Katia's Harry Potter Birthday Party

Phew! I feel like I am JUST catching my breath, after this very involved and detailed party that we had for our girl. Katia decided a few weeks ago, after attending the annual Berwick Library Harry Potter party, that she would like her birthday party to be a H.P. Party as well. So right away I got to work!
To begin with, each child walked through our platform 9 3/4 brick wall, to enter into Harry's Land. In the living room, I had created the illusion of letters coming out of the fire place. I used some old stationary I had lying around and fishing line.
Upon entering the living room, each child was sorted into their houses. We had a sorting hat, and our Harry (Noah) reached into a basket to award each child their house patch (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slitherin).
We then went into the Great Hall (with floating candles- thanks IKEA), to make our wands. We used wooden chopsticks and twisted hot glue around them to look spindly. The kids painted them. We put the wands aside to dry and moved onto our potions class (crushed bones, unicorn tears and lizard snot - baking soda, vinegar and green dish soap). They also decorated a paper bag, that would later be used for a scavenger hunt . All the kids enjoyed these simple activities.
After this, we took a break for butterbeer (yum!), snacks and cake!
 After the cake was our scavenger hunt. I had hidden 5 owls around the house that had scrolls at their feet (just used stuffies and some of my owl decorations). Each scroll had a visual clue to the next owl. The final owl led them to Honey Dukes, the candy shop! I had emptied our board game cupboard and put white lights inside. Each kid was allowed to fill a bag at the candy shop.

And that was the party! I gave the short abbreviated version here, but as you can see, it was a lot of work! As my friend Leanne said, "you can't half ass a Harry Potter party".
In the end, I'm glad I agreed to do this party. Over the years, I have learned to tone down my parties (I used to go crazy for every party and stress myself out while doing it), but for this one, I reverted to my old ways and went all out. I feel sentimental towards parties that involve children's books. I know that this time is fleeting and we wont have these years for much longer.