Harry Potter Party

This year, my soon-to-be six year old wanted a Harry Potter Birthday Party.  Unfortunately, I kinda dropped the ball with my dates and had only one week to plan it.  I thought I'd share with you what I did, but let me just say that if I'd had more time, it would have been much more elaborate.  In the end, though, she loved it and her guests had a lot of fun (I had a huge headache by the end, but it wasn't about me).

First of all, let's start with the cake.  I wasn't sure what to do for a Harry Potter cake.  Amazon.com to the rescue (they helped me out quite a bit with their fast shipping).  I was searching Harry Potter parties and there and found this super cute cake kit.  It arrived with all the pieces and I just had to add the cakes.  I baked 2 9x13-in cakes (Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge, to be exact).  The first cake went down as the bottom layer.  The second cake I cut in half and stacked on top of each other (I put frosting between each layer to hold it together).  They were then centered on the first cake, but with their backsides all even.  I, then, frosting the top 2 layers with light brown frosting (cream cheese frosting dyed brown).  The bottom layer, I used bright green and actually applied it with a decorating tip to create the look of grass.  Then, the castle was attached, the bridge was added, and the characters applied.  It turned out cute, but not exactly like the others (plus I had a green frosting explosion right at the end as I was attaching the bridge).

The games: the birthday princes wanted to play "Pin-the-Scar-on-Harry" and Harry Potter Bingo.  For Pin-the-Scar, I ordered a Harry Potter poster from Amazon (and thanks to my awesome mailman, I got it just in time, but that's a different story) and used that as my template.  The poster was 11x17, so it wasn't as big as I had hoped (it seemed bigger in my mind when I ordered it), but I used the Sorcerer's Stone movie picture, so Harry's head is front and center.  And it worked out perfectly.  I made each of the kids a small scar with their initials attached that they then took turns attaching it to the poster.  And since we used masking tape, the poster is still in perfect condition, so I'll frame it (I originally planned on doing that before the party, but back to the story where I didn't think the poster was going to make, I didn't buy a frame) and place it in the princess's room as a memento.

The other game was Bingo, however, we called it WANDS.  I used a handy dandy Bingo generator online to create my cards.  If you google bingo generator, tons of Free ones pop up.  I used Perceptus/Print-Bingo this time (I've used different ones in the past).  And they have their own template word lists that you can choose from if you don't want to create your own.  I was just browsing them before creating my own and found that they had a Harry Potter one, so I clicked on that.  I used theirs as a jumping off point, but I wanted more words, so I added a lot to it (and deleted a few of theirs).  They turned out great.  You can access my list here, if interested in making HP Bingo Cards.  And don't forget to make a list of the words and print them out to use to actually call out (I placed them in our Sorting hat, which we didn't use for this party, but for our Harry Potter Day Celebration).  I also had gladlock containers with M&Ms in them to use as the Bingo markers.  They were all ready, so that we didn't have to worry about that when the party started.

I also set up a little picture background.  Birthday Princess took a picture with each of her friends in front of it and we are going to use the pictures for the thank you cards.  The background is a castle stairway.  I also bought it courtesy of Amazon.  You can find it here.

Birthday Princess wanted to serve lunch at the party.  To keep things simple, we just had sandwiches and crackers (with cake for dessert, or course).  But I still wanted a little Harry Potter theme in there, so we served butter beer (aka IBC Creme Soda).  I found these really cute free printables here.  I printed one out for each of the bottles and just glued them on.  I really am thankful for people that are computer crafty and are capable of creating printables and are willing to share them.

Finally, what's a birthday party without a take-home goody bag?  I had the great idea to make Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.  Now I know that you can buy them premade through Amazon, but then you get the really nasty flavors like dirt, vomit, boogers (they really do have those flavors; we've tried them; they're horrendous) and that is just a waste of a good jelly belly.  So, with that in mind I thought I'd find a cute design on the Silhouette store to cut out a box like the ones you see on the movies.  I found one, cut it out, and decorated it to look like the movie boxes (I really could have put more time into to make them look even more genuine, but it was getting late and I really just wanted to go to bed).  The design is called tall pyramid top box and you can buy it here (but you have to have a Silhouette to actually cut it).

And that is how we throw a Harry Potter Birthday Party with only a week to plan and execute it.

Jocelyn's 2nd Birthday

My daughter turned 2 this past Friday. I have been thinking and planning her birthday for probably the last six months. I know, maybe a little crazy, but I love doing this kind of stuff. The theme was "Minnie's Bowtique." It's a Disney mini-cartoon. Anyway, here are the crafts and goodies I made for her special day.

 

I traced some mixing bowls I have for the head and ears. For the invite, I just printed up something on my computer, cut it out, and taped it onto the Minnie shape. For the letters on the sign, I used stencils, cut them out, and taped onto the Minnie shape. And for the bow, I looked up a tutorial online on how to make flat bows.  Click HERE for a quick video . And just so you know, adding the bows made them top heavy so I couldn't hang the sign without them flipping over so I ended up taping the sign to the wall.

 

 

This was for the "Pin the Bow on Minnie" game.  I traced bowl lids (they were a little bigger than the bowls themselves) for the head and ears. The face and bows I drew just from looking at pictures and then cut them out. I colored the face and taped to the Minnie shape.

 

 

 

This is the goodie bag I put together for our guests. I had a bunch of lunch bags so just used them. I printed out something on the computer, cut it out, and taped to the bag. I know, easy. In case you're wondering, inside was a Minnie/Mickey puzzle and hair bows (or bowties for the boys).

 

 

For sides we had cheese and crackers and grapes. I bought sliced cheese (not the nasty processed kind) and used a mini cookie cutter and cut the cheese. HAHAHAHA! That joke never gets old. The main meal was chicken nuggets (shaped like Mickey from Costco) or PB&J sandwiches. I was going to cut the sandwiches like Minnie but the cookie cutter ended up being too big. We had different juice boxes and water for drinks.

 

 

 

And these are the cupcakes I made. I used a good ol' box cake mix. Chocolate of course. Then I tried to get the frosting red but I swear I used half a tube of red food coloring and they were still pink but that worked just fine too. Then I used mini oreos for the ears and decorated with sugar balls. The party turned out great and I jokingly told my husband, when our guests left, that it was time to start planning next years party. Haha, I'm not that crazy.

 

The birthday girl.

It's December Already. What have I been up to?

Okay, so it is already December.  I haven't posted since my fiasco with Pumpkin seeds at Halloween.  I have a really good excuse this time, though.  Not only did I host Thanksgiving at my home for 16 people, but I participated in a little thing called NaNoWriMo.  Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month?  Well, you do know.  And I participated this year.  In fact, not only was I a winner (having written 50,000 words in a new novel), but I feel like I should be considered a super winner because my total word count was 77,912.  I am in the midst of my editing and revisions, but I wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about my blog.  In fact, I am working on two new Christmas ribbon wreaths and homemade stockings for my family (you can see my post on the baby's here).  So, those posts will be forthcoming.

Also, I'm a winner in a completely different way.  I won the Tastefully Simple giveaway on A Bowl Full of Lemons.  It is my favorite organization blog.  If you've never visited Toni's blog, I'd highly recommend it.  It is fabulous.  You can visit it here.  I really do love being a winner.  And over the last few weeks I feel like I'm a winning machine (have I mentioned that I've already finished my Christmas shopping and decorated my house?  No, well I have.  Score another one for me.).