My Birthday!

I had an awesome birthday party this month. It was Harry Potter themed birthday party and I had a lot of fun preparing it. I’m going to break down this post into sections:

1. Invitations
2. Daigon Alley
3. Sorting Ceremony
4. Divination Class
5. Astronomy Class
6. Charms Class
7. Potions Class
8. Honeydukes
9. End of Year Feast

Okay, so first, Invitations! I decided to go with the usual Hogwarts Letter invitation. 

I tried to make the Invitations as close to real Hogwarts letters as I could. First I found the Hogwarts emblem and put it at the top of each paper. Then I wrote a message that sounded sort of like the real letter and I added the information about when and where people should go for the party. Then I changed all of it to a Hogwarts looking font. In the letter I included a second sheet that listed all the equipment that they would buy at Daigon Alley and also a small permission slip to go to Hogsmeade. I also mentioned how they should come dressed up if they wanted too. 
After printing everything out I put them in brown envelopes that I had found at a nearby stationary store and taped then closed with a paper Hogwarts seal that I had also printed. I hand delivered them so I could write the whole “cupboard under the stairs” address for fun.

Here’s a picture of a finished letter:

When everyone came on the day I gave them all 9 and 3/4 tickets and told them to keep them safe. Then I lead them to the room that I had set up for Daigon Alley. There were 4 places that we went to, first was Gringotts where we got our money:

I printed the sign and I bought the galleons (gold pirate coins) from a party store near where I live. I put 5 galleons in each little bag.

After that we went to Ollivanders to get our wands.

The wands are just chopsticks I got from the 100¥ store (Basically like the Dollar Store). The chopsticks were carved in a way that made them wand like though. I found the sign by looking up “Ollivanders wand shop logo” on google images.

My sister helped with the “Wand choosing the wizard” thing. She used her iPod and had it make different sound effects when the people waved the wands. If is was a positive sound then the wand chose them, if it was negative, then that wasn’t the right wand. It was hilarious when someone waved their wand and there’d be a barking sound or when one of the wands made the Sci-Fi sound effect. Once the wand had chosen you then you paid one galleon for it.

It was fun, anyway on to the next store (which I made up because I didn’t want to do both Apocrathy and Flourish and Blotts, so I combined them and made “Wizarding Supplies Inc.”

I made the sign myself and I also made the little card things above. At the store there was “Assorted Potion ingredients” and “The Standard Book of Potions and Spells”.

The Assorted Potion Ingredients were just a bunch of small candies and the Standard Book of Potions and Spells was just a notebook with the potions and spells. I had to hand write everything so I only put 2 potions and 2 spells (Antidote to Common Poisons, Fire Resistance Potion, Disarming Charm, and the Shield Charm). I also added a little extra potion page to each book (sort of like in the movies when they open a book and an extra old worn page that shouldn’t be there falls out. On that extra page I put a more advanced potion (Like the Polyjuice Potion, or the Draught of the Living Death) I made a different one for everyone and slipped them in the books. 

To make the extra pages I just cut a page from the notebooks then I used tea to stain them and make them look old. After that I wrote the potion instructions on it and crinkled them up to further the aged look.

I got the potion instructions from the Harry Potter Wiki, but then I altered them a bit to fit the candy ingredients that I had. The Book and the Potion ingredients together cost 1 galleon.

Alright, on to the next store, which was the Magical Menagerie. I couldn’t find the real logo so I had to make one myself.

I used stuffed animals from around the house for the pets. I was able to find a brown owl, a snowy owl, a frog (not really a toad, but closest I could get), several white cats and one tabby cat. Each pet cost one galleon.

That was the last store and so we went on to Platform 9 and 3/4. For the platform I just hung up a 9 and 3/4 sign on the door. I had everyone stand in the hallway near the door and I collected the tickets that I had handed out earlier. Once that was done I lead them to the dining room where I had set up the great hall. 

