brownypoints: My favorite muggle turns 8!

I lived to tell the tale, the magical tale of a Harry Potter-themed birthday celebrating a special girl. This crazy mom pulled off a birthday party with 25 kids, then caught a 7 am business flight the following morning. I must really love her! And t'was certainly a character-building experience, to say the least. It's true what they say: What doesn't kill you... gives you a great sense of humor!!!

My daughter turned 8 a few days ago, and we celebrated with a Harry Potter themed birthday party because the girl is obsessed with the Harry Potter books (she's on the 4th). I remember loving the books while I was reading it as an adult in graduate school, but rereading it with my kids is even more fun as I hear their gasps of awe, and squeaks of fear. I couldn't NOT do a Harry Potter birthday when she requested it. It's almost like turning down an invitation to go to Hogwarts! Seriously, Sirius Black. But... where to begin?

Requesting the presence of Wizards and Witches

With our busy schedules between work and kid activities, the trick to not be overwhelmed is to have fun, do a small thing at a time, and definitely try to not reinvent the wheel - beginning with the invitations. There are many templates one can use from the web, or you can design one yourself, or do a mix of both. It's a great way of just using something that works for you and personalizing it. For ours, I did a mix and downloaded a Harry Potter-inspired font and added my own touch. I printed wand spell motions on the back of the card stock paper. We bought an owl stamp and a gold stamp pad and ink for that "owl post" look.

The Wand Chooses the Wizard

I was one of those kids who did arts and crafts in grade school and barely got a passing mark. I remember making a medicine cabinet, a fruit tray, and a picture frame out of popsicle sticks and they all ended up looking the same. Hey! at least I was consistent. With the advent of YouTube and Pinterest, my craft skills are not as shameful. Such are the inspirational resources for a DIY beginner! Armed with a hot glue gun, these chopsticks were no match for me. The kids enjoyed painting them with different shades of brown to get that unique wand look.

Chopsticks + hot glue gun + rainy day = beginning of glorious wand making

Acrylic paint in 3 shades of brown, plus gold for those wands with unicorn core

Ollivanders approve. But no unforgivable curses!

Professor McGonagall would be proud

One of my most favorite personal purchase for my home office is my laminator. Seriously, whether it's for written speeches, teaching materials, inspirational quotes, or party posters, the laminator does the job when you want to protect that important piece of paper. So, off I went printing different signage on card stock paper. Et voila! Cheeseballs were 'transfigured' to Hufflepuff, green plant juice to Polyjuice potion.... Magic!

~~Luckily~~ Unfortunately, we had to stay indoors one weekend because of the bad weather, which gave us ample time to work on the party crafts. It was a win-win situation - the girls weren't bored, in fact they were excited to help, and I had my minions! Mwahahaha! Er, I meant Dumbledore's army. Now that I'm an ace with the glue gun, we glued clips on ties printed on beige card stock papers. These ties serves as one activity where the guests can color with their house colors - green and silver if they're in Slytherin, and red and yellow for Gryffindor. We also made the quidditch hoops, and the girls even helped me bake our 'trial' cauldron cakes. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures after making them. Overall, what a fun indoor weekend it turned out to be!

Pumpkin cauldron cakes trial

Working on Harry Potter for Pin the Scan on HP

The making of the golden egg for the 1st task. I'm a chemist, I wear gloves for such occasions.

Quidditch hoop made of pool noodle and removable mop handle

In the next few days, we put the finishing touches on the party planning. We gathered the 7 horcrux items for the scavenger hunt, thought up some riddles, and yes, I printed that and laminated it too. The ring, locket, tiara were resurrected toys from the girls' toy bin in the basement; I took one long forgotten plastic teacup and painted it gold for the goblet. And we're set with the activities!

Insta-goblet

But what is Hogwarts without chocolate frogs? It simply isn't the same! Many thanks to Amazon, frog molds for chocolates were delivered to my door pronto. Amazon prime hopped to it! (sorry). I would also have served butter beer (a.k.a. butterscotch rootbeer float) but my divination ball showed me that Alas! it will be cold on the day of the party, so I can forget about serving ice cream. But what should witches and wizards' swag be? A broomstick, perhaps? My office floor was littered with "broomsticks" party giveaways holding the goodies inside paper bags that's been cut and frayed to look like brooms, and the handles are actually broomstick pens.

