Impromptu Harry Potter Party.

Yesterday we got a 5:30 am phone call from the schools letting us know that school was canceled. When my boy heard the news he decided we had to have a Harry Potter party. :) Really, does one ever need an excuse for a HP party?
Because we were snowed in, we had to get creative with our party ideas and use things we had around the house.

My boy went to work creating the decorations, putting up signs for each 'class room' and writing down a list of games we can play. He made several Cornish pixies for the Pesky Pixie game. We threw crocheted playfoods at them and tried to hit them or knock them off the walls. We earned 'wizard coins' for each game, that we could spend at Honeydukes at the end of our party. My son organized the whole thing.

My job was to come up with some food. Of course, you can not have a Harry Potter Party without chocolate frogs. i made mine with a peanut butter centers because i only had a half a bag of chocolate chips to use. i've had these frog candy molds for several years, since our first Harry Potter Party 4 years ago. i'm not sure where i originally bought them, but you can find them here and some slightly different frog molds here.


i looked around online for some printable for chocolate frog boxes. They were not easy to find, but i did find some! The files had to be converted, and the images re-sized and it all too a bit longer than i had planned....but the results were totally worth it!

You can find the images here (top of box) and here (bottom of box). The box images didn't come with any kind of instructions for putting them together, so i had to improvise.


When i cut out the boxes, i left tabs as shown in the first picture. Then i folded all the tabs in, and along the edges to make the sides of the box (image 2). Then to give the box it's domed shape, you crease from the center to each point (image 3). Then i just used a glue stick to put it all together, by applying a little glue on each of the tabs.


The bottom of the box was done similar. When you cut it out, you have to add your own tabs and sides. These get folded up and glued, you do not have to make the center creases on this one because it stays flat.


Now you just add a wizard card and a chocolate frog and your set! We found our wizard cards by exploring the HPL forum. They were not easy to find, and we've only been able to find a few to print up online.
*update for those looking for Harry Potter wizard cards to print up for your party, we found a whole bunch on this site.
We had to get creative with our food names, because we couldn't run to the store to buy items that fit the theme. So our lunch menu consisted of

Kidney Pudding (bean dip)
Roasted Gillyweed (Baked kale chips)
Pretzel Wands
Cauldron Cakes (mini cupcakes)
Herbology Fruits (regular fruit w/creative names..like Devils snare berries)

We had fun coming up with them. You can find lots of creative HP themed recipes and ideas here.



My son really did a fabulous job coming up with the games. We had a garden gnome hunt. Where we had to hunt around the house and collect all of the gnomes. We also had a Gnome toss (bean bag toss with gnomes), Tame the Wearwolves (ball with the dogs) and Dragon rides. :)


This is a dragon Halloween costume draped over Sage's rocking horse. :) There is a pillow shoved in it neck to hold it's head up.



We also had a paint your own dragon craft from kits we already had on hand. Just seemed the perfect time to pull them out and use them.


It really was a fun time for all! My husband even came in from work to play a few games and snack on some of the yummy treats. i'm super proud of my boy for putting this all together! He really did a great job with the decorations and games!

i hope everyone out there is enjoying their snow days as much as we do!