That’s when we did the sorting ceremony. First I sang one of the sorting hat's song and then I started calling people up one at a time. I would place an old looking witch hat on their heads and they would pull a small slip of paper from a bag that I offered them. They were sorted into whichever house emblem was on their paper. As soon as they were sorted I would direct them to which part of the table they were to sit at. The sorting was a fun activity, but it also was a way of sorting people into teams for the games later on. Just so you know I was sorted into Hufflepuff.

As soon as everyone was sorted, I explained the point system.

Each class was going to be a game and the winning team of each game got 10 points, second place got 5, and third place got 3. I would keep track by drawing them onto the above hourglasses (I didn’t take this picture till the end of the party, originally the hourglasses didn’t have the bottom jewel circles in them. And you can also see that Ravenclaw won. Yay! oops I gave that away, oh well.)

After that the first class began! The first class was Divination and it was pretty simple. We went over what different colors signify (red=courage, green=power, blue= wisdom, and yellow=luck) Then I brought out a "magical fortune telling soda". 

I had put a little bit of dry food coloring into paper cups and covered them with ice before the party. Then I brought them out now and gave people the cups, then I poured the clear "Magic soda" into their cups and the soda changed color before their eyes! The soda turned to one of the four colors I talked about earlier and so everyone got to see what was coming in their future based off what color the soda was.

After Divination class was Astronomy. I had hidden planets and moons all around the room, and each team had to search and find as many planets as they could. When all the planets were found people counted how many they got. The winner was Ravenclaw with 7 planets, 2nd place was Gryffindor with 2 planets, and third was Slytherin with one. I drew the points on the hourglasses and we moved on.

The next class was Charms class. I handed out a sheet of Latin terms and their meanings to each team and told them that they needed to invent their own spell. In ten minutes they needed to share what their spell was and what it did. The team with the spell I liked the best would win.

It was pretty interesting to see what people came up with. Gryffindor made a spell that would erase memories, Slytherin made a spell that would make you have wings and be able to fly, Ravenclaw made a time traveling spell, and Hufflepuff made a spell that would slow down the thought process in an opponent making it hard for them to think.

The winner was Hufflepuff, then Ravenclaw, then Slytherin.

After Charms was Potions! This was the class that people had the most fun with. 

I was so tired on the day of the party that I didn’t get a picture of everything when they were in the cool jars and potion vials, but above is a picture of all the ingredients I got. 

1. The gummy worms were put in a jar and labeled “Earth Worms”
2. The Haribo peach candies were put in a tray thing and labeled “Fire Roots”. 
3. The Gummy frogs were “Dried Frogs”, 
4. The Sour green apple spaghetti strings were “Gillyweed Vines”, 
5. The chocolate covered peanuts were “Bezoars”, 
6. The ginger ale was “Mandrake Essence”, 
7. The cranberry juice was “Salamander blood”, 
8. The Fanta Grape was “Aconite Fluid”, 
9. The orange juice was “Flobberworm mucus”, 
10. And the C.C. Lemon (fizzy lemonade soda) was “Billywig Sting Slime”. 

I also combined orange juice with the C.C. Lemon in a tiny jar to be “Felix Felicis” (luck potion) I was going to give it to the team with the best potion (get the reference?).

Anyway, I gave each team a large metal pot or bowl and told them that they needed to make a potion. After they made their potions, I would go around and taste them. The potion I liked best would win. They could either invent their own or use one from the book. Most people chose one from their books. Hufflepuff made the polyjuice potion, Ravenclaw made the Elixer to induce Euphoria, Slytherin made the Fire Protection potion, and so did Gryffindor, except Gryffindor added their own flare to it. I worked on a “Antidote to Common Poisons” to help “protect” me from the effects of the other potions in case they got it wrong. In the end Ravenclaw won, Slytherin was 2nd, and Griffindor was 3rd.

After that we did some clean up and it was time for the trip to Hogsmeade.

