A HARRY POTTER PARTY!! For my daughter's 8th birthday, we transfigured our basement into Hogwarts. We invited fifteen girls, and twelve came. For the invitations, I bought scrapbook paper from the craft store that looked just like parchment paper, and used the Hogwarts acceptance letter from Book One. We went all out with decorations, most of which were things we had around the house or in our storage, like candles, pictures, scarves, jars, etc. One room became Potions, another room was divided into the Great Hall and Divination/Herbology. What would Hogwarts be without house banners? I bought the Hogwarts banner online, but couldn't find all of the house banners, so I made my own out of large pieces of black felt cut into the banner shape, and then designed and glued the house emblems out of felt using the house colors for each.  This was pretty easy, I followed the pictures on the package that came with the Hogwarts banner.  Then I sewed a hem at the top for putting a wooden dowel through, and then hung them on the wall.  We hung icicle lights in the larger room to look like the hanging candles in the Great Hall, and regular white lights in the Potions room.  In the Divination area, there were large pillows to sit on around a low table and we used lots of floral fabrics and candlabras, plus a round lighting fixture as a crystal ball. In Potions, I hung large black candlabra on the walls, added antiquey looking books, ball jars full of plastic spiders, snakes, frogs, crystal rocks, and some old glass goblets, everything looked very authentic! We put foam spiders (the ones that are stick-on) all over the walls so it looked like they were crawling away from the castle, like in Chamber of Secrets.  I decorated a little desk to look like Harry's desk, with Hedwig (bought at the party store), some books and candles, and left a large book open on the desk.  I also found plastic goblets at the party store, and decorated them with stars, moons and suns using gold and purple paint pens. The day of the party, my daughter dressed just like Hermione wearing a white blouse and plaid skirt, her Gryffindor robe, and we crimped her hair, she was adorable. We played the soundtrack from Sorcerer's Stone throughout the party.  The atmosphere was awesome!!  For Platform 9 3/4, I found fabric with little bricks all over it, cut it into streamers and left about 4 inches at the top, and tacked it above the basement entrance. Above the fabric, I hung two signs that said Platform 9 and Platform 10, and when each girl went downstairs, they ran through the fabric and into Diagon Alley. There, each girl was given wizard gold (actually pirate gold) and selected a witches hat and wand.  The witches hats were plain black plastic hats (found at a party store in their stockroom) which I spray painted with gold fabric glitter, and attached a gold tassle at the top with fabric glue.  I don't have a sewing machine so everything had to be either glued or hand sewed!!  For the wands, I found sturdy sticks outside and cut them into wand length, then took electrical tape from Home Depot and wrapped the tape around the bottom so it would be comfortable where the girls' hands would go, I used black tape for half the wands, and purple tape for the other half.  My daughter used her wand that came with her HP costume.  The girls then went into the Great Hall for the sorting ceremony, where each girl sat on a stool, I put the sorting hat (bought online) on her head, and she picked a house badge from a cauldron. I downloaded the best house badges from another HP fan whose website I had found, then cut and laminated them, and made pins with them. Of course, no one wanted to be in Slytherin, so we made three teams instead. Each team went to a different area, Potions, Transfiguration or Herbology. In Potions, we made glittering sparkle bottles (corn syrup, glitter and water) and fizzing phantom potion (vinegar and baking soda).  In Transfiguration, the girls took model magic and transfigured them into whatever they liked. In Herbology, the girls planted bean seeds using little peat pots and they had to say a magic spell while planting. We also did a taste test using Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (jelly bellies) which was hilarious!! The girls loved Freeze Dance (took the place of Quidditch since we were indoors) where the birthday girl used her wand to freeze and unfreeze each dancer. We had also planned to read tea leaves in Divination, and to make slime for Potions, but ran out of time.  I had printed out word searches and bookmarks for History of Magic and those went into each girl's goody bag, along with a package of movie cards from Sorcerer's Stone, and a crystal diamond stone that I found at Walmart for the Sorcerer's Stone.  I had also made chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate frogs, and chocolate lollipops using molds from a local candy store. Each girl also took home her hat, wand, glitter bottle, model magic creation, and seed pot.  For the Feast, we had pizza, cake and butterbeer (root beer). Each girl had one of the goblets I had decorated, and we used gold plates and forks from the party store.  For tablecloths, I used black plastic ones during each activity (we had two long tables), and then put purple ones on for the Feast.  Clean-up was easy.  The model magic isn't messy at all, and we used trays for planting the seeds.  The only messy thing was the Potions class, we had paper towels for wiping the table up between groups, and used baby wipes for the girls' hands since the corn syrup was sticky.  I had one adult helper, and two 5th graders to help in each area. You definitely need assistance unless you have a very small group!!  My husband was in charge of taking pictures, picking up the pizza, etc. so we could concentrate on the party. For the thank you cards, I put in a picture that I took of each girl as she was sorted, and using more parchment paper, wrote up a congratulatory letter for finishing the special Hogwarts term. I used some ideas that I found on this site and a couple others, including the wonderful girl who let me use her badge downloads, plus I found a lot of fun information in library books on wizards and science concoctions for kids.  This party was so much fun, we're going to have another one to celebrate when Goblet of Fire opens this November!!  Can't wait!!