Harry Potter Party- Class Schedule

Before I forget (like I did with her Nancy Drew party last year), I figured I should document my daughter's Harry Potter 8th birthday party. I have to say that this was one of the most fun themes: 1) because we are big Harry Potter geeks, 2) because the Internet is literally full of thousands of great inspiration parties. It's so easy! The only hard part was deciding what to do since my girls were full of TONS of ideas.

We started in the Owlery. The girls were supposed to make owls by gluing feathers on Styrofoam balls. They ended up just sticking feathers into the balls in weird alien ways. Oh well, at least they seemed to have fun. If I did it over again, I'd plan better and follow this tutorial for felt owls. I even have a ton of felt I could have used-grrr. Crafter/Party Planner's remorse. Sigh.

Wand Selection- I made the wands after googling and went for the easiest option. I ended up using dowels (I already had a bunch lying around), dripping hot glue over them, and spray painting with regular spray paint then with some glitter spray paint I had. My mom played the role of McGonagall and gave them wands after the sorting hat ceremony.

Potions Class- my dad played the role of Dumbledore and he was excellent. I wish I prepared more experiments for the girls/wizards. I really liked the experiments from this party and used two of them. My dad showed the young wizards Liquid Enemies (above) and then everyone made Exploding Elixir. It was a big hit.

While the girls were working on their potions, I took pictures of each girl in the Harry Potter Photo Booth I made inspired by this Sirius Black photo prop. I repurposed the Barbie photo booth- I knew that huge box would come in handy.

Defense Against the Dark Arts- I drew a bunch of evil monsters, trolls, etc, and had Hagrid (my husband) equip each wizard with a fighting potion (silly string) and they just went crazy. Silly String is part of each of our parties now; I have to find a way to work it in. The girls love the Silly String fights. It was funny to see my husband running around with a giant Hagrid mask, trying to see where he was going.

Divination- we gave the girls color changing drinks to tell their future. I think the colors we used were: Blue for Loyal Friend, Green for Fame, Yellow for Smart and Hard-Working, and Red for Love. I was most excited that I could use my horrible Craft Fail as part of the decoration in this room.

Of course, we ended with a trip to Honeyduke's sweet shop. The girls got to try Bertie Botts Every Flavor Jelly Beans (yes, that even included flavors like dirt and vomit) and Butter Beer. I found the jelly beans and butter beer at a local candy store-they just got them in that week. thank goodness for a late September birthday! Note- I bought a couple Bertie Botts and mixed them with Bamboozled jelly beans to save on costs and little tummies.

I didn't get pictures of the two classes I was in charge of, so here's the whole school schedule: Owlery-owl craft and goody bag decorating
Sorting Hat Ceremony
Wand Selection and Readiness
Potions
Pictures
Divination
Herbology-paint flower pots and plant seeds
Horcrux Hunt- scavenger hunt
Defense Against the Dark Arts-Silly String Craziness
Honeyduke's

We planned on playing Quidditch at the end of the party, but it was just too hot. I decided to just turn on the first Harry Potter movie and let them chill out for a few minutes at the end of the party-being a wizard takes a lot of energy.

In case you are wondering, our goody bags included the "owls" they created, flower pot and plant, wand, candy and a Harry Potter themed cookie.

Magical Mantel Decor

Harry Potter Party Decor- Part 1
I guess was more exhausted after the Harry Potter party than I thought. I just moved a few things around to decorate for Halloween and called it a day! If you have a Harry Potter party, I highly recommend hosting it right before Halloween-easy peasy.

Here's the mantel for the party- I made the Harry Potter silhouette and pasted pages from a Harry Potter book behind it, the Harry Potter books on the left are all from Half Price-which is why I didn't mind cutting one up for decor. I made the Happy Birthday banner out of pages, my daughter's name underneath was done in the front covers. I love making banners, they generally go pretty quickly and make a nice statement. It turned out so cute (not pictured since it has her name on it!). The broom is a Nimbus 2000, of course-or just a cheapo broom from a craft store spray-painted gold, same thing.

After the party, I moved the owl and potions bottles over. Voila-done! Sharing with TenJune's Fall Party.

Harry Potter Party -Exhaustion

I'm suffering a bit-exhausted from planning and hosting a Harry Potter extravaganza for my daughter's 8th birthday.

 The owl balloons were part of the birthday invitations we delivered. So cute. My favorites yet.

