Harry Potter 7th Birthday Party

For Emma’s 7th birthday party, she wanted to do a Harry Potter themed birthday party so we opted for one at the house with a smaller handful of people, and it was magical.

It’s no secret that I am quite the HP fan (#always). So when Emma started to get interested in the movies, we also started reading the books, and well, she’s obsessed. It was so much fun getting everything together for her big day!

All the details are below for your very own Harry Potter themed birthday party!

Platform 9 3/4

We set the tone by turning our front door into Platform 9^3/4 at King’s Cross Station complete with Hogwarts Express tickets that they took home in their goody bags. The brick wall wasn’t too far off from our own so it made for a really fun entrance! We also created a shops sign post for an extra touch that now lives in my office. (download shop logos below)

Sorting Ceremony

Naturally, we had to do a sorting ceremony at the beginning of the festivities. We set up a stool at the top of the stairs and had them sit with the Sorting Hat on. Emma used this origami sorting hat to guide the sorting, and Glenn voiced the hat …. Better be….Gryffindor! (and Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw, and Slytherin too! Every house was represented.) Once sorted, the kids received their house crest stickers to wear with pride for the rest of the night.

Honeydukes

You can’t have a party without sweets, so it was all too fun to turn our bar cart into the trolley with Honeydukes treats. We actually didn’t buy any candy and used what we already had in the house from Valentine’s day and such. The candy filled several different height crystal vases with a variety of non chocolate sweets and gummies. Streamers in pink, white, and lime green mimicked the logo colors for a whimsical feel as well. The goody bags were Honeydukes themed as well so we housed them on the bottom shelf of the cart to tuck away their treats as the night went on. This was coupled with the stickers and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans that were there to start. We also sent home this lovely packet that included spells, potions, crosswords, coloring sheets, and lots of other fun activities that were both educational and fun!

We also had several golden snitches on the cart as well. These chocolates have long been a favorite of mine, and adding the golden wings to them was so simple to make adorable treat that doubled as decor.

Hogwarts Great Hall

One of the first things Emma asked for was the bewitched lights in the dining room, so I knew we had to make that happen. Thankfully, we found these candle lights and used some fishing line to hang them from the chandelier for quite the effect. We scattered Educational Decrees across the walls, and hung the House Crests Banner as well.

These cupcake stands were perfect to add some layers to the table to mimic the great feasts that occur with the abundance of food at mealtimes. We alternated cupcakes in the house colors and the chocolate snitches. We used these cupcake toppers both in the top layer as well as “confetti” on the table with some additional snitches. The centerpiece was a plate of homemade chocolate frogs and origami boxes to mimic the ones from the movies (download template below). Otherwise we kept the table scape simple with these adorable matching plates, cups, and napkins. And we opted for the always perfect meal of pizza delivered straight to your door.

For drinks, we had two options: Polyjuice Potion or Pensieve Punch (which we made extra magical with the addition of this special ingredient).

Quidditch

OK. I won’t lie, I toyed with SEVERAL ideas of how to make Quidditch happen given the whole lack of flying ability and the attention span of 7 year olds. I’ve seen several options (with balls & brooms & hoops on rings and even some with balloons and ping pong balls) but I knew we wanted to do something the kids could easily participate in. SO I came up with Corn Hole Quidditch and the kids LOVED it. We had 3 sets of corn hole boards and set them up in a staggered row on each side to mimic the height difference of the goal posts in Quidditch. We then split the kids into their houses for a bit of a tournament with the remaining witches and wizards on the sidelines to keep score.

Each team had 3 players and 4 bean bags of a single color + one bean bag of a different color (the snitch!). They scored 10 points for making the bag through the “goal posts” on the outside. 20 points for the middle “goal post”. The final throw from each side was of the “snitch”. This was to be tossed at the middle “goal post” only – with a score equaling 150 points! It was a lot of fun and such a simple twist on the real deal.

Olivander’s Wand (Making) Shop

We got this kit and it was such a hit! While we ended up making the wands inside, and they needed a bit more time to dry so I would suggest letting them dry in the sunshine if possible, or overnight if that’s not possible. We were able to use the tablecloth that came with her plates and cups for this task which was perfect. The molding clay was really easy to use, and the paint colors made for realistic wands. We loved this activity in leu of having pre-made wands as favors, especially as Emma loves arts and crafts. It was fun to see each of the kid’s own personalities come through in their wand designs!

Charms Class

Since we weren’t able to make the wands outside (too much wind) they weren’t able to dry quickly enough to do this station at the party all together, but we did a small exercise and sent home feathers with everyone to try it out at home!

We hot glued these tiny magnets to the tips of the wands first. Then, we took some fishing line and tied one end to these feathers, and the other end to a small paperclip. Once the proper spell was used (Wingardium Leviosa), the magnet connected with the paperclip and allowed the feather to levitate.

PS. It’s LeviOsa, not LeviosA.

Potions Class

We took to the dungeons (aka the garage) for potions lessons. I got these tiny bottles and used these labels for them (printed 4 copies on 1 page for the perfect size – download below) and they were the perfect size to add to their goody bags at the end. We wanted to make the ingredients fun and mimic the magical ingredients, so we took random items from around the house and relabeled them with magical names:

We also already had distilled white vinegar and apple cider vinegar in fun glass bottles so we used those as well as mixing agents. The kids used clear plastic cups to mix their potions to their desired status. Then we used medicine stoppers to fill their potion bottles with their creations.

Butter Beer & Cauldron Popcorn

We turned the man cave into the 3 broomsticks for a movie night to cap off the party! There were three small broomsticks hung from the doorway to really set the scene. Then there was a popcorn board with these mini cauldrons for the kids to share while watching the Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone. We made this Butter Beer recipe for an end of the night treat as well.

Photo Wall

Instead of a balloon arch, we made a tiered balloon wall on our banister to serve as a backdrop for photos. We chose the primary color of each house (Blue for Ravenclaw, Green for Slytherin, Yellow for Hufflepuff, Red for Gryffindor) and used black in the middle to represent Hogwarts itself. This easy printable Azkaban Wanted Poster was a great prop to use as well. (download below)

Themed Decor

We added a few touches around the house to have the full Harry Potter effect. I placed my (well loved) copy of the books on our mantle place. This also housed the background music on the TV showcasing Diagon Alley and later the Hogwarts Classrooms.

I (attempted) to age these book covers to place over our yearbooks downstairs, as well as setting out the stack of DVDs from the series. We displayed these gorgeous illustrated copies of the books as well as the Hogwarts Library set as well. And who could forget these adorable coasters?

We propped up a few owls, and our niffler from the FB VIP Experience, to keep the magical creatures and fantastic beasts present as well. And as it turns out, our cat is just a less fluffy version of Crookshanks too! Plus, we had five dogs join us for the shindig, in addition to our five chickens – needless to say, Care of Magical Creatures could have been a class itself. I naturally had to use my HP Tervis, and tucked our Hogwarts Crest throw in the recliner. We of course dressed festive as well – my shirt and Glenn’s shirt are frequent it the rotation as is. While she didn’t end up wearing it, Emma is obsessed with this dress in all it’s twirly goodness. She opted for her scarf and headband instead as a true Ravenclaw.

We hung a few happy birthday banners; but perhaps my favorite touch along these lines was to label each door in our house with a different professor or class name. We had everything from Dumbledore’s office, to the Ravenclaw Common Room, to the Room of Requirement itself as the guest bathroom. I just used the Harry Potter font to create the labels and laminated them to tape on the doors. (download the door labels below)