I recently helped my sister throw a Harry Potter themed birthday party for her son. Some of the instructions for the ideas are included here.

Supplies

Any of the following

1. A printer, envelopes, stapler, glue, and paper to print out invitations, signs, bottle labels, etc.

2. Old neat looking bottles from anywhere you can find them. Some possible sources for old bottles may be, thrift shops, attics, basements, or borrow from friends or family. Also corks or some kind of stopper for each bottle.

3. For Golden Snitches; Ferrero Rocher and feathers which can be real or fake like paper (the feathers, Ferrero Rochers should be real) .

4. For Mandrakes; Air dry clay, small pots (can be plastic), silk (or real) leaves with twigs attached, wooden skewers, plastic table protector, and lollipop or popsicle sticks.

5. To fill the jars; some kind of glowing substance like slime or bracelets that can be broken open, river rocks or pebbles, sand or turbinado sugar, anything that looks interesting.

6. For birthday cake; cake mix, white frosting, green dye, red or pink dye, and candles.

7. For snacks, 1 box Berry Botts every flavor or Bean Boozled Jelly Belly beans, a Costco bucket of regular Jelly Belly beans, sour gummy snakes, sheet of plastic 2 to 3 inch frog shaped molds, chocolate for melting into frog molds, Green jello, peppermint flavoring, lollipop owls, and salt water taffy.

8. For cauldron cupcakes; chocolate cake mix, yellow food dye, and white cake frosting.

9. For Polyjuice Potion; any clear soda (like lemon lime flavor) and rainbow sherbet.

10. For floating candles decorations; empty paper towel and or toilet paper rolls, white paint or paper to cover the rolls, tape, tiny led candles, string, and pushpins.

11. For messenger owls; small stuffed owls, little printed scrolls (for them to "hold"), string, and push pins.

12. For potions class; borax, Elmer's or school glue, popsicle sticks, tiny "cauldrons" or bowls twoper guest or potion class member (can be done in shifts), food coloring of choice, and plastic bags to take the slime home in

13. A few animal ambassadors (including maybe snakes, real owls, rats, or hedgehogs) to come visit the party.

Step 1: Entryway

This red brick "wall" covered the entryway to the party. Or in other words, the front door. The chest is an old one that has been in the family for generations. Print out the sign for the platform 9 3/4.

The "bricks" can be made with a brick- like sponge and red paint on rolls of butcher or craft paper. If you have those supplies lying around. If you do not already have those supplies, it may be cheaper (and definitely easier) to order or purchase locally a plastic brick tablecloth from a party supply store.

Here is a link to one:

https://www.partycity.com/brick-wall-scene-setter-...

2 of these taped together to make the entrance in the picture above.

For the Platform 9 3/4 printout, just do an online search for "platform 9 3/4 printable". There are a lot of possibilities for this, so pick your favorite.

A few river rocks were used at the bottom to keep the "bricks" somewhat in place as it was a windy day. Look at the bottom right of the picture for the river rock.

Step 2: Golden Snitches

These are easy.

Just get some ferrero rocher's and either cut out some "feathers" or get a pack of white ones at a craft shop.

Attach them by either glue or tape. The kids won't sweat the details... hopefully :)

Step 3: More Treats

For Barry Botts Beans;

Buy one nice looking box of expensive actual Barry Botts beans. Buy a whole bunch of regular tiny jelly beans.

Carefully open the box of Barry Botts and empty the real any flavor beans into a cute serving dish. Fill the Barry Botts container with the regular beans and pour the remaining regular tiny jelly beans into that cute serving dish and stir well. Add a server (if you do not want a bunch of tiny grimy hands dipping into them.)

For Jelly slugs, make green jello jigglers and cut into worm-like size pieces.

For "cauldron" cupcakes, make chocolate cupcakes and dye white frosting "golden" then apply to cupcakes.

For frogs, use molds to make the plain chocolate ones before making peppermint ones. Place in small plastic bags and staple on printed out labels for them. Or, print out all the labels you have time for from here;

https://theswishfamilyrobertson.wordpress.com/2015...

Do not forget to print out labels to put in front of anything you want.

Step 4: Cake

Make any flavor cake and frost according to the picture, with the exception of writing the birthday person's name at the bottom. It must be spelled HAPPEE BIRTHDAE if you want it to look like the gift of love it truly is.

Step 5: Polyjuice Potion

To make Polyjuice Potion, pour clear soda into a serving bowl with a ladle. Add scoops of rainbow sherbet. It would be best to remake the potion as the sherbet melts with time.

Step 6: Additional Guests

Invite (or pay) someone to bring animal ambassadors to the party for the other guests to meet and pet.

There may be a wild animal rescue that offers some kind of ambassador program in your area.

Step 7: Activities of "Classes"

For Horticulture, have guests "make" Mandrakes by forming air dry clay around lollipop sticks and stuffing split and broken wooden skewers and leaves into it. Do not forget to add the eyes.

If wanted, look up a good "slime" recipe with Borax in it, or even just make a concoction of cornstarch and water. Smaller children love the cornstarch and water. Beware, it is messy! These can be make in tiny "cauldrons" which can be had many places. Remember, the Borax slime will likely need two cauldrons per student.

Both classes can be going on at the same time and they can rotate to the other class so half as many cauldrons ma be needed.

Step 8: Decorations

Make a sign for the bathroom door that reflects what guests may want to be aware of.

Dress up and fill bottles as desired.

One idea is to put "floating" candles on strings from the ceiling. These can be made by covering toilet paper or paper towel rolls with white paper and stuffing a small led tea light into it. Use push pins to attach the strings they hang from to the ceiling.

For a Harry Potter themed party I threw for my own child years ago I found a huge stash of stuffed owls at the Dollar store and hung them from the ceiling with tiny scrolls attached to them. Inside the tiny scrolls were a few questions related to Harry Potter trivia. The kids had a fun time getting the answers even though they were all the same questions.

If you have time, you can make owls out of washcloths at this site:

https://afewshortcuts.com/washcloth-owl-harry-pott...

If you can get a big pack of white washcloths, this can be very economical.

For more details and other fun stuff, please visit my website at https://peacefulhappylife.com