The owlery-the project that didn't quite turn out as I envisioned. That's 8 year olds for you; they have their own ideas. As long as they had fun-that's what counts.

I think everyone had a good time. But, I'm wiped. Also, a little ticked by one family who didn't RSVP, dropped their kid out of a running car (with no hi, or hello to us) an hour into the party, picked up without a word of thanks, and didn't even bring a gift for the birthday girl. Plus, the kid kept trying to ruin all the potions by telling everyone what she "knew" the "real" ingredients were-NOT my favorite kid. Ok, apparently I'm a lot ticked by them. Grrr. The party as a whole, though, success!

Barbie Party Decor

I love planning birthday parties for my girls. I really love setting the scene. This party (NOT my choice of themes! ahem), was actually really fun to decorate. For weeks our house resembled "Steel Magnolias," -My colors are blush and bashful. Our colors were pink and pink...and glitter! I decided to stick with black, white, and pink and concentrate on the Barbie silhouette. *Be prepared for pink, poufy, and pink-you've been warned*

Tally- 42 poufs, 20 paper lanterns, about a gazillion yards of tulle, and roughly 10 yards of crepe paper, and enough glitter to still be around today! I had a lot of the decorations already-tulle, lanterns, etc all saved from past parties. It's a sickness. I had a little help from this etsy seller; she was amazing. (I bought her Barbie box set too, which I'll have to get better pictures of for the blog since all mine have little girls having a blast inside!) I made all the larger silhouettes, which I am really proud of. I think it was all worth it.

I used wrapping paper and made a Barbie silhouette to decorate above the mantel. Kind of overboard. Oh well, if I'm going to decorate, I'm going to DECORATE. I also want credit for making the garland and pink poufs (the small white poufs are Martha Stewart from Michael's).

 Refreshments- also known as "Barbie Bites"

I can't stay away from ribbon hanging from the chandelier. Or poufs, or paper lanterns, apparently...

 "Pin the Bow on Barbie" more accurately-Pin the Bow somewhere near Barbie. Too funny.

This decoration was really easy. I used some of the cut-outs I bought and stuck them on pink doilies. Voila-Instant decor.

The front door. We had to go with Plan B due to the rain. The girls had these cardboard cut-out Barbies from Christmas. Santa knew mommy didn't like Barbie dolls, so he brought the girls these instead. Since we had them already, I simply traced the dolls and let each girl decorate her own dress. I think they looked fabulous!


Ok, I think that's enough pink and poufy for one day. 

Barbie Party-Activities

We've set the scene with a great invitation, next up decor (oh, the decor). Say you invite 9 little girls (plus our 2) to a birthday party and they all accept, you better find something to occupy their time. One of the moms remarked that our birthday parties always have such fun activities. Oh, the pressure! Here's what we did, which kept all our little dolls entertained and happy.

1. Barbie Design Studio

Intended to be an actual Barbie dress decorating station. You go ahead and Google "Easy to Sew Barbie Dress" because I did. But, you now what? Those websites LIE. Sewing a Barbie dress is a huge PIA. Let's just say that sewing Barbie dresses for 11 dolls was not going to happen. Enter Plan B. We had an awesome invitation that included paper dolls. I decided to print out a bunch and have the girls glue, color, sequin, marker the dresses. WIN!

2. Pin the Bow on Barbie
Hi-larious. No photos because I was too busy laughing!

3. Barbie Beauty Salon

Make-up, mess, great fun. Word of advice, if a 5 year old offers to give you a "Make-over", I suggest politely declining. Their make-up jobs were...interesting. The ponytail holders were part of their goody bags.

4. Barbie Story & Pass the Present

I got each girl a Barbie and wrapped them identically to pass around the circle. The two with ribbons were the ones my girls selected ahead of time; being the birthday girl (and her sister) should have some benefits. Each time the story said "Barbie," they passed the gift. At the end of the story, each girl got a doll. Which was all very! exciting!! Little secret- since my girls had no Barbie dolls prior to this party, I had no idea how much Barbie costs these days. I thought each doll was around $3. HAHAHAHAHA! Basically I spent every night for several weeks scouring eBay and the city of Houston for the cheapest Barbie dolls I could find. Oh, the irony of the mother who wouldn't buy Barbie dolls out buying 11! Anyhow, they LOVED the game.

5. Bash Barbie-just kidding pinata time

At the request of the birthday girl. Self explanatory. NO, I did not make the pinata.