I checked everyones permission slips and then they could go to Honeydukes. I had set up my desk with all the candies. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the shop all set up, sorry. Anyway, I found a nice logo and printed it out, then I stuck it to my white board with a magnet. I also made labels for the candy with the logo. This is what I used for the candy:

1. Friutizzles, these were the Joystix. They’re sticks of chewy fruit candy that are hard to explain.
2. Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans were just Jelly Beans, even though I did buy a package of Smoothie Jelly Beans for variety.
3. Acid Pops were lolipops dipped in honey and coated with poprocks. (I got the recipe here: http://www.mugglenet.com/misc/rosmertas/acidpops.shtml)
4. The Pocky (cracker like sticks coated with chocolate) were Chocolate Wands.
5. Chocolate Snitches were chocolate balls with golden wrappings.
6. Sour Balls were sour balls.

Everyone had the option to buy a honeydukes assorted candy bag (One of every candy and two chocolate wands) or they could pick out 6 candies on their own. Both options were 1 galleon. Off to the side you could also buy a Butterbeer for 1 galleon. I wanted to make Butterbeer with a recipe I had found online, but I couldn’t find the cream soda, so I had to settle with plain Root Beer as Butterbeer. We got A&W Root Beer, so my Dad had the idea that it was “Alchemist and Warlock’s” Butterbeer. 

Since everyone had 2 galleons left from Daigon Alley, most people spent one Galleon for their candy at Honeydukes, then spent their last galleon on the “Butterbeer”.

(Please ignore my messy handwriting on the Honeydukes white board. I was really late in the party preparations and so I was in a hurry).

After the Hogsmeade trip we gave everyone time to enjoy what they bought and watch a movie while we set up the great hall for the end of year feast.

The end of year feast was when we would announce who won the house cup (even though it was obvious if you looked at the hourglasses) and when we would have ice cream and cake.

The house cup is the top picture and the two can things to the side of the cup have these hard candy things inside that I used to fill the house cup with as a treat for the winners. The picture right above this paragraph shows the stuff I bought for the end of year feast. I got some nice trays, purple napkins (because that is kind of Hogwart’s color), golden forks and spoons (because they seemed like something Horwarts would have), and then the vanilla cake mix is in the back. You may have noticed that the finished cake is blue, that is a reference to a different fandom. Yep, you guessed it, the Percy Jackson Fandom where Percy has blue birthday cakes. The cake itself looks slightly green, that is because of the egg yokes. So, in the future when I want to make a blue cake, I’ll only use the egg whites. Anyway, you are probably wondering what that picture frame off to the right above the napkins are for, I used it as a decoration:

I made homemade vanilla ice cream too (we got an ice cream maker last Christmas!). I was hoping to make Butterbeer sorbet, but again I couldn’t find cream soda. 
Anyway, Ravenclaw won the house cup, and they split up the candy among themselves. The party was all really awesome. If any of you bothered adding up the points won in games and points in the hourglasses, you’ll see they are inconsistent. The reason is because I rewarded last minute points for random things at the end of year feast. Yep, that was the party.

So, besides having a lot of fun with the party I also got some pretty cool presents:

I got the 2nd book in the Ranger’s Apprentice Series:

I got a dragon model for my collection:

I got the 7th (no picture) and 8th books in the Guardians of Ga’hoole Series:

And my favorite thing was probably the giant map of middle earth that’s now hanging up in my room (also no picture). I also got a few other things too.

Anyway, the party was extremely fun and I’m glad how it turned out. I just wish that I had prepared a little better. So many things were last minute! There are a few things I would have liked to add if I had time and I could find all the Supplies:

1. Pumpkin Juice
2. Real Butter Beer
3. Fever Fudge (recipe: http://www.mugglenet.com/misc/rosmertas/feverfudge.shtml)
4. Zonko’s Joke Shop
5. Chocolate Cauldrons

and I’ll probably add more to the list as I think of them.