A few months ago I received an inquiry to help with a ten year old’s Harry Potter themed birthday party. I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t a little but jealous of all that her mom already had planned. Homemade chocolate frogs, floating candles for The Great Hall, pin the scar on Harry’s forehead— she had thought of it all!
Although there are hundreds of ideas on Pinterest and various Harry Potter fan websites, I wanted to share some of my favorites all in one place to save some searching time for you in the future.
Honeydukes Candy Bar.
While candy bars are always a good idea in my opinion, the books have so many fun candy ideas that it’s a definite must for your next Harry Potter get together. From the every flavored beans (jelly beans) to golden snitches (gold gum balls) and of course the famous chocolate covered frogs, there are plenty of varieties to choose from. We used a combination of apothecary jars and glass vases to display them, and created custom name tags for each jar to showcase how they fit into the theme.
Homemade Butterbeer.
Anyone who’s a fan of the books and movies has dreamed of trying the delicious creamy beverage that is butter beer. As it turns out, it’s actually pretty similar to Cream Soda! So by combining cream soda with a frothy topping that’s a combination of marshmallow fluff and whipping cream, viola! Butter beer (or something like it). Fair warning though, it’s very sweet.
We also found some downloadable drink labels for the other soft drinks for those who didn’t want to try butter beer. You can find those labels here: http://overthebigmoon.com/halloween-decor-harry-potter-potion-bottles-free-printable/
DIY wands.
You can’t have a Harry Potter party without wands, am I right? While I’m sure you can find ones online, they can get pretty pricey pretty quickly— so we opted to make them instead. Using wooden dowel rods, we covered them in elbow macaroni and hot glue where the handle should be, and then painted them brown. It was seriously that simple! Even if you don’t have a crafty bone in your body, you can manage that DIY project.
Socks for Dobby.
Out of all of the elements of the books we featured, this was my absolute favorite. The birthday girl’s favorite character was Dobby the house elf, and wanted to ensure that we integrated him in the party plans some way. So what we did was hang a clothesline through the hallway and left a basket of socks near the front door for the guests when they came in. Everyone hung a sock for Dobby so that “Dobby could be a free elf.” A completely free and quick idea for decor but so cute, am I right?
This certainly isn’t an extensive list of the ideas out there, but I wanted to showcase some of the less intimidating ideas (because there are certainly some intricate tutorials out there that seem to require a professional contractor to accomplish).
Theme parties can sometimes be intimidating, especially when you get wrapped up in all of the ideas on the internet and comparing yourself to others. But I’m here to tell you, that there are ways to make your party theme work in your favor, for little time and money! So whether you’re planning a Harry Potter extravaganza or something else entirely, don’t be afraid to venture out of your comfort zone and try something new!