My daughter and my two nieces have extremely close birthdays, so last year my sister and I decided to have a joint birthday party for all three girls. We chose a theme that could encompass many personalities: Harry Potter.
The girls were turning 3, 5, and 8 years old, so the oldest child is the only one who was very “into” Harry Potter, but the 3 year old and 5 year old love anything the 8 year old does, so it still worked out well.
Just in case anyone is wondering, my sister and I are huge Harry Potter fans, so it was very easy to get carried away.
The party was at my sister’s house and she went all out on decorations. Of course I helped with decorations, but Jenni (my sister) has creativity that is out of this world.
The entrance to the party.
Platform 9 3/4: use a sponge dipped in reddish-brown paint to make “bricks” on a white shower curtain.
A wreath Jenni just happened to have, I’m sure.
Hogwarts-themed birthday banner over the fireplace with a Platform 9 3/4 pillow. I used my Cricut cutting machine to cut out the pillow design. (The leg reflection in the fireplace is just a nice touch for the pic, haha!)
My sister did so many of the decorations! She painted the silhouette of the castle in the background, I really wish we had a better picture of that. She did the lettering on the Menu sign, the little painted box, the SORTING HAT!
A closer picture of the table. Look at that Sorting Hat! She made that entire thing with cardboard, newspaper, modge podge, and paint. I’m still impressed.
Some of the wands in this picture are from Target, the rest were made out of mini dowel rods, hot glue (to make a raised handle design), and black or gold spray paint.
Sorting hat cupcakes: again, I just used my Cricut to cut hat designs out of card stock. The cupcakes are filled with different color icing, so everyone gets “sorted” when they bite into a cupcake.
I didn’t get a great picture of the Golden Snitches (this party was before I started a blog), but they’re Ferrero Rocher chocolates with wings cut out of gold glitter card stock from Hobby Lobby.
Super cute Slytherin sandwiches. I made these out of Hawaiian Rolls, ham, and cheese. These are really good, so make extra.
And House Cookies. I ordered the cookie cutters from Williams Sonoma. These are just sugar cookies with colored sugar sprinkles. So easy.
The girls each got a sign with their Patronus. More art skills from my sister. A lot of the decorations here came from Target, and there are more of the DIY wands that the kids took home with them.
I made shirts for each of the girls, again, using the Cricut (by now you can clearly see the difference in mine and my sister’s talents). The designs are not my own. I’m still looking for the link.
