In the past, I’ve never been one to go to a lot of trouble or expense for my kids’ birthday parties. But last week my daughter turned 10 and made a special request for a Harry Potter themed party and sleepover with her besties, it’s all the rage among her group right now. I indulged her because frankly it was just so fun.
She and her friends are totally into these books and movies having read and watched them over the past few months. Her dad and I enjoy the stories and characters just as much, so together we got creative with a few ideas for her party and they turned out so cute I had to share. I also rounded up some other *brilliant* ideas spied across the internet in case you have plans for a Harry Potter themed birthday, dinner, or Halloween party in your household too.
1. Get Creative with the Harry Potter Fonts. I discovered the free Harry P font (download from Dafont) and made printable banners representing each house at Hogwarts, using these public domain logo images on the Harry Potter Wikia site for Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.
I printed them on off-white cardstock and gave them Old World parchment look by burning the edges with a lighter. More Harry Potter fonts can be found here, download our four house banners seen below here.
2. Honeydukes Treat Bags. We have a fabulous candy store in our town that carries everything you can imagine so Honeydukes Candy Store treat bags made perfect sense. I filled clear bags from Michaels with gold & silver chocolate coins with a Gringots label, turned rock candy into “Exploding Crystals”, turned red thin licorice into “Dragon Veins” and a chocolate stone lookalike was Severus Snape’s “Sleeping Stone” causes extreme drowsiness – not from the books or movies just us having fun. Of course everyone wants official Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans – buy them online here. That fantastic treat bag label I downloaded from here.
3. Hedwig Owl Balloons. These are a MUST! This is not our idea, this one’s been floating (pun!) around the internet for a long time so we absolutely cannot take credit, it came from Lizzy Writes but I love this simple idea. My daughter copied the detail with a black and yellow marker and we scattered a bunch of them around the house and gave them out to all the girls.
4. Slytherin Inspired Cake. Our chocolate cake + extra long gummy snake with toothpick fangs was inspired by Salzar Slytherin’s Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, watch out Harry!
5. Hogwarts Party Invitation. This charming invitation arrived on our doorstep (with a Hedwig owl balloon) last month from one of my daughter’s best friends for her Harry Potter party. Our friend Tony (the dad) used the language from here with some modifications and printed them on parchment like paper from an office supply store.
I’ll upload his editable version with the house watermarks and language later today, but you can also visit this site for similar downloadable party invites.
6. Platform 9 ¾ Front Door. This clever idea to turn the front door into Platform Nine and Three Quarters comes from Martha Shmartha, made with a sheet, spray paint, and a Sharpie, so fun to run through at the start of the party!
7. Golden Snitch Cake Pops. Oh how cute are these! Make your own golden snitch cake pops with ingredients list by With Sprinkles on Top, see also this butterbeer snitch how to by Amy Bites.
8. Bake Character Cookies. Follow Darla’s lead at Bakingdom and create and decorate character sugar cookies, hello Harry, Ron, & Hermione!
9. Serve Butterbeer. There are a ton of recipes online for the famous Butterbeer served in Hogsmeade, this site lists several of the better recipes to choose from.
10. Make Enchanted Potions. These authentic potion labels were purchased on Etsy and photographed by Judith Fernstrom Photograpy, get all the details here!
11. Owl Cupcakes. Deliver a message of sweetness with Owl Cupcakes spied over at Kara’s Party Ideas, those are vanilla wafers, sliced almonds, chocolate chips, and cashews that form the faces, love it!
12. Wizard Hat Cupcakes. An alternative to owls are these wizard hat cupcakes: dip ice cream cones in chocolate and drizzle the image of the scar on top with yellow decorator frosting, via iVillage.
13. Directions to Hogwarts. Send your guest to the proper place with these signs made out of yard stakes and black paint by Team Whittaker.
14. Sort Your Guests. Sew Hogwarts house scarves with fleece and a few steps with tips from Pieces by Polly.
15. Recreate the Great Hall. Remember the floating candles? Here’s a clever idea by Eating Bender to use paper towel holders and LED lights to recreate it *brilliant* !
16. Quidditch Treat Bags. Brown paper bags and pretzels make great broomstick treat bags that mimic the ones used in all the Quidditch matches, find them at Hostess with the Mostess.
17. Marauder’s Map Backdrop. “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.” This magical document makes a great backdrop to a party table, we hung my daughter’s up behind ours, you can purchase a copy here.
18. Hogwarts Textbooks. Make your own Witchcraft & Wizardry textbooks with tips from Jen at Wired, very fun!
19. Craft Wizard Wands. These DIY wizard wands are simpler to make than they appear. Create them with paper, hot glue, and steps found at Your Life Uncommon.
20. Wanted Prisoner Photo Booth. Recall the wanted poster when Sirius Black escaped in The Prisoner of Azkaban. Uniquely Grace shares how she made a wanted poster photo booth, a great party keepsake for guests.
