HARRY POTTER BIRTHDAY PARTY (Part Two)

 Harry Potter Party Desserts

In my first post, Harry Potter Birthday Party (Part One), I wrote about how I made my own Harry Potter invitations/ acceptance letters for my party. 

A second part of planning the party was finding themed food to go along with the movie. For some reason, most of the food ideas I saw were either completely unappetizing or simply uninteresting. The best-looking desserts were obviously the ones that were ordered from professional decorating companies, but I wanted something that would look authentic, be tasty, and could be made myself.

I eventually found a few different snack/dessert recipes that I liked, and I'm happy with how they turned out.

Ollivander's Chocolate-Covered Pretzel Wands

 Edible wands? Genius, right?  

 

These are also super easy to make. Just buy pretzel rods at your local grocery store (found mine at Stater Bros), dip them in chocolate, roll them in either nuts or sprinkles, and voila! Some I covered in caramel before dipping them in chocolate. I used up the leftover melted chocolate by just making some extra normal covered pretzels.

 

When they cooled, I put them in clear plastic goodie bags and tied a ribbon around the top. (I forgot to take a picture of this part). You could also make a label that says "Ollivander's Wands" to stick

on the bag if you want. Or, you could put them on display the way they do here: Wizard Wands.

 Harry Potter Cupcakes

Sadly, I didn't actually have the time to experiment with whether I could make the Harry Potter characters in cupcake form. (Someday I will though!) For this party, I instead made House cupcakes, golden snitch cupcakes, and popcorn bucket cupcakes (since it IS a movie marathon after all...)

Credit: Golden Snitch Cupcakes

Practice makes perfect, and well, this one I am going to try again. Not terrible for a first try though!

To make snitch cupcakes, first mix up a dark gold color (I didn't quite reach the right shade for mine) and frost the cupcakes. In a paler yellow frosting, pipe the swirls before attaching the wings.

Photo Credit: MuggleNet.com

To make the wings, draw one template and trace it onto wax paper. Flip the wax paper over and pipe melted white chocolate over the outline. 

Allow it to harden before carefully peeling it off the paper. 

To make paper piping bags, which are good for piping chocolate because you can melt the chocolate in the bags, follow the instructions found here: Paper Piping Bags

Credit: Popcorn Cupcakes

Be warned: these might take some time.

For each piece of popcorn, cut a mini marshmallow into three parts and then pinch it back together firmly. You'll need about 25 marshmallows for each cupcake.

To make the bucket, cut a piece of white construction paper about 1.25 inches by 8 inches long for. Draw the red triangles with a marker. 

Lastly, copy and paste this popcorn label and print it out to glue onto the red and white strip. Wrap the strip around the finished cupcake and tape securely.

Of course, there are no doubt dozens of great Harry Potter dessert ideas out there, but these are my favorites out of the ones I found. I definitely would make all of these again, if I ever had another birthday party like this one. 

What about you?

What are your favorite Harry Potter party ideas?

I would love to hear them!

HARRY POTTER BIRTHDAY PARTY (Part One)

Like most of my generation, I grew up with Harry Potter.

Ever since the last movie was released, I was determined to have a birthday party marathon of the movies from start to finish. Coincidentally, this is also the year I turn 18, and it seems like the perfect event to celebrate the culmination of my childhood.

 I started googling ideas for Harry Potter themed parties, and there were plenty of suggestions for elementary-aged kids, but surprisingly few for older teenagers. I also wanted a template for a Hogwarts acceptance letter (the perfect party invitation!). Surely someone would have made one, I reasoned, since they are in such high demand.  

 

Apparently.

Not.  

Sigh.

Most of the letters I found were too far from the original in appearance and were clearly not made by Hogwarts. The few individuals who had succeeded in making authentic copies of the acceptance letter posted only pictures online, but no templates. That left you to figure out the fonts and the alignment on your own.

I stubbornly decided that I would have genuine invitations, no matter how long it took. And I did. After an entire afternoon of work,  I suddenly understood why no one else who had accomplished the same feat had posted their templates online.

Why should someone be allowed to achieve in minutes what took me hours?

If they REALLY want a letter, they can figure it out themselves. 

This template is mine... Miiiiiiiinnnnnneeeee! 

 This inner voice rather suspiciously resembled that of Smeagol from Lord of the Rings.

But if I listened to Smeagol, then think of all the 11-year-olds who wouldn't receive Hogwarts acceptance letters on their birthdays because their parents (or older siblings, or friends) didn't have the time to follow the same lengthy process I did. Or the teenagers who wouldn't be able to send their own awesome party invitations. And where would I be now if it hadn't been for all the generous bloggers who freely shared their knowledge with the cyberworld? I definitely wouldn't have been able to enjoy as many fun projects as I have over the years.

So in the end, I may or may not have created a blog solely for the purpose of writing a post about how to plan a Harry Potter birthday party. My hope is that it will be helpful to anyone who, like me, turned to the internet for inspiration.

Hogwarts Acceptance Letter/Invitation Guide

Follow these steps to make your own authentic Hogwarts acceptance letter.

 

1) The letter and envelope use three special fonts: Magik, Hogwarts Wizard, and Dumbledore. Download them here: Magik and Hogwarts Fonts and Dumbledore Font. If you skip this step, the templates will be useless to you because your computer will not display their fonts correctly.

To install and use these fonts, first save the file to your desktop. Right click the folder and hit "Extract All". Then, go to the Control Panel and open the folder labeled "Fonts". Copy and paste the contents of the folder you downloaded into the Fonts folder, and you should be good to go!

2)  Download the Letter Template and the Envelope Template. They were made on Word 2007, but hopefully they will work on earlier versions as well. Personalize the information by changing the name and address.

3) Print the letter on official-looking paper and print the address directly on an envelope.

4) Either purchase a wax seal kit, make your own customized wax seal with this DIY Wax Seal Tutorial, or print this image of the Hogwarts wax seal. Cut it out, glue it on the envelope, and it almost looks 3-D.

5) Purchase either helium-filled white latex balloons or blow up your own. Use sharpies to draw an owl face on each one (so that it resembles Hedwig) and then attach the balloon to your letter. I personally love the helium idea, and this is what it would look like if you went that route.

  

 And that's it! I had a ton of fun with this project and hopefully you will too.

Lastly, credit must go to Debt Free by Thirty, which had the most helpful Harry Potter letter tutorial that I found. Although they didn't provide a template, they did link me to two of the fabulous fonts.

Part 2: Harry Potter Party Desserts

(Coming Soon)