Your Invitation to Hogwarts
As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently threw myself a long overdue Harry Potter themed party. I shouted my seven guests to a wand making class AKA Charms Class but the fun didn't stop there... like Hermione at the library I had to go all in. It became a month long craftacular as I prepared for my party.
I am going to post a series of blogs that review some of the HP crafts I found online and also explain a few of the decisions I made to create my own unique Harry Potter birthday party. I apologise in advance if Harry Potter is not your thing, but chances are you know someone whose thing it is. So maybe send them the link for them to enjoy in your stead. We will go back to regular muggle blogging soon enough.
Owl Post: A Hogwarts Invitation
If you use an internet search engine to Google "Harry Potter birthday party" (see what I did there) you will find that one of the first steps to create a memorable and authentic HP party is to whip up your very own Hogwarts letter to issue to guests as their invitation. The most comprehensive blog posts that I found for creating a Hogwarts letter was by Paper Trail Design and More than Thursdays.
So I trundled down to Officeworks and purchased a green pen and parchment paper. I got back to my house and decided I couldn't be bothered nor have time to make seven invitations and Hogwarts Express tickets attached to balloon Owl and hand deliver to everyone's doorsteps. Lord knows I wanted to but... instead I opted to bring Hogwarts into the digital age. I created a secret page on this here website and gave it the password Alohomora (clever, right?!) I would then be able to keep guests up to date with a couple of owl posts. You may not have a website but you could do the same thing via email or a Facebook group.
I searched the internet for a parchment image, downloaded a Hogwarts crest, Harry Potter style fonts and a Minerva McGonagall signature and cast a spell in photoshop with the skill of Seamus Finnigan. Then swooosh, the owl/blog post was sent.
Owl Post: It's a costume party
A subsequent post alerted students that this was to be a costume party... each guest had a role to play. And boy did I have fun selecting some inspiring gifs. I had actually hoped to go as McGonagall in the outfit she wore to the Yule Ball, but that was a LOT of green fabric so I choose a different costume (...teaser to future blog post).
From Privet Drive to Hogwarts in 2.5 meters
I persuaded my mum to let me use her house for the party which was a perfect size and the perfect layout. I wanted my guests to be transported from Privet Drive to Hogwarts in the distance of about 2.5 meters. Mum's corridor had a massive wall of family photos so I searched the internet for an assortment of portraits of the Dursley family and stuck them over mum's photos with blue tack. Simple and effective. Welcome to the Dursley's lounge room.
As ANYONE who has watched/read Harry Potter will know, students get to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express but first they have to pass through a brick wall to get to Platform 9 3/4. This is a MANDATORY decoration for any HP party. Depending on your budget (both money and time) there are sooooo many ways to create your own Platform 9 3/4 entrance. You could buy one, craft one, you could go all out like this one and this one, or you could just fly your guests to King's Cross Station and get a photo taken there. It's your party - it's totally up to you.
I opted to craft my own. I purchased 2.5 meters of the cheapest calico I could find at Spotlight, along with a bottle of red and black poster paints and a sponge. I had seen this done, how hard could it be. I took my fabric and headed into the driveway. I mixed the paints, red with a little black, and started to sponge it onto my fabric. It got a bit messy. And then I realised... it was soaking through to the concrete. We live in a rental, this was not ideal. Even though they are water based paints, the stress of accidentally staining the driveway was too much to take. I moved the fabric to the grass and hosed down the concrete.
The grass was more challenging as it was not a hard surface to print against. Yes, I COULD have found some cardboard to put behind but I was impatient and the sun was going down quickly. I became frustrated at having to press the sponge down repeatedly on each print. The sponge was absorbing more paint than it printed. I decided to do away with the sponge and instead use a DL sized flyer that was in the letterbox. I had instantly better results, although significantly more messy.
As I stepped around the fabric on the grass my foot came down hard on something. It didn't feel great. I was barefoot. I stepped on a 7 cm cactus spine that came straight from hell and into my foot. I grabbed my foot smearing it in red paint. I felt faint - but I had a brick wall to make and dammit I was still on the battlefield. So I hobbled along frantically printing my bricks, ignoring the pain. I packed up and went inside to rinse off the paint and recuperate. (Note that I had the following day off work as it was too painful to walk on - that's right - a craft injury led to me taking a sick day). The brick wall had taken a lot longer than I thought it would. When it was dry I cut a slit from the bottom to a height that people could pass through. Then ta-da - MAGIC!
You may be saying to yourself, yo! that sign says Platform 5 1/2, has she even read the books?
So, the week before the party a few of the guests were at a BBQ together when we decided to play some impromptu HP trivia. One of the guests (cough-Fred) has never read the books or seen the movies - a true muggle. So when the trivia question about the platform number came up we all decided to leave it for him to answer because surely everyone knows this.
It was multiple choice...
