Well, the party took place last Saturday. I haven’t posted since then because it has taken me that long to recuperate from the weekend. But in my defense, we had out-of-town guests and the partying went on through Sunday as it was my birthday that day.

We’ll start with the decorations. Our garage was turned into the Grand Hall of Hogwarts. I don’t know how “grand” it was given its low ceiling. But it did look cool. Thanks to hours of help from fellow MAMMAKAZES – Zadrina and Angelica. Thank you both so much. I couldn’t have done it without you. Plus you made me help Randy the Perfekt husband realize that I’m not the only mom who gets into these things.

We set up 4 tables, one for each house and hung house flags over them. We used fishing line so that the flags looked like they were magically hanging. We did the same for the candles (thanks Z for figuring that out). We hung white Christmas lights for ambiance.

 

Upon entering through red curtains we used to separate the house area from the garage, the kids were met with the Ollivanders table. This is where they selected their wands… or rather, their wands selected them.

Notice the dry ice in the cauldron. Nice touch Uncle John. Also, I downloaded a photo of The Fat Lady and framed her in one of my frames.

 

I bought the cake from Costco (an excellent cake for the price) and had the edible art made at a local cake shop from a picture I had of Julia as Hermione at Halloween. I added the words on my computer.

 

In addition to keeping their wands and the prizes they won from the Cauldron of prizes, the kids also got goodie bags filled with Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, the Hogwarts School of Magic Pens and Harry Potter stickers.

 

Also, though it’s not visible in these pictures, we had a sound system set up in one corner for music and microphones. You need a mike when trying to talk above 25 kids and countless adults! And the front of the hall had a white screen upon which was projected Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Julia’s favorite of the films). And we also used it for the game of Harry Potter Scene It, which was one of the competitions between the houses.

CONTINUE TO NEXT POST FOR THE COSTUME PICS!