Happy Birthday - Carolyn's turn for a party

Finally - Carolyn's party day arrived! She loves the Harry Potter books, so that was the theme of her party. I'll post the rest of November later, but I know some were excited to see how my "project" turned out.

The prep and the party:

Platform 9-and-three-quarters. (A brick wall they "ran" through to enter.)

(I went a little overboard with prep b/c I only do one party a year, this was Carolyn's first friend party not shared with anyone else, and I was just enjoying myself preparing.) But I'm glad it's done.

And the backdrop - for taking photos.

Dragon Eggs - hidden, then found by guests, hatched, and cleaned up.

I would try a different recipe if I did it again. This one never quite hardened and felt powdery still.

(This was baking soda plus water paste around toy dragons. Dissolved "hatched" with vinegar.)

 This made a lot of mess "hatching", but it was fun to watch it fizz, and it was on the back porch, so I'm just going to hose it off in the morning when it's light and I can see what I'm doing! And the baking soda and vinegar will make it clean. :)

Wands for party favors (dowels with hot glue for texture and paint) - Carolyn planned a lot with me and helped with the preparations. I think I can handle any party in the future if I have a party planning daughter work with me!

"Potions class" was glow in the dark play dough
(It ended up costing me more than I had expected because the cost of the glow in the dark medium almost tripled in price from when I bought 1 bottle for trials and when I went back a few weeks later to buy more bottles for the actual project. Boo.)

The paint really does glow - I turned off the lights in the kitchen and noticed the paint glowing.
Only the side of the playdough that faces the light while "charging" will glow when the lights are off.

It was fun, but I would probably alter or cut this activity - because it made the biggest mess for me to clean up!

 The kids really just wanted to mix in the food coloring to the already made play dough - maybe a little too much. I gave them some uncolored glow play dough to take home also since I don't think their very ultra dark play doughs will glow through all that food coloring some girls added!

"Floating candles" in the dining hall. (LED lights from dollar tree hung with clear thread.)
And gold/red place settings. (Also from dollar tree. I love the dollar tree.)

We had pizza (from Little Caesars) and grapes and salad.

Piñata (For harry potter fans, it represents a dementor we had to defeat!)
The string did not hold as Rob had predicted and it turned into "t-ball" to finish it off.

We played "Pin-the-scar-on-Harry" (like pin the tail on the donkey) - my helper's Gryffindor Scarf was perfect for a blindfold (the House Colors or team colors of the hero's house/team from the book).

The ones right above his right eyebrow are placed correctly. (I traced the picture - don't be too impressed...unless you're impressed with my tracing ability.) :)

Self explanatory.
(Most of the girls scooped up their ball of ice cream on to the cone and ate the brownie "cupcake" and ice cream cone separately. Cones were dipped in the "Make your own almond bark" that is used to dip pretzels around Christmas and strawberries in summer.)

Treats for treat bags - The kids loved them, but I probably could have just stuck with the chocolate frogs.

Carolyn was very appreciative of all of her gifts and was very excited about Kristen's. (She stopped by at the end to give Carolyn her themed gift that went along with the party - some jewelry based on the books/movie.) Carolyn was so excited.

Kristen will come back tomorrow with her kids plus more of our family to celebrate all of our fall birthdays together and let the kids "party". (I couldn't handle trying to entertain a dozen young girls plus a handful of little kids too.)

It was fun and now it's done. yea. :)
Kaitlyn's already started planning for her turn for a birthday party, which is about 15 months away! haha