We went with a Harry Potter theme for this year's birthday party for Mickey. He wants to be Harry Potter for Halloween and we wound up being able to fit his birthday present into the theme!
Here's the invitation I made for him. I found the font on Dafont.com and then changed the layer style in Photoshop to make it 3D and red.
Last month we were at a neighbor's garage sale and found this awesome ping-pong table! The kids and I tried to talk Andrew into it to no avail. It wasn't until I suggested that it be Mickey's birthday present that he agreed. :) On our walk back to pick it up, Mickey and I were talking and came up with Quidditch-pong as a fun game to play at his birthday party. He loved the idea!
Since the weather was so nice, we were able to set it up outside. I taped some dollar store tablecloths in Hogwart's house colors over the garage door. The kiddos helped me tape coins to the bottom edge of the cloth so that they wouldn't fly all over the place. :) The original idea was to have a Quidditch-pong tournament but then I realized that as 6-7 year olds, they'd have way more fun just whacking the ball back and forth.
After the party we gave the kiddos goodie bags with broomstick pens, a chocolate candy that looks like the Golden Snitch, a pair of Harry Potter glasses and their very own copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
We gave them used copies to keep costs down and wound up traipsing all over to find them. It probably would have been cheaper to buy new and avoid all the temptations at Goodwill and used book stores. ;)
Mickey wrote a little note to each of his guests and we glued it to the inside front cover of the books. I really hope the kids loved them!
Here's a little look at the treat table with the Sorting Hat, the wands, the cake and all the treats.
The cake was just purchased from Safeway and the wonderful gal behind the counter actually saves all the old decorations so she still had Harry Potter ones from when the movies came out! Bless her!
The Sorting Hat was just a witches hat spray painted brown and I used some binder clips to make the eye and mouth wrinkles.
And here are some close ups of the treats. I had most of the treat jars from our wedding.
I cut the labels out of black vinyl with my Cuttlebug. I used a few sizes of the same Spellbinders die.
Then, I just wrote the names on the labels with chalk. Super easy! The only food I made was the Cockroach Clusters. They are Chow Mein noodles covered with melted milk chocolate chips.
The wands were so fun to make! I bought chopsticks, made designs on them with hot glue guns and some beads. Then, just paint them with the same spray paint I used on the Sorting Hat. They were a huge hit with the kids!
We had some other non sugary foods. The veggies were labeled as Hagrid's Veggies, the chips were Dragon Scales and some garlic cheese bread from Papa Murphy's was Weasley Cheesey Bread.
Finally, I couldn't forget the Butter Beer! Two tablespoons of butter extract in two liters of cream soda. Pour it into their glasses and then add a little whipped cream and stir a little. The kids (and big kids) adored it!
Mickey and his friends had a great time at his party. But, I must admit that I had more fun putting the party together!
