My daughter just loves Harry Potter so for her 8th birthday there was no other choice for her party. We decided to make Hogwarts come to life. For invitations we used regular invites from a local party shop, we also picked up favor bags, chocolate frogs, plastic miniture wands and Bertie's every flavor beans. My daughter wanted to have a sleepover and we allowed 3 of her closest friends and a sister, this low number allowed us to do what we did and helped keep the cost down.    We used all the rooms in our house as different rooms from the story. When the girls arrived at 6:00 pm. they made their own pizzas and watched "Charmed on WB". The Great Hall (dinning room) was decorated with hanging candles made from paper and hung by fishing line.  When dinner was over the girls got dressed in their robes(black size XXXL men's undershirts and cut up the middle). I went online to a Hogwarts site and downloaded 3 of the 4 house crests, printed them and double sided taped them to the pocket on the front. Each girl was a different character from the story. The girls were given a grade two text book (cover made from brown construction paper with 1. a copy of the nights schedule, 2. a page of spells, 3. a page of potions 4. a page of the stars copied from our local observation center. All items were found on the internet by checking out Hogwarts sites or I typed in each topic) While the girls were dressing they used glowsticks (Walmart) to pratice their spells. As the mom I dressed as Dumbledore and my girlfried helped out as Professor McGonagal. Yes we dressed up as well with leftover halloween black robes.   First room was the hallway for Charms class, the girls made charm bracelets that looked like powerbead bracelets. Next was Transfiguration class ( back to the dinning room) where the girls transformed white pillowcases into works of art using fabric markers(Walmart), they all signed each others which is a nice party reminder. Now we moved onto the birthday girl's room which I decorated with scarfs and throw pillows and kept it dark for Divinination class. I used tea leaves in a cup for the girls to practice their "sight" and we used the magic 8 ball to fortune tell. The girls were having a blast and we were not done yet. We had a treasure hunt next to find the favor bags. Each clue was written in invisible ink, everyone took a turn with the pen to reveal the next clue. These pens can be purchased as a set. Make enough clues for each child attending. After this we went to my other daughter's room for Astronomy class. I used black paper with the easy contellations punched out and shined a flashlight behind to put it on the wall, the girls tried to guess what it was. Then we talked about the printout in their grade 2 book. I had copied a picture of what the sky and stars looked like right over our house on that night. The last class was potions in the dungeon(basement) I used all kinds of vases and bottles filled with colored water and floated plastic frogs and lizard in them and added a black light for a spooky atmosphere. The girls here made their own body paint with household items, the receipe came from a book called Kids Concoctions. At this point it was about 10:30 at night so it was upstairs for pjs and popcorn to watch Harry Potter the kids and moms were all asleep by midnight. It was great to have the party on a friday night. Everything went home with them the favor bags, robes, grade book, pillow case, body paint and charm bracelets. We had an absolute blast and everyone loved role-playing the characters. Have an amazing time at your party.