Graham's Harry Potter Junior Wizarding Birthday

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Graham turned 6 last month, and he has been begging for a Harry Potter birthday party for a long time. Since most of his friends haven't ventured into Harry Potter territory yet, we decided upon a day of "junior wizard training," and we turned our backyard into a mini-Hogwarts for the occasion. Unfortunately, the day of his party, we were all violently ill with a stomach virus, so we sent some early morning texts to reschedule for the next weekend. Luckily, almost everyone was able to come to the make-up party!

When guests arrived, they passed through Platform 9 3/4 and got right to work on making wands.

At our wandmaking station, I put out chopsticks and beads. When the kids figured out how they wanted their wand, they took their materials over to my mom, who graciously hot-glued everything together. When the wands dried, the kids painted them.

While the paint dried on the wands, we moved on to our Potions lessons.

I found some great ideas for Potions experiments here, adapting good ol' Mr. Wizard-style science with magical names and ingredients. We experimented with "fleeing spiders" (pepper acromantula eggs sprinkled in water and "driven away" by basilisk venom, or dish soap if you're a muggle):

We had fun with "dancing milk" (YouTube it), or in this case, Unicorn Milk and Phoenix Tears.

You just can't beat a good ol' baking soda and vinegar (er, Erumpet Horn and Wolfsbane Draught) explosion. It excites the kids Every.Time.


Kids were waiting on cake just to do the "explosion" over and over again. This is a good, cheap rainy day activity you can do at home, party or not. Vinegar and baking soda; what could be simpler?

We had a cauldron of dry ice in the middle of the potions table, and then we enjoyed dumping soap and any remaining liquids into that for a little "bubble, bubble, toil and trouble" sudsing action.

Finally, it was time for some singing of "Happy Birthday" and eating of cake! Look at this amazing owl cake my mom made for Graham! She also made "cauldron cakes"--chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-peanut butter ganache spilling over the sides, and a chocolate licorice handle, and some owl cupcakes with mini Oreo eyes.

Graham is so lucky to have such great grandparents, and I was so grateful not to have to  make any cakes!

At the food table, we also had broomstick bags of popcorn and some veggie snacks.

Drinks were over on the Three Broomsticks table. We served Butterbeer (cream soda, butter and rum extracts, and whipped cream), Pumpkin Juice (orange-carrot V8 Splash), and Gillywater (uh, water).

We had some grown-up beverages, as well. As always, I like to stick to the theme, so we chose beers from Magic Hat and Hap & Harry's for the parents.

After fueling up on cake and sugary beverages, the kids were ready to play some Quidditch. Mom and I made these hoops from PVC pipe, QuikKrete, and hula hoops. The broom below is made from a tiki torch and some twigs (inspiration found here). Unfortunately, after I made one, I realized I was not so excited about making nine more, so our Quidditch game was of the loosely-structured, balloon-swatting variety. Oh, and check out these amazing Hogwarts house banners my neighbor hand-stenciled. I was so excited to borrow them.

(Confession: it's been over two weeks and those Quidditch hoops are still in the back yard.)

We also had a little fun with our Transfiguration Booth, trying on robes and ties and props.

Dean was okay with trying on the sorting hat, but only if he could hang onto his cauldron cake. Seriously, he was not letting that thing go.

Upon leaving, all the junior wizards were instructed to grab a cauldron from the Owlery and fill it with their wand and sweets from the Honeydukes sweets table.

We had Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties (Little Debbie pumpkin cakes), Cockroach Clusters (Goo Goo Clusters), Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans (printable box templates here), Acid Pops (rock candy), and Dementor Repellant (chocolate sixlets).

Go home and eat more sugar, kids! (Sorry, parents!)

Happy Birthday to my sweet six-year-old. I hope it was as magical as you are!

Party planning, styling, props, and signage: Smarty Parties
Photography: Stella Dolce Photography
Quidditch Banners: Nashville Dave
Owl cake, owl cupcakes, and chocolate cauldrons: My awesome mom.




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A Wizarding Wish Party: Harry Potter at Parnassus

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Pin It (This party was originally featured on my personal blog.)

I am beyond excited to share this party with you! Last weekend, I had the honor and privilege of helping with a very special event for an even more special young lady.

Make A Wish Foundation of Middle Tennessee grants wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses. Milla, a seriously cool fifteen-year-old, is about six months into the two-year recovery process after a battle with leukemia. She has faced so much in her young life, and through it all, she has been inspired and cheered by the Harry Potter books. Her wish was to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in Orlando.

When Make A Wish grants a wish, they like to have a "wish party" to give the honored child the official news. The folks at Nashville's beloved Parnassus Books hosted Milla's wish party, and the beautiful bookstore proved to be the perfect setting for all of the Potter paraphernalia.

