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Party ideas

Harry Potter Birthday Party

This year the girls wanted a Harry Potter or Wizard themed birthday party. (Read on to get the free takeaway – Harry Potter Cupcake Toppers)

I thought how do I get into the spirit of the Harry Potter theme?

The invitations are the way to set the scene.  Making sure that the invites are on track with the Harry Potter/Wizard theme is a good start.

I create my own for the twins birthday parties and this year was no exception.

The invitation that I created for the girls 9th birthday party. I got inspired by another invite I saw and used some of the text. The images were all ones that I found online and all are clip art so free to use.
The invitation that I created for the girls 9th birthday party. I got inspired by another invite I saw and used some of the text. The images were all ones that I found online and all are clip art so free to use.

To make my invitation have the right look I had to have the Harry Potter Font or something like it. Font Space have free Harry Potter fonts and are easy to download, install and start using.

Instructions if you are installing a font for your very own Harry Potter invitation:

  1. Download the font
  2. Install the font into the fonts folder in the control panel
  3. Once the font or fonts are now added to your fonts folder you should see them in Photoshop or other programs you use to create your invitation. (I used Photoshop but if you don’t have Photoshop you can use a free web based Photoshop like editor called PIXLR EDITOR)
  4. Now you have your fonts you can get creative with your invitation.

Now you have created your Harry Potter/Wizard invitations, the food and decor are something to think about.

What type of things will you serve to make the kids feel like they are at a Harry Potter Party? The twins told me that if it is not 100% Harry Potter that is okay, it just has to be wizard like.

Phew I thought, I was worried that it might not be exact and of course not accurately Harry Potter.

I googled for inspiration. I also went to Pinterest too.

Below is what I created for the party. I did my best to keep with the Harry Potter or Wizard theme. 

  1. I saw from Darla at Bakingdom that she did a coloured layered cake for each house in Harry Potter. After getting depressed about all the fancy cakes out there, I thought that this would be easier to do. I have done
    The different coloured layers of the Harry Potter Cake. This is to show the different houses.
    The different coloured layers of the Harry Potter Cake. This is to show the different houses.

    one similar the year or so before but it was a cake that had sweets inside...yep a surprise for everyone. I used the layered cake idea for the Harry Potter Party but did my own decorations.

    For the layers I added food colouring to four cakes to get one for each house:

    Gryffindor – Red
    Hufflepuff – Yellow
    Ravenclaw – Blue
    Slytherin – Greeen

  2. My decorations for the cake were piped out of dark chocolate in the shape of Harry Potter’s glasses and also the scar on his forehead. I also used chocolate stars that were already made in the cake section of the supermarket.
    The dark chocolate that I piped to form the decorations on the Harry Potter Cake. I got the exact shapes from a printed download and copied that. Once done I put in the fridge to set.
    The dark chocolate that I piped to form the decorations on the Harry Potter Cake. I got the exact shapes from a printed download and copied that. Once done I put in the fridge to set.
    The chocolate decorations for the Harry Potter cake. I kept it simple.
    The chocolate decorations for the Harry Potter cake. I kept it simple.
    Finished Harry Potter cake all ready for the party.
    Finished the Harry Potter cake all ready for the party.

     

  3. Sorting Hat Cupcakes – I saw them online and had to give them a go. Make your cupcakes. Cut a bit out of the middle and put in a few coloured M&M’s (I used the ones that didn’t have peanuts in case of allergies). The colours need to match the houses in Harry Potter. I did have to stand for a while and separate the colours I needed from a big bag of M&M’s. Once you have put the secret M&M’s into the cupcake put the cake back on top and then ice it. Decorate and done. Now do it the rest of them and then all your sorting hat cupcakes are organised. I made sure that there was an even number of each colour. Below are the colours I needed for the sorting hat cupcakes and as said got only those colours in six cupcakes each. I made chocolate vegan cupcakes with very dark chocolate icing. The icing was just icing sugar, organic cocoa powder from the health food shop, and water. This icing is just like pure chocolate and perfect for anyone who cannot have butter or other ingredients.

    Gryffindor – Red
    Hufflepuff – Yellow
    Ravenclaw – Blue
    Slytherin – Greeen
     
  4. Wizard Bread – Fairy bread but these were stars and therefore more wizardry than normal fairy bread. I had fresh bread on the day of the party, and simply cut out star shapes with a cookie cutter. Once all done I put a little bit of butter on each star and decorated them with hundreds and thousands.
    Yummy Wizard Bread
    Yummy Wizard Bread
  5. Broomsticks  I got the idea from One Little Project and this can also be used for Halloween as well. All you need is straight pretzels, cheese sticks that are able to be created into the end of the broom (I used Bega Stringers as the cheese allows you to take the ends and turn them up to look like a straw broom), and then you need some chives to tie around the base of the cheese and pretzel to make it look like the tie holding the broom and the handle together.Making the broomsticks is rather fiddly so if you are like me there might be a few words said when they don’t go your way. You need to be extra careful when you push in the pretzel into the cheese.One tip that helps is to make a hole in the cheese to allow the pretzel to go in easily, however be careful as it might make the cheese break too.
    Some my first broomsticks that I made. Don't they look awesome!
    Some my first broomsticks that I made. Don’t they look awesome!

