DIY Harry Potter Collection - Happee Birthdae Witchus

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HAPPEE BITHDAE WITCHUS

So I have 3 sisters (and 1 brother, but he is not relevant today).
The 2 youngest are twins, turning 25. Big step; the first quarter of your life is gone now.
And my elder sister who turned 30. To her I'd only like to say "Slaapt ge nog???"

If you've been reading my blog; you know that they chose a Harry Potter theme for their combined birthday party. As my gift to them, I helped out with props and decorations.

On this page, I would like to give a rough play-by-play of the party. I will also put up a gallery with everyone's selfies from the challenge at the bottom of the page.

1. THE SORTING CEREMONY

We did not have time to sort all the attendees; so we had them complete the Pottermore "which house are you" test, ahead of time. Those were the "returning students".
And then we had a couple first years that did need to undergo the ceremony.

We used the sorting hat I made for this purpose; the voice was provided by the talented Nj Sithole.
First we sorted the youngest sister and birthday girl: Anastasia. Her clever mind and ambition to knowledge is what got her into .....

RAVENCLAW !!!

The second birthday girl, Katjenka, is kind and caring and looks out for others.
She could only be sorted into .....

HUFFELPUF !!!

Last, but not least, the father of our only House-Elf, CJ; for his courage and bravery, was sorted into .....

GRYFFINDOR !!!

We also sorted a Slytherin; but seeing as I was the lucky chosen one; the video didn't come out so great. So you'll have to use your IMAGINATION (try saying that without a Spongebob voice).

After the sorting ceremony, it was high time to get started with the rest of our program.
We had some games and challenges which amounted to:

2. END OF TERM EXAMS

We put out various board and card games for our guests to enjoy:

We had Settlers of Catan; a firm favorite in the Pringiers family; we knew from experience that a game of Catan usually takes several hours. So we figured only 1 round could be played in the alotted time. So we gave the King of Catan 20 house points.

We also had some shorter play-time games such as Guess Who (customised to suit the Harry Potter theme), Rumicub and Uno.

Lastly, Harry Potter Trivia and Poker (played with Harry Potter themed cards); whose winners received 20 house points per round.
We also had some challenges:

The Bertie Bott's All Flavour Beans challenge awarded 5 house points to those brave enough to try our home-made jelly beans.
"You want to be careful with these. When they say every flavour, they mean every flavour - you know you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a bogey-flavoured one once."

Then, to make sure that all the participants saw all the great props we'd littered around the venue; we set up a Selfie Challenge.
With 5 house points for every selfie taken (we had stickers at each of the photo opportunities so people could mark which selfies they had taken).

 The photo-ops were:

 - Platform 9 3/4
- The Sorting Hat
- Have You Seen this Wizard?
- The Quidditch Corner
- The Patronus
- Olivander's shop
- The Mirror of Erised

We let the exams go on for about 1.5 hours then collected all the report cards and added up the scores.
In total, Ravenclaw won; but when we factored in that there were only 5 huffelpuffs in attendance we realized that "per capita", Huffelpuff won the house cup.

 Congrats to both Ravenclaw and Huffelpuff.

3. DECORATIONS

Aside from the main selfie-stations; we decorated the venue with a whole bunch of smaller props and tid-bits to add to the atmosphere.
Some of these existed from an old Harry Potter Trivia game that was no longer complete (and in Dutch); so we bought a new game and used the cards and gameboard as wall hangings.
We also set up a Potions corner; which unfortunately had to share space with Care of Magical Creatures. I'm sure Snape and Hagrid we're not impressed.
The Quidditch corner was outside. As a matter of fact it was Quidditch XXX as the rings were way more mobile then it's regular version (we attached them to the trees rather then the ground, so they flapped around in the wind).

 On the other hand, the snitch was fairly stationary; so I guess it balanced out.
No Quidditch game is complete without broomsticks; so those too were provided.
Some very under-sized props were present:

The Dementor used to be a barbie; while the Ford Anglia was made with a piece of paper and some folding skills.

The Womping Willow was already present at the venue, and because we didn't want Moaning Myrtle to feel left out, we pulled up a porcelain chair for her.

The buffet table was brightened up with a bunch of small nick-nacks to continue the theme.

Then we cut the cake, iced to resemble the sat-on cake that Hagrid brings Harry in the beginning of the Philosopher's Stone.

Lastly, we turned on the music and finished the day with some dancing; the venue was a dance studio after all.
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I've put some of my favorite photos that did not fit in the blog as well as the selfie-challenge photos, below.


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