A Harry Potter Birthday

For me, one of the greatest joys of having children is observing their imaginative play and encouraging them to wonder and consider all possibilities. I love that my two still believe in magic, despite so much evidence to the contrary. In spite of innumerable fruitless efforts of conjuring with a wand, of trying but failing to see the tooth fairy, and never stopping to question how their toys wrote on their blackboard, they still believe. They want to believe, so they do.

I love reading to my boys at night - watching their huge, emotional reactions to stories, even those we have read hundreds of times. We have recently started reading the Harry Potter series. We are up to Book 3, The Prisoner of Azkaban, but will leave it there for a few years, as the subsequent books become a lot darker and scarier for youngsters. They have loved the books, as do I. They imagine a world where magic is real, where good triumphs over evil, where baddies always get what is coming to them, where kids can be heroes. Naturally this has spilled over into their play and it has been lovely to watch.

Yesterday Max turned 8 (EIGHT!).  As it was his turn to have a party this year - we decided several years ago that a party every year was too much, so the boys take turns- Max decided on a Harry Potter theme and I was happy to oblige. It is such a magical (ha!) theme and there are so many amazing ideas on the interweb and Pinterest, that I ran with it.

THE INVITATIONS:
Hogwarts letters, train tickets enclosed, were sealed with a crest and sent via Owl.

THE DECORATIONS:
We had spiders, House posters, a daily timetable, potions ready for a class, an Owlery, and Platform 9 3/4 just inside the front door.

THE FOOD: 

We had frankfurter wands, treacle tart, fruit kebabs, mini cheese and pretzel broomsticks, rice krispies, sweet and sour meatballs, chips, buns, and jelly beans. 

The crowd pleaser by far was the Polyjuice Potion, which I forgot to photograph until it was nearly all gone - lemonade (as in Sprite) with lime icecream.

Half of my food ideas and labels came from Just Sweet and Simple. 

THE GOLDEN SNITCH CAKE:

I finally settled on a Golden Snitch cake and procured a hemisphere cake tin. I decided to do a vanilla flavour on the top and my favourite chocolate cake on the bottom and to cover the two halves separately with ganache, joining them together with a buttercream.

I don't have a cake turntable, but after watching YouTube videos on cake decorating, thought they looked particularly useful, so fashioned myself a makeshift one out of Lego, a chopping board and edible glue. It worked really well and I found it a lot easier to work with one, so will buy myself a proper one before the next cake.

I'm still relatively inexperienced with fondant, so the thought of a spherical fondant cake was rather daunting, to say the least. After practicing several times on a large polystyrene ball, I felt confident enough to give it a go. I used a ton of edible gold spray paint and the cake turned out really well, even if the wings ended up drooping under their own weight.

THE ACTIVITIES

After all the guests had arrived we took them on a quick trip to Diagon Alley to visit Madame Malkin's to pick up some robes (PVC tablecloths cut and taped in place, link here) and a wand from Ollivanders. The wands were wrapped in brown paper, because, as we all know, the wand chooses the wizard (less disappointment that way, too!) They also picked up their school supplies (goody bag with all the things they needed for the party).

The kids were sorted into houses in a Sorting Ceremony - a baby monitor was hidden on a shelf behind the child, so it appeared to be the Sorting Hat speaking - it was a lot of fun!

Once they were all in their houses, they decorated their blank ties with felt stripes in their house colours and then had a Charms class, where they learned the pronunciation and wand movements for a few basic spells. They practiced wingardium leviosa by incanting it and using their wands to collectively keep a balloon afloat.

The next class was Care of Magical Creatures: 10 of Hagrid's animals had escaped overnight, so they had to hunt for them outside in the "Forbidden Forest". This took them quite a while and gave us time to get the afternoon tea ready for them to eat.

After the refreshments it was time for the Potions class on the outdoor table. I had 3 experiments prepared, but we only had time for 2. We used small yogurt pottles as cauldrons and iceblock sticks to stir. The kids really enjoyed this class.

I found some neat labels online somewhere and added the names I needed in Photoshop. I used a modified version of the recipes at Mrs Nespy's World.

Basilisk Venom was a solution of dishwashing liquid and water, Dandelion Root was baking soda and food colouring, Leprechaun Tears were red, blue and yellow solutions of food colouring and water, Crushed Dragon Bones was baking soda, Unicorn Milk was normal milk, Spider Eggs were peppercorns, Acromantula Venom Powder was cornflour, Fish Brains were boiled tapioca pearls and Volatile Solution was white vinegar.

Lastly, the young witches and wizards went to Quality Quidditch Supplies, picked out a broomstick and played a haphazard game of Quidditch. I had found a good version of a real-life game, but they weren't so interested in playing by the rules - they loved running around chasing each other and for a good part of the time used the broomsticks as hockey sticks.

I managed to make 12 broomsticks out of 2 fan-shaped straw-brush brooms from the $2 shop, reusing the original tape to tie the broomsticks together.

THE GOODY BAGS

The kids picked up the start of their goody bags early on in Diagon Alley. In it they got their Magic Spells Book, a feather quill to write with, a blank tie ready to decorate, a small card with their house on it (they didn't see it until after the Sorting Ceremony), and an activity book of HP colouring, wordfinds and puzzles (in case it rained and we couldn't do our outside activities). They also got to take home their wand, broomstick and robe.

The quills were craft feathers with the ends of ballpoint pens stuck in them and the wands I made out of quality wooden chopsticks, hot glue and beads of different sizes, painted in different colours.

 All-in-all, it was a lot of work, but worth it, as a fabulous, magical time was had by all!