Looking for a cool idea for a kid's birthday party?
What's better than Harry Potter!?
Harry Potter, which is the best-selling book series in history, has captured the hearts and minds of kids and adults alike. The magical world that Harry steps into when he enters the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is enthralling and, with some planning, easy to replicate for a won't-soon-be-forgotten kid's birthday party!
For Lauren's 8th and Brady's 6th birthday, we threw them a Harry Potter themed birthday party.
Want to throw your own Harry Potter-themed party?
Here are some ideas that worked for us!
INVITATIONS:
Invitations set the mood for any party!
For this party, we sent Hogwarts acceptance letters to all of the kids who were invited to the party.
(Kids' names and our phone number and address have been redacted.)
DECORATIONS:
Hogwarts Acceptance Letters Flying Out the Chimney:
Remember in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when hundreds of Hogwart's acceptance letters came flying out of the chimney?
If you happen to have a fireplace in your house, this scene can be fairly easily (and cheaply) re-created. All it takes is some envelopes, some fishing wire, tape, and--if you want to make the scene look extra cool--a stuffed Hedwig.
We used this clear fishing line (https://amzn.to/3O6Ta8k). *If you do the floating candles for the Great Hall below, you'll need the fishing line again. One spool has more than enough line for both projects.
We then typed Harry Potter's address onto several envelopes and used tape to stick the envelopes to the fishing line and to stick the fishing line to the ceiling and the bottom of the fireplace.
So easy, and so, so cool!!
The Great Hall
One of the most visually stunning parts of the Harry Potter movies is the Great Hall, with its vaulted ceilings and floating candles.
The Great Hall is a little harder to re-create, but not impossible!
Here is our dining room turned into the Hogwarts Great Hall.
For the castle backdrop, we used a couple of packages of the scene setter below. You'll need to measure your space to figure out how many packages you'll need, depending on how much wall space you want to cover.
These house banners are a great addition and add to the ambiance of Hogwarts.
We used the taper candles below for the floating candles. They LOOKED great, but were a little tricky to hang from the ceiling because the batteries added a fair amount of weight. I tried several different types of tape, and ultimately had to use some heavy duty mounting squares because no tape would hold the candles.
But once I found the mounting squares that could safely keep the candles on the ceiling, I LOVED the look!!! I would have hung more, but frankly ran out of time the morning of the party to do anymore!
HOGWARTS SCENARY
I don't have any great pictures of it from the party, but we also used a Hogwarts-like large scene setter in another room that also helped set the tone for the party!
GIFT BAGS:
There's nothing young kids love more than gift bags!! We wanted to carry the Harry Potter theme through to our gift bags, so we bought bags that looked like robes with the House colors and filled them with Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, wand pencils, invisible ink pens, and postcards from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Our 8 year old STILL uses her invisible ink pen! She writes in her diary in it and thinks it's SO COOL that no one can see what she's written unless they have the secret pen!
Links to the bags and what we put in them is below.
FOOD:
We made a bunch of Hogwarts-inspired food, including Golden Snitch chocolates, an owl veggie platter, Hagrid's Monster Trail Mix, a pepperoni and cheese calzone made to look like a snake, bat-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and Gringott's Gold (e.g. chocolate coins).
We made labels using clear labels, Harry Potter-inspired font on the computer, and some white place cards.
For the Golden Snitch Chocolates, we bought some circular, glittery gold cardboard cake displays from Wal-Mart and a bunch of Ferrero Rochers. We then bought the golden wings below from Amazon and attached them to the chocolates. The process of attaching the wings was pretty painstaking, but the result was SO COOL!! We had a toy Golden Snitch from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter that we put in the middle of one of the trays. It is absolutely not necessary, but a nice touch!
CAKE
No party is complete without a cake!!
We live in Maine and hired a local baker to make a Harry Potter cake. The cake she made was AMAZING and Jenniffer herself was FANTASTIC to work with!! I am still speechless at the cake she was able to make for us!!
ENTERTAINMENT:
Not that far from our house is the absolutely amazing Mr. Drew and His Animals Too! Mr. Drew has a store front in Lewiston, Maine, but also does birthday parties and other events.
He came to the party with snakes, spiders, and all sorts of other animals. The kids were allowed to touch and/or hold most of the animals. It was SUPER fun!!!
And the best part is that we told Mr. Drew beforehand that it was a Harry Potter themed party and he constantly worked Harry Potter references into his show, including calling one of the snakes Nagini.
If you happen to live in Maine and want to book Mr. Drew, we can't recommend him highly enough! You can contact him here: Home – Mr. Drew and His Animals Too in Lewiston, ME (mrdrewandhisanimalstoo.com)
If you're throwing your own Harry Potter party, I hope it's as magical as ours was!
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