We used eerie Halloween decorations and candles to decorate the party table (black spiders, etc.) so think about using those too! It was so much fun to host a Harry Potter themed party, complete with spooky stories told by all in the dark with just a flashlight at the end of the night.
It resulted in one very happy ten year old girl and brought back memories of sleepovers with friends at that age *sigh* so so cute! Mischief managed!
.
Such cute and clever ideas. I know a lot of adults that would appreciate this party. ;)
http://happinessiscreating.com/
Thanks for featuring the direction signs. They were do much fun to make. Looks like y’all had a great party.
I love going crazy with my son’s parties and the last one I did was no exception, a Monsters University -themed party – campus crazy for sure! Love these all Kate, especially the floating candles idea! Thanks!
Oh My Word…This is adorable. I bet she had the best time. Your daughter is so blessed to have a talented Mama and Dad!
Have a great week.
Sarah
This is so great! I love all the thought and detail that went into this parry. I hope my future children want a potter party some day!
I love all of this! How clever!
Such adorable ideas! My little guys are OBSESSED with Harry Potter right now.
This looks like it was a great party!
Fantastic round-up! What a wonderful party for your daughter. It’s so great to see the Harry Potter love continue on :)
I love these ideas!!! Can’t wait to try it sometime, way too cool.
http://www.thesarsfields.blogspot.com
We sent our son a “Welcome to Hogwarts” letter for his eleventh birthday by owl mail. I included a scrapbook with all kinds of Wizardry items. He loved every moment of his day!
Looks great Kate.
Off the subject, when I’m your site lately and click a link to go to another page ON YOUR BLOG I get directed to your sponsors website. For instance, I went to click “read the rest of this entry” for this post and I got directed to Lumber Liquidators twice and BMW once. Is it something I’m doing? Or is this how your blog is designed now? This never happened before. Thanks!
So sorry Michele, it’s a weird Google glitch that takes over sometimes, if you refresh CTL + F5 it stops, it’s really strange, I’ve had my IT guy look at it and nothing turns up so it must be coming from the Google ads in the sidebar, grrrrrrrr.
Did a HP party for my daughter many years ago. Another easy, fun snack: pretzel log “wands” dipped in melted white chocolate then in edible glitter.
How Clever!! This idea is so cute I am going to link this page to my daughter for the grandsons.
Super cute! Great ideas. What is also good is that you can include your kids in creating many of these projects.
What an awesome compilation of ideas – so many incredibly clever projects! As an avid fan of the HP books & films, I smiled my way through this entire list! :)
Love this idea! Also, I’m SO HAPPY that kids still love Harry Potter. I got the book when it first came out (5th or 6th grade for me?) and have loved it ever since. I am 26 and I re-read these books all the time!
Hi there~
Thanks for sharing your great ideas. I really enjoy your blog and we’re big fans of Harry Potter in my family. However, I wanted to let you know I downloaded the free HP font you recommended in #1 and got a computer virus. I thought you should know…
Melissa
Oh no Melissa! I didn’t have that problem but I removed the link in an abundance of caution. So sorry!
These ideas are great. Next you will need ideas for party games :)
So cute! Too bad I don’t have any little ones to do this with!
Fantastic post! I love all the ideas and who needs little ones to throw a kick-@$$ party like this? Not me! I know at least a dozen geeky thirty-year-olds who would be all over this like Harry on a Horcrux.
AWESOME ideas! So want to go to a Harry Potter theme party now! Pinning this.
Everything is SO BRILLIANT! Ahhhh!!!!
Love this! We’re having a Harry Potter themed birthday party this weekend. I purchased frog molds off Amazon to make chocolate frogs. I also used Polly’s directions for making wands and they turned out amazing! Can’t wait!
We are huge HP fans over here! My kids are now too old for a party like this, but I’m not!! I love it!! ;-)
For my daughter’s party, we sorted them into houses with a sorting hat and slips of paper, and they played Quidditch in the yard. They made their own wands and potions, I dressed up like Professor Trelawney and told their fortunes, and the best idea of all, hired a couple of neighborhood teenagers to dress in black robes and act as prefects. She is in high school now and still talks about this party.
These are such great ideas! Makes me want to have a Harry Potter party for adults!
I was wondering where you found the long gummy snake for the Harry Potter cake that you made? My son’s bday party is in a few weeks and he loves HP and wants a HP cake. Any help would be great!
Laura
Just emailed you Laura, I found those 18″ gummy snakes at our local candy store Powell’s in Petaluma CA, I sent you their phone number so they can tell you where to get them. Good luck!
I was wondering if you ever uploaded the editable version of the Hogwarts letter? I didn’t see it. Thanks for all the great ideas Kate. Ever my constant go-to for everything!
I’m always wondering this. Throwing at hp party for my sons 11th birthday next month and I love this letter.