Harry Potter Birthday Party

So this weekend sweet Sam turned 7.  He is always interested in fairies and wizards and gnomes and magic, so when he first listened to Harry Potter on CD this summer he was hooked.

He gets to choose a theme for his birthday, with parent guidance, of course.  We settled on Harry Potter, and then we proceeded to see how we could pull of something that felt magical for Sam and inexpensive for his parents.

Here is where we ended up:

We made a Hogwarts trunk that we added a scarf I made, glasses bought online, a wand we made, spell book and map printed from the internet.  We enjoyed playing with these in the week leading up to the birthday.

With a piece of kraft paper that was sponged and a printable from the internet our backdoor became Platform 9 3/4 

We printed out a banner from the internet and other free Harry Potter finds--maps, et al.

We made snitches

We made wands

We made chocolate frogs with trading cards, but they did NOT come to life1

Cupcakes with wizard hats and lightening bolts.

Crescent rolls baked up as sorting hats.

And here is out very own Harry Potter!


It was a fun challenge to limit expenses, but make it fun.  This was a great theme because lots of grown ups enjoyed it, too.  Our other food was mostly salads because that's what the birthday boy wanted.  There were only two other children, cousins, and they painted their own paper mache trunks.