mirror glaze in Ravenclaw colors and candles with colored flames.

I didn't go overboard with the cake because we had so many other sweet treats to eat! I had macarons, a flavor for each house, pretzel and peanut butter cup broomsticks, candy pumpkins, and lemondrops.

 

And tons more candy from Honeydukes. In actuality, they came from the grocery store, but the labels made them super fun. I had to create the labels as I just couldn't find ones that fit the candies I had, so you can download those below.

I had to create the chocolate frogs too, but a simple candy mold and candy melts made that super easy. The jelly slugs, fizzing whizbees, and best blowing gum disappeared the fastest. 

Download Candy Labels HERE

Along with muggle soft drinks, we also had Butter Beer from The Three Broomsticks. The bottle labels as well as the recipe came from this site. I really liked the topping (I think it would be good in cocoa honestly), but I did not like the actual drink. Then again, I am not the best test subject since I don't like cream soda in the first place.

Harry Potter Themed Favors

For favors, I keep trying to move towards crafts they can make and take; I mean no one needs (or wants) more candy or random little toys that are just going in the trash in a week. For a Harry Potter party, the obvious make and take craft was a wand. A friend told me about making wands with chopsticks, hot glue, and paint, so that is exactly what we did. 

Supplies:

Chopsticks

Hot glue (a lot)

Acrylic paint (assorted colors)

Our Ollivanders table was set up with a black tablecloth, silver glitter, and all the chopstick making supplies. Silly me only set out brown paints, but the kids found the other colors as well as the glitter. They got some truly unique wands!

And if you are noticing her super cute shirt, the cricut pattern was free HERE! I have a feeling we will need to make another when she outgrows it.

So back to the wands, all you do is use the hot glue to make whatever design you want on the chopsticks and then paint. You can make them thicker with a lot of glue or just add some pretty designs. You can look up actual wands for inspiration too. I know some of the kids made more then one; why not have a spare. 

These house bookmarks would be a cute thing to send kids home with too; especially if you have a sorting hat to decide where they fit!

Even once everyone left, and everything was cleaned up, I still couldn't bare to part with my floating candles. They sure looked pretty in the dark.