Brynn's 9th "Ridiculous" Blacklight Harry Potter Party

The theme of Harry Potter is so rich and dynamic, that it begs to be celebrated in a fantastic way...Thats right, BLACKLIGHT!
Upon everybody's arrival we needed to go shopping for school supplies of course. So we went down to Diagon Ally (our 3rd level, the spare room and the office) and visited Mme Malkin's, for Robes, Harry Potter Glasses (I was able to get the sets for a steal, each one was only a dollar at Canadian Tire at the time) , uncoloured school ties (I printed off the net and shrunk down to a smaller size), and robe clips. Pottages, for our cauldrons (Dollar Store) of course, these doubled as the treat bags. Then over to Florish and Blotts, for Hogwarts textbooks and feather pens (which I put together with help from my husband. We then headed over to Olivander's to have the wand choose the Wizard! To achieve this, I got half of the girls to sit in a circle (the room was too small to do everyone at once), I would grab a wand box, spin it and whoever it landed on would get that wand (essentially spin the bottle with wand boxes). They would then have to test out the wand to make sure it was the right one for them, by saying Lumos while flourishing the wand and slide the switch forward to activate the UV light that was on the tip (I made the wands with bamboo, finger lights, sticks, hot glue and LED UV lights. Wand boxes were made with poster board). They would direct the wand to a picture frame with what looked to be a blank piece of paper, but I had written on it " I solemnly swear, I am up to no good" with invisible ink. So in subdued lighting it was pretty cool.
After that we went to Hogwarts (upstairs) so the girls could get sorted into their respective houses. We used the sorting hat that my daughter made with a paper plate and some poster board. I had hid the old baby monitor speaker in the drawer right behind the head of the girl being sorted, and my sister was in another room with the other half. When I yelled out the name she would make sure they were sorted into the right house. We just used Gryffindor and Ravenclaw for the 2 teams.
After being sorted, the girls had to colour in their ties with the appropriate colour highlighter markers (so they would fluoresce in the blacklight). So we could tell who was on which team.
Next up was Potions Class. They had to get their textbooks out for this and follow one of three different recipes/potions that I made up and gave them names which are actually potion names from the series . Euphoria Elixir, would induce inexplicable happiness upon the drinker. Babbling Draught, causes uncontrollable speaking of nonsense. Finally, Vollubillis Potion, alters the drinkers voice. They started with a cup of Sprite, and added in the other ingredients which were a combination of 2 of the 3 different colours / flavours of lemonade crystals I had purchased (Bulk Barn). I used lemonade (yellow), pink lemonade (pink) and blue raspberry (blue) crystals. So that when you mix the 2 flavours together, they would actually change colour! They would also put in the corresponding pop rocks to add sound and fizz...it was brilliant!
Following that, we brought out the Cauldron Cakes that my daughter had put together, consisting of a two bite brownie a dollop of yellow icing, some golden sprinkles and a short length of black shoelace licorice for the handle. Everyone sang Happy Birthday, ate their cakes and drank their potions...delicious!
As everyone was finishing their potions we decided to go ahead with History of Magic Class. Harry Potter Trivia from the Movies. We got some of the questions off the net and some we just made up ourselves.
We needed to have some time to clean up from potions and eating so the girls went outside to cool off and played Wizard Tag. Basically Freeze Tag but they used their light up wands which was handy because it was pretty dark outside.
Next was Tasseomancy/ reading tea leaves. Ahead of time I had taken all the cups and put various pictures in dot form on the bottoms. Cut out black card stock circles to neatly fit in the recessed bottom and when my sister or I used the magic words we would pop out the bottom to reveal the picture. They then would have to use the guild in the book to figure out what their future would be (thanks to someone on pinterest for that one).