Happee Birthdae, Harriett...

Since I wasn't making the cake and cupcakes for 3 dozen kids and grownups at the party, (thank you, Dorothy Ann bakery!) I surprised Tamar with a homemade Harry Potter cake on her actual birthday. This was my first foray into fondant cakes, and I must say it's not as difficult as I thought it would be. The cake I had in mind was Harry Potter catching the golden snitch in his mouth. I bought a few essentials - white and black fondant, fondant tools, edible glitter in gold, and edible marker. You can easily pick these up from Michaels. I also bought icing glue, but I think I could have done away without it. The pastry mat with the measurement was quite important for measuring the surface area to cover. I think it turned out ok. There's definitely room for improvement design-wise, especially on the glasses, where I should have rolled the fondant in circles instead of cutting them. Again, art is not my talent. But for someone who once built a leaning tower of bookshelf, the cake is not bad at all. Still, I'm not planning on making fondant cakes often because fondants are just way too sweet for me. In fact, the best part of this cake is the cake inside. Since we were going to have a chocolate cake at the birthday party, I made an almond cake for this one. It was just dense enough to hold the weight of the fondant, but still feels light and soft. And it's not sticky sweet!

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live" - Albus Dumbledore

The birthday party day finally came, and the inconsistent weather forecast was giving me the whiplash! I couldn't decide whether to text all 25 kids' families and move the party indoors to our house, or brave the possible showers. Thankfully, my super sister was with me to allay my doubts. She flew in from California and the Minnesota 'fall' weather had her in layers, but together we willed the powers-that-be to hold the rain off so the kids can run around outside. I do thank the g-ds that the weather cooperated, because the thought of 25 kids in the house with party games indoors was anxiety-inducing!

So, the hoops were planted, the owl pinata hanging in the tree branch, and our wands at the ready! As the kids started arriving, they got sorted to their houses in a sorting hat ceremony. We had them decorating their wands with sticker gems and coloring their ties while they waited for their housemates. I also blew up a couple of balloons so they could practice their wingardium leviosa spell.

"Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see...
So where shall I put you?"
SLYTHERIN!

Swish and flick!

Going for gold

Yowza! The teams took the games very seriously, and the 3 hour party flew by! For those wanting to make their own HP party, I hope the activities below inspire you.

Pin the scar on Harry Potter - We kicked off the games with Pin the scar on Harry Potter. The scars are just lightning cut-out green or red construction papers, and we used double-sided tape. The kids were super cute and cheered their housemates on!
1st Task - The kids had a blast trying to steal the golden egg from the dragon (my husband), 2 kids at a time within 30 secs. We tied crepe papers around the kids' waists, and if the dragon pulls it, that means they're incapacitated and their time is up. Some of the serious fans asked me if 1) they're allowed to use spells, (yes, my dear, just no unforgivable curses) and 2) what kind of dragon it was they were fighting! AH! My hubby was a handsome dragon, but I'm not sure if he qualifies as a Swedish short-snout.
Horcrux Scavenger Hunt - This involved pre-hiding the 7 horcrux items before the kids came. The ones who have read and seen the movies definitely had an edge in solving the scavenger hunt riddles, but the keen ones followed the leaders and found the objects with their razor-sharp visions.
Quidditch - I have no pictures because it was crazy! We did away with the 'beaters' to avoid tackling, and the keepers had to use a broom to swat away the balls from the chasers. The game ended with the first team scoring 50 points. It was certainly less elegant than the book version, but most of the kids were far too small to follow the complex rules of Quidditch. The kids had a great time anyway!
Pinata - The games ended, of course, with finding the golden snitch! But there's a twist. The kids had to hit the owl pinata and find it. And guess who the lucky 'seeker' was? None other than the birthday girl! So, what is the snitch exactly? Nothing fancy! Just a yummy Lindt white chocolate and some gold wings.