6. Barbie Blow-Out
We had to scrap the Silly String. It was just too wet. It rained on and off all weekend. Heck, it's been raining for months now. (Not complaining, we are still recovering from last year). Rain and silly string doesn't match up really well.

7. Pictures and Playtime
I was thisclose to turning on a Barbie movie when I realized, "Hey, the kids are playing. Quietly. Let them play Barbies." And, it was good.

Friday Favorite-Barbie Party Invitation

How do you kick off a Vintage or Retro Barbie party?

via BessiePooh

You find these invitations. The Seller was a doll. (Hahahaha-pun TOTALLY intentional.) I found the invitations on her blog after an embarassingly long time of internet searching and she put them on etsy for me. They basically saved me. They were perfect. The invites come with a paper doll and dress that the guests can cut and dress up. Genius. Plus, they formed the basis of a great party activity I'll share later.

So, BessiePooh-she totally rocks. You should buy your party invites and party masks there. No, she didn't pay me, I am just really pleased with her products. I'm only ticked I didn't find her last year when I hosted the Wonder Woman/Superhero party (though I loved those invitations too!)

These vintage/retro Barbie Dress Up Doll invites are my Friday Favorites.

Party Time-Barbie version

It's no secret that Barbie is not my favorite toy. Prior to Sunday, my girls didn't even have any Barbie dolls (they had Disney Princess dress-up dolls, but I don't count those). Of course this meant that M was obsessed with Barbies. OBSESSED. For the past year, she's wanted nothing but Barbie stickers, books, and the holy grail-a Barbie doll. I held her off as long as possible. Until it was time for her to pick her birthday party theme.

Of course M wanted a Barbie theme. It's her party, so she got what she wanted. Well, if we were going to have a Barbie party, it was going to be a retro Barbie. I found this doll on Gilt and made that the jumping off point for the whole party. I have to say that the party was a lot of fun to plan, decorate, and watch. There are lots of great Barbie parties on the internet-hooray for good ideas. I'll compile the hits of our party over the next several days for the next party planner looking to host a classic Barbie party!

Yes, I made the cake. At least my cake decorating skills have improved!

A Bookish Baby Shower

I've spent the last week prepping for my friend Anne's baby shower. I think I might have been looking forward to the shower as much as she did because I knew I'd see her and I just adore her. PLUS I got to do all the decor. Yesss!!! This was a book shower, which was a really fun theme for me to create. I got to decorate for a wonderful friend and her very soon to be adored baby girl. What's not to love?

...The speeding ticket I got on my way to the shower, but that's another story.
There was a lot of this.
That turned into this book page wreath-after about 3 glue sticks and a couple blisters.

It was part of this. (Check out the nifty book page garland I made using the same process as the comic book garland-LOVE).

And this- a crepe paper "ragamuffin" (tied) garland. The crepe paper garland was a new thing for me. I love how it turned out.
I can imagine making it in different colors for a rainbow theme (or maybe for my daughter's art party this summer), or in blues to look like waves for a mermaid party. So cute. Easy too!

I decorated the food table with different children's books, putting the platters and flowers on top of the books to give the table some height interest. Plus, it looked really sweet.
It was a fun day (except the ticket-grr), and a really surprisingly fun theme to decorate. I had more decor, of course, but managed to reign in my ...ahem... "normal" party decorating. I think that's what some would term "progress." (Some- being my husband) Pfft. I don't have a problem, I don't have a problem...everybody keeps crepe paper in every color under the sun in their house. LALALALA, I can't hear you!

Top Projects-Painting & Parties

It's a new year, which means I'm busy on a few new projects! Already. Hopefully an early start will encourage me to finish more projects this year. I'm in the middle of a few party projects for my friend's baby shower this weekend. As I was cutting, gluing, and sewing this week, I thought back on a few of my favorite projects of 2011. Not surprisingly, my girls' birthday parties are two of my favorites.

My younger daughter's Wonder Woman/Superhero party. Her party had some of my favorite decorations- the comic book banner and skyscrapers. It turned out so cute & was a blast.

I realized I never blogged about the details of my daughter's Nancy Drew party. I'll have to rectify that. It really was a fun party.

I also love the new paint in the girls' room. I also need to show the room's details and decor; it's the perfect girls' room. This sweet silhouette canvas was the perfect addition to their new room.

I'm linking to Rhoda's Top Project linky, where I'm sure I'll find a few new projects to add to my "To Do" list.