harry potter birthday party.

The fact that I am just now posting pictures from my son's seventh birthday party is proof that, well, proof that I am tired, forgetful and busy.  So let's skip the fact that the party happened in June and carry on to the fantastic part that the birthday boy had a spectacular time.

The ever so fabulous Lindsay (of run lucas run), whipped up the graphics for the treat bags, butterbeer, invites and pin the lightening bolt coloring sheet.  She called upon her righteous design skills to create a simple, modern spin on good ole 'Arry Pottah.

I kept things simple and inexpensive because that's the name of the game over here.

The invites were train tickets tied onto Hedwig's claws.  I got the idea off of pinterest but instead of blowing the balloons up with helium, I just did it the old fashioned way—with my mouth.  Then I fastened brown pipe cleaners to resemble claws and used twine to tie the invites on.  My husband was so kind and sketched the owl onto the balloons with sharpies.

I bought wooden dowels for the wand creation station.  I gathered up every color of permanent marker and let the kids go to town.  After that, the children colored the lightening bolt pages.  We used those to play pin the lightening bolt on Harry, which was a big success! 

I made the cake to resemble the one Hagrid presented to Harry when they first met.  There was a whole tears and gnashing of teeth incident the night before the party, wherein I left out ingredients from the made from scratch cake and it all went down hill from there.  Just picture an insanely tired mom, throwing a box cake mix into the oven at one in the morning.  The sight was not pretty friends.  But the kids liked it and by that point I didn't care.

The treat bags were full of wizarding goodies from honeydukes.  I made chocolate frogs (using a frog mold), licorice wands, gumballs, jelly belly jelly beans in test tubes and cream soda for butterbeer.

I used brown kraft paper to cover up a sun hat in order to create the sorting hat, a MUST for a Harry Potter party!

Besides the cake fiasco (and cutting out each candy label), the party went off fairly well without a hitch.  And the birthday boy, he had a load of fun, which was my goal.

A big thanks to Lindsay for all the graphics and Stephanie (Auburn Soul) for the pictures!