Hogwarts Birthday Party: Part 3

The Decorations

Since the Hogwarts school is basically a castle and the world of Harry Potter is somewhat rustic and medieval, our decorations have to reflect that. If you start looking around your house, you'd be surprised at how many items can fit into that genre. Look for candles, pictures, books, statues, dishes or goblets, furniture, fabrics, jars, bottles or anything else that you might find in a castle. Ask friends or family if they have anything that you can borrow for your party. Visit the Salvation Army, Value Village, Dollar Store, flea market or even garage sales to find inexpensive props for your party. I was lucky that my daughter's birthday was close to Halloween so there were lots of cheap trinkets and party favours that I could buy at the Dollar Store that worked perfectly for our Harry Potter party.

Decor

I held our party mostly in the basement which I converted into the Great Hall and Snape's Potions class. Other parts of the house were used but not decorated as completely as the basement.

For the Great Hall, I covered the walls in a cheap "Scene Setter" wallpaper. You can purchase this locally around Halloween time or online any time of the year.

http://www.frightcatalog.com/Halloween-Decorations/Scene-Setters/Stone-Wall-Room-Setter-1022047/

A more expensive but much more realistic look is this flagstone gossamer
http://www.shindigz.com/catalog.cfm?pgp=P0409E

which you can see used in Britta's Hogwarts party http://www.britta.com/hogwarts/decor/index.html

I purchased two packs of the Scene Setter wallpaper and it still wasn't enough so make sure you measure your room accordingly. Foam tape can be bought at the Dollar Store and used to hold up the wallpaper. Just be warned - the stuff does not come off. Anyone who knows how to remove it from the walls please let me know. (Another reason to decorate your basement.)

I found a decent .jpg of the Hogwarts seal, resized it, and had it printed on a plotter for a massive wall hanging. That really gave a lot of "authenticity" to the decor.

On either side of the Hogwarts wall I purchased some cheap black wall sconces at the Dollar Store along with lots of white candlesticks. In hindsight, the candlesticks being right next to the plastic wallpaper were a bit of a fire hazard. For a later party, I used battery operated candles which you can find at dollar stores around Christmas time. Just pull off the base and they can be put into any standard candlestick holder. Candles are a great accessory for your Hogwarts party so find as many as you can and put them in every room. Even unlit they are great props.

For the Great Hall table, I used two desk tables placed end to end to create one great long table. Covered with a red tablecloth (from the dollar store), it was very striking. I had a black wrought iron chandelier that was perfect hanging in the middle of the room over the table. For the table benches, I actually found some large dog treat buckets which I cleaned up and spray painted black. These served as the "legs" of my bench with a long 12' wood plank bolted to the top. The benches are a bit short for adults but were perfect for little Hogwarts students!

I could have purchased gold or silver plates for the table but I thought my daughter would rather have some Harry Potter plates, cups and napkins. I purchased some clear plastic goblets that lit up on the bottom from the Dollar Store. That was a great find, but at a dollar a piece I decided to give them away to each child as part of their "loot bag".

Since it was near Halloween, the Dollar Store had some great mini-cauldrens which I picked up for about 6/$1. I used a gold pen to write each child's name on them & then filled them with jelly bellies (Bertie Bott's). The kids got to take those home too.

I am fortunate to have large windows in my basement which let in a lot of light. To really create a castle feel to the room, one window was covered with a tissue paper "stained glass". To create this, first measure your window. Since mine is large, I taped 4 black poster boards together to create one giant one. Trim the edges so that it covers your window perfectly. Next, measure and draw your lead lines about 3/4" thick using a large ruler. Then, with an exacto knife, cut in between the lead lines where your stained glass will go. For the stained glass, I used red, blue, yellow and purple sheets of tissue paper from the Dollar store. Cut each one to fit its "pane" and paste it in place. The end result is quite striking and when the sun shines in, it really looks like stained glass!

The two chairs in the room were covered with gold tablecloths (from my mom) which gave them a more regal feel. I used a bar stool from my kitchen for the kids to sit on and be sorted. For the sorting hat, I purchased a witch's hat from the Dollar Store and covered it in brown felt, creating a face while I sewed. For the sorting list, we already had a roll of drawing paper from Ikea that was the perfect color and curled nicely into a scroll shape. All the names of the children were added to the list, printed in gold ink.

Various books and candles adorned the shelves in the room and the kids computer table was used as a sidetable for refreshments, etc. I covered it in a great old quilt (borrowed from family) which hid the computer underneath. In the months leading up to the party I downloaded Harry Potter music and put it on that computer to play in the background during the party. The effect was magical!


Snape's Potion Class

Snape's class was rather easy to recreate. My floors are hardwood and I have an electric fireplace on one wall which was turned on during the party to give safe, no-heat ambiance. On the mantle, I stacked wonderful old books, candles and topped it off with an animal's skull I borrowed from family. A side table was equally adorned with books and a great plumed pen (from my wedding, no less). Two low tables were set up for the kids with dozens of interestingly shaped and colored bottles, bowls, and goblets which held the potion ingredients for Snape's class.

The walls were adorned with any appropriate picture I could find. We used the snowy owl & Harry Potter poster from my daughter's room, some old dragon & unicorn posters from my childhood (I knew I was keeping those for a reason!) and the horse pictures that were already there simply stayed. All furniture was removed (save the potions tables) so that there would be room for the kids to sit on the floor and learn ;-)

Snape was played by a friend of mine who managed to find an appropriate costume since it was near Halloween. In fact, all my adult guest helpers dressed up as witches and were heads of a Hogwarts house with the exception of my mom who played Madam Malkin.

The main part of my home was used as Diagon Alley. The kitchen table was covered with a green table cloth with great green candles. On one side, was Madam Malkin's Robes for Every Occasion. For the robes, I purchased oversized black t-shirts at a cheap store and the flea market. This was the most expensive purchase - each shirt averaged $2-$3. The front of the shirt was split from the bottom up to the collar (leaving the collar intact). The kids could pull the shirt over their heads to make a long black school robe. I found each Hogwarts house crest online and printed them on sticky paper. They would be given to the kids later.

On the other side of my kitchen table was Olivander's. For the wands, I used the tent poles from an old play tent and cut them into about 12" lengths and painted each one in wood colors. We purchased some craft pieces from the dollar store and decorated each wand with leather strips, tiny roses or feathers. They really came out nice and the kids got to take one home as a souvenir.

Over at Gringott's in the living room, a table was set up and covered with a tablecloth. My daughter just happened to have a small trunk in her room that was painted and decorated like a treasure chest. Inside that were gold pieces that I got from the Party Store. I also kept the loot bags in there for later.

Every shop in Diagon Alley had its own sign. I used the same Harry Potter fonts and parchment paper as the invitations and found some great background frame images on the internet. I even put a sign up over a doorway that read "Platform 9 3/4". That doorway was covered with a cheap vinyl tablecloth from the Dollar Store that was split up the middle so you could walk through it. I had a tough time getting it to stop blowing around and look like a wall so I eventually taped some coins to the bottom to give it weight.

The stairs leading down to the basement (and Hogwarts) were lined with 11th-19th century paintings. I already had lots of medieval artwork in my home that I used for the party. The rest of the art I had to create so I collected as many wooden or gold frames as I could find. Then pictures were downloaded from various museum sites on the internet (such as http://www.wga.hu/), printed in color and put in the frames. The end result was quite like the art-filled staircases at Hogwarts. I liked the look so much that I kept some of the pictures in place after the party.

Next post: Part 4 - Activities.