Let's just jump right into the photos, graciously provided by the talented Niki Cardwell of Stella Dolce Photography!

We wanted to do something to fill the large vertical space--the ceilings at Parnassus are so high! My mom and I made two felt banners for each house of Hogwarts, hanging four down the center of the room and the other four along the side walls. 

Guess whose children will be having Harry Potter-themed birthday parties every year until they graduate?

Above the register, we hung "floating candles," reminiscent of Hogwarts' great hall.  I doubt that the  Hogwarts set designers used toilet paper tubes and battery-powered tealights, but I think these came together beautifully. These were easy to put together, but tricky to hang from the 20-foot (?) ceiling ductwork and plumbing. Luckily, Patrik, a very tall Parnassus employee, helped out.

These were more impressive the later (and darker) it got. I will definitely be using them again for some occasion, whether they're theme-appropriate or not. Mother's Day? How about some floating candles? Baby shower? You know what babies love? Floating candles. It's true; look it up.

You GUYS, the folks from the zoo brought AN OWL. And not a big scary one with long talons and a sharp beak and a spinning head (not that I was scared that's what was coming--that would be crazy!), but a teensy, precious guy who was even named Pigwidgeon.

It was all I could do not to take him home with me.

Oh, Pigwidgeon. We belong together.

Supercool Niki from Parnassus had rounded up some amazing gifts for Milla, donated by generous Etsy sellers. We had the fun idea of delivering them via owl post. We had seen some fun owl balloon ideas floating around (GET IT? HA HA) on Pinterest, and this seemed the best way to put those into action.

Delightful Parnassus intern Yashwina made these whimsical flying keys, a nod to one of the obstacles Harry, Ron and Hermione face in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. She also made ME feel as ancient as ol' Nicolas Flamel himself (ten points to anyone nerdy enough to catch all that), but that is neither her fault nor relevant. Ahem.

We transformed one corner of the store into a "Transfiguration Booth," the Potter-ized version of the requisite photo booth.

I took one my son's dress-up trunk and emptied it of his things, filling it with borrowed graduation robes, ties that roughly corresponded to the houses of Hogwarts, Harry Potter glasses, and a homemade pair of Luna Lovegood's spectrespecs. We threw in a gold picture frame so people could pretend to be talking portraits.

My mom MADE that sorting hat. Just MADE IT, out of felt and pure awesomeness. I'm sure if I had given her more than a week, she could have made it come to life and actually sort us all. I mean, look at that hat!

We served snacks and sweets, and of course I had to label each one with a Rowling-approved name. The Painted Cupcake donated some delicious and incredibly decorated cupcakes.

I just have to gush over the special cupcake they made for Milla--with a fondant sculpture of Harry sitting on top!

Amazing. Other cupcakes had clever designs like lightning bolts, wands, and Gryffindor scarves. I am no artist like the staff at the Painted Cupcake, but I did try my hand at some golden snitch cake pops.

I displayed them in a small antique trunk that my grandmother gave me--she thinks it's probably an old ammunition chest; I thought it would make an awesome quidditch supply trunk.

I also made the easy-but-delicious pretzel wands, as well as some less-photogenic "sorting hat" cookies out of ice cream cones and chocolate cookies.

We offered a salty counterpart to all that sweetness with my old favorite, broomstick popcorn bags:

Regal Cinemas Green Hills donated a staggering amount of popcorn to fill those little brown bags.

Quick sidenote; the tablecloths here are actually my old living room curtains. Just thought you should know. I hated them in my living room forever, but they have been great in so many other incarnations. I think they really work here and look . . . Hogwartian? Help me out.

We had some punch and water to whet everyone's whistles, and of course, those were served over in the "potions" area, which we staged over by the store's piano.

I gathered up some official potion ingredients (wormwood, dittany, bezoars, mandrake clippings, gillyweed) from my ol' raggedy yard.

Okay, they were really things like dried echinacea and hydrangea, some pinecones, a clump of daffodil leaves, but you get the point. They looked official. Plus, they totally validated my complete neglect of our landscaping.

We had a little dry ice in a cauldron behind the punch bowl, for that authentic potions class vibe. Dry ice is a lot of work to maintain over the course of a party. Or at least it was until we were cleaning up, and THEN the dry ice decided to put on a show for everyone and be all dramatic and smoky. TOO LATE, DRY ICE.

But seriously, folks. Milla, it was my absolute honor to share in this fun and special day with you. I know your trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter will be amazing (and well deserved). Thank you for being such an all around great kid AND for liking my favorite books--I mean, I would have gladly helped throw you a Twilight party or whatever, but thank you for being so much cooler than that. You found inspiration in Harry and his friends, and I have found it in you.

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