Harry Potter B-day party for an 8yr. girl: First of all, we engaged a magician who dressed up in a wizard's outfit.  Next we sent out Hogwarts invitations. This was my daughter's first co-ed party and we tried to make everything acceptable for the boys. The invitations had the Hogwarts crest on them.  For decorations we hung up crepe streamers in Gryfinndor's colors, had a metallic star curtain hung between the kitchen and dining room. This gave everything a magical appearance. We decorated the dining room table in a purple tablecloth.  As soon as the guests walked in the door we gave each one a stamp of their favorite house. Most chose a Gryffindor stamp (naturally), but some chose the others.  The stamps were available at the party store and I just used a stamp pad. I put them on the tops of their hands. DO NOT OVERINK OR THE STAMPS WILL BLEED.   After they arrived we had "golden snitches" (Bagel Bite Pizzas), "magic wands" (pretzel rods and tubs of frosting to dip the pretzels into -- then ramekins full of the topping of choice: "flames" (red colored coconut), moons and stars candy sprinkles, rainbow jimmies and purple non-pariels.  We also had Cheetos and potato chips. For drinks we used "magic" Kool-Aid that was blue but tasted like cherry.  The Kool-Aid was poured into plastic wine goblets (like they have in the Hogwarts banquet hall).  The kids gobbled up the snitches and loved making their own magic wands.  The first activity was DECORATING YOUR OWN WIZARD HAT.  I had purchased wizard party hats from the party store. Then I had bowls full of small plastic jewels (make sure they are flat on the back) in different shapes, metallic star stickers, holographic planet and star stickers, glitter glue, and the biggest hit of all, the glow-in-the-dark "Foamies" stickers. The kids all loved this activity.  While the wizard hats were drying the magician gave his performance. It was a big hit. When I was inquiring about the performances, I made it clear I did not want a clown or balloons, those things are not dignified enough for an 8-yr-old party. The wizard was of an appropriate age and had a wonderfully deep voice.  He even had a small wizard hat that matched his own for the "helper wizard" to wear!   After the show, we all gathered around the dining room table for another craft: MAKING OUR OWN HEDWIGS. Hedwig as you know is Harry's owl. I had gotten some cocktail-sized paper plates and first the kids colored in the plates to make the owl's "nest". Then each kid picked out a brown or white 2" pompom for the body, glued it to the plate and attached a 1.5" pompom on top of it.  (For the heads I had chosen white or animal-striped pompoms.)  I had purchased 10mm googly-eyes. We put the cowl on first which sort of looks like an inverted coat-of-arms cut out of felt. Once again I used either white or brown felt. You can find the cowl pattern in a pompom book in craft stores. The addition of the cowl (gluing the base on the back of the head and bringing the three points up front gives the impression of ears.) Then you glue on the googly-eyes and beak (small yellow or black felt triangles) into place.  Finally you glue the feet on. The feet were made from about 5" pieces of black pipe cleaner that were bent to resemble three toes; make sure you leave enough room at the base of the foot to stick it under the big pompom. Ooops, I forgot the last important step: glueing the feathers on.  I purchased white and small pheasant feathers. The kids had a lot of fun with this stage because whereas all the other stages were planned, they could be creative here. Some ended up looking like turkeys with the feathers sticking up. I had made my "demo Hedwig" with the feathers coming out from the large pompom and headed towards the back of the body, but one child stuck his feathers between the pompoms and this looked the most realistic!  For our final craft we made FORTUNE TELLERS.  This was really popular with the girls, not so much for the boys. The fortune tellers are also called "cootie catchers." You can find directions on how to make them by doing a search at Google.com for "cootie catchers."  We used numbers 1-8, then wrote in our own answers. A good source for answers appears on the Magic 8 ball. I had chosen bright printer paper. Next we did something really fun: MAGIC POTIONS. It was really "shake-and-make ice cream."  You take 1/2c. half-and-half (or whole milk), 1tsp. vanilla extract and stir together. Then in a one gallon ziploc bag (double bag this) you put a heaping 1/3c. rock salt and fill halfway with ice. You put the half-and-half/vanilla mixture into a sandwich bag, add 1 Tablespoon sugar and seal the bag. At this point you will want to roll the top of the bag down a couple of times and tape shut. The last thing you want is for some kid's ice cream to get mixed with the ice and salt. You put the sandwich bag inside the double-bagged gallon bags and seal that up.  Hand each child a dishtowel and have them shake, roll, bang or whatever the bag for 5 to 7 minutes. The mixture will turn into a wonderful-tasting vanilla ice cream. Leave the ice cream in there until you serve the cake.    For the cake I made two 12x12" layers.  The bottom layer was a chocolate pound cake (Duncan Hines pound cake recipe from the side of the box) and the top layer was a yellow pound cake (once again DH box pound cake recipe).  I made a double batch of the buttercream frosting on the back of the Softasilk cake flour box and tinted it purple (Wilton paste food coloring). I had to add a little black and blue to get it a "twilight" purple and not a "violet" purple.  Then I had traced the Hogwarts coat-of-arms from the back of the balloon I had preordered.  I piped on the coat-of-arms in their respective colors. Gold (basketweave tip) for the edges and lines separating the different houses; red background and gold lion for Gyrfinndor; yellow background and black badger for Hufflepuff; green background and black snake for Slytherin and finally blue background and yellow raven for Ravenclaw.  The "H" symbol in the middle was black and done with the same basketweave tip as the borders.  Around the base I put a ripple ribbon of gold.  I piped "Happy Birthday" above the coat-of-arms and "Robin" below it.  I used those long sparkly candles, but perhaps the relighting ones would have been better.    The kids got a kick out of eating their homemade ice cream with the cake.  DON'T TRY TO OPEN THE SANDWICH BAG FROM THE TOP, INSTEAD JUST WIPE OFF THE WATER AND SALT FROM THE BAG AND SNIP OFF A CORNER AND SQUEEZE IT DIRECTLY ONTO THE PLATE.    The plates were royal blue and the napkins were the Hogwarts coat-of-arms. The flatware was royal purple. It was a nice effect against the purple tablecloth.  Not "girly" at all. Now onto the goodie bags: I had purchased the plastic sacks at the store the ones with the "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans" picture on them.  The biggest present in there was the light-up wand.  They weren't cheap, but they definitely were a big hit. Each bag also had two Harry Potter movie trading cards, a "crystal ball" (superball), three glow-in-the-dark stars to put in their bedroom, four large Harry Potter stickers and about 12 small round H.P. stickers (these were available from the party store in a big book). I tossed in a spoonful of star confetti (black, gold and silver to match the metallic curtain) and finally we put in a little bag of candy. The bag was actually a lollipop bag (from a candy supply store) filled with a spoonful of Pop Rocks, 3 candy peanuts (spun sugar filled with peanut butter), six fortune gumballs (available at Target -- fortunes are written on them), 8 Runts and 12 jelly beans (10 normal, 2 Bertie Bott's wierd flavors).  The bags were tied up with curling ribbon and I attached a sticker on the front saying "Honeyduke's Candy Shoppe Sampler (Beware!)".  The party went great, but it was time intensive before and during.  I would recommend having one adult per three children so that they can help with the various activities.  The best part was the clean-up -- picking up all four corners of the plastic tablecloth (which by now was covered in glue, feathers, confetti, and melted ice cream) and tossing it in the garbage!