Charms Class was next. The girls created a Magic Backpack Locator. It consisted of, a small bottle that I drilled out to fit a tiny o ring screw into, and a key chain. They put in 20 drops of liquid luck (water) and a small amount of Wartcap Powder (Martha Stewart's glow glitter). After the ingredients are added they would say Accio Backpack while pointing their UV wand at the bottle. Best part...they majorly glowed even though the regular lights were on!
After that it was Defence Against the Dark Arts Class. They made a potion called Nightmare Nixer (a linen spray for their bed). I premixed 50/50 water to alcohol (vodka) in the bottles and they added the right amount of Orange, Ylang-Ylang and Bergamot essential oils. Very nice smelling.
Care For Magical Creatures class consisted of trying to find all of the beasties that had escaped from the Potions Classroom.
I have plastic bugs and other creepy crawlies that I got from The Dollar Store/ Walmart, that actually fluoresce under UV light. So in the pitch dark only using the UV lights in their wands we set the girls loose to locate the creatures on their lists. Soooo much fun, and my husband who was dressed as a Dementor ran around and scared the girls silly...AWESOME!
Divinations Class was next up. Way ahead of time I emailed all of the parents and got a whole bunch of information about their children, like favourite colour, have any pets, going on a vacation, favourite food. Then I put together an individual crystal ball for each of them using a white balloon and a 4" band of back poster board. One side had white paper which I wrote on with invisible ink, I put on all of the info for that particular child. When we turned out all the lights except the large UV right behind my sister (she would sneak a colour changing pumpkin light under the base to add undulating magic) no one could tell she was able to READ their Fortune. She was awesome, in character the whole time! SHE BLEW THEIR MINDS !...How is she doing that, oh my gosh how is she doing that? Was said over and over.
After the excitement finally died down from Divinations Class we went on a Horcrux Hunt.
Basically a standard treasure hunt, I hid each object with their corresponding rhyming clue. Ring, Diary, Goblet, Locket, Diadem, Harry and Nagini. The best part was the last clue would lead them to Honeydukes (which was our basement closet) I got my husband to don his green and white striped Bbq apron and wait inside with the door firmly shut, when he heard my voice coming down the stairs he knew that all of the girls would be in front of the door so he let go of the handle, one of the girls was finally able to open it but none of them was expecting someone to be inside. We got the last laugh of the night as all of the girls were screaming! We dolled out all of the goodies and the girls were very disappointed that the party was over. So with all of the parents permission we played one last game...
The Class Task Relay Race. Which consisted of Transfiguration Class. The first girl in line would undress the barbie when she was done she would move on (the next girl in line would step up and put the cloths back on the barbie)to Arithmancy Class, roll the dice until all of the dice have the same number showing. After that, it was Potions Class, you had to hop all 3 of the frogs into the cauldron.
Finially, Reading of Runes Class, I had made up these small puzzles using cardboard, paper and marker then tried to cut them using the same lines. They would have to put the puzzle together let the next girl see it then mix it up. It proved to be quite a tricky monkey to put together.
After all was said and done, a 4 hour party turned out to be a
5 1/2 hour party...who knew! And still they didn't want to leave! BEST PARTY EVER! Thanks JK Rowling for creating those amazing stories!

• What People Ate

  Everyone was asked to feed their children before they came to the party. My parties are more of what you do at them, than what you eat at them.

• What People Drank

  Sprite with added lemonade crystals and water

• Desserts

  Only the cauldron cakes.

• Party Favors

  Harry Potter Robes with robe clip , HP glasses and plastic wand. (they came as a set) Canadian Tire 1 dollar each... a steal! The UV wands I made Cauldron, for treat bag Text books Feather Pens Chocolate Frogs Acid Pops Gummie worms All the stuff in the pictures

• Activities / Games

  Read above post.

• My Fabulous Husband and my awesome Sister

  Other

  I had a hand in making/painting almost all of the decorations (except the owls, some amazing artists drew those. Thank you whoever you are). The "talking portraits" are off the net, I googled famous works of art colour pages and got Staples to print a lot of them out. I also was able to do the same for the proclamations.