     

     

    More broomsticks.
    More broomsticks.
    Broomsticks all ready for the kids to eat them at the party.
    Broomsticks are all ready for the kids to eat at the party.

     

  6. Magic Wizard Chocolate – I saw this online ages ago and have used it for a few parties now. I have made it different by some things I used in the chocolate and of course naming it Magic Wizard Chocolate helped make it more special for the party.
    To create the magic wizard chocolate. Firstly purchase some dark chocolate or the chocolate of choice to melt. You will need a couple of packs as you need to melt the chocolate and lay it on a big tray. If you have a lot of chocolate you can make two trays. You will be amazed at how quickly this gets eaten. I chose dark-cooking chocolate and got three packs of the chocolate. You then need to have sweets to stick into the melted chocolate before it hardens. Feel free to add whatever you wish as it is up to you and the theme of your party. I chose eyes, bright candy, Kit-Kats, raspberries, and sprinkles. Once the chocolate has set (I helped it along by putting it in the fridge). All you need to do is break it into little pieces so that the kids can just take a bite-sized part and not a whole bit of it. The eyes help it look a bit spooky so will be a perfect party treat for Halloween, monsters, and of course a wizard party like Harry Potter.
  7. Lolly Snakes – I made sure to have snakes as one house is called Slytherin and a birthday party really has to have more sweets it seemed to make sense.
    Slytherin snakes for the kids... of course they are not real but lollies instead.
    Slytherin snakes for the kids… of course, they are not real but lollies instead.

     

     

  8. Magic Chocolate Frogs – In Harry Potter there are chocolate frogs that fly away. Mine were not like this and nearly all the frogs got eaten to never return on the day. Sad but they were very yummy.
    Magic Chocolate Frogs and Wizard Chocolate
    Magic Chocolate Frogs and Wizard Chocolate

I made sure that all food had labels that fit in with the theme of the party. This way everyone got involved in the fun.

The birthday girls excited to cut the cake.
The birthday girls are excited to cut the cake.

There was also a seat that had invisible cloaks for anyone who needed one. Yep I wore mine although no one knew due to it being invisible.

Some great tips and more inspiration to throw an amazing Harry Potter Party is listed in the BuzzFeed’s article on 33 cheap ways to organise an epic Harry Potter Halloween Party

 

I hope this gives you some great ideas for a Harry Potter Party or even Halloween.

Inside the Harry Potter Cake for the girls 9th Birthday Party.
Inside the Harry Potter Cake for the girls 9th Birthday Party.

 

FREE TAKEAWAY BELOW!

I’ve created a fabulous download for you. Harry Potter Cupcake Toppers. Perfect for your next party.

Originally published October 24 2017

Categories
Family

The Pains and Joy of Helping With LEGO

Have you ever been asked to help kids with LEGO?  It might start out innocently and happy, but at times that happy LEGO bubble will go south.

Only the other day the girls asked mummy and daddy to help them with their new Harry Potter LEGO sets that they got for Christmas.

Santa was super generous with the LEGO and obviously knew that the twins are super obsessed with Harry Potter.

Harry Potter Aragog's Lair - LEGO 75950 Playset
Harry Potter Aragog’s Lair – LEGO 75950 Playset

One kid got the Harry Potter Hogwarts Great Hall – LEGO 75954 Playset and the other got Harry Potter Hogwarts Express- LEGO 75955 Playset

Santa was also kind enough to give them the following set to share –Harry Potter Aragog’s Lair – LEGO 75950 Playset

Now aside from Aragog’s Lair the other two sets are HUGE! There are what looks like thousands of bricks and things to sort.

One kid decided that they would build the Lair first and that was super easy, aside from missing a piece, but sorted quickly and painlessly at the customer support page on the LEGO website. Easy, sorted and we moved on to the other sets.

The twin that received the Hogwart’s Express wanted to do this first. She is not as confident with LEGO as her sister is and wanted to get some help from mummy. I was keen to see it built and of course said yes. Alexander was at care and we filled the floor of the living room with LEGO and also watched the first film in the Harry Potter series.

Watching a film while building LEGO is a painful process. Nothing gets done and if it does it is sooooooooooooooooooo slow. Painful to watch and be around. I decided that I would do my own thing until I am asked if she needed help.

The idea was to build the train and then move onto Hogwarts Great Hall, however it was taking hours and still not complete with the train.

The kid in question was doing a great job with her Harry Potter train, she was checking the instructions and making sure she had all the right pieces available to build what was needed. She did need a helping hand but mostly she did it all herself.

Having fun building Harry Potter Hogwarts Express- LEGO 75955 Playset
Having fun building Harry Potter Hogwarts Express- LEGO 75955 Playset

I was and am very proud of her doing it all herself and I could see her getting more and more confident and sure of herself. I told her how well she was doing, I made sure to explain how well she was following the instructions and that the train looked amazing so far. It’s still not finished but not long to go to have a completed model of the Hogwarts Express.

Due to the fact that the train construction was taking forever I explained to her sister that she should start building the Hogwarts Great Hall. She was excited to start and wanted my help, however this all went down hill when we struggled to find some essential bricks to help us build the Great Hall. It was discovered after a lot of upset that one bag of bricks had fallen out in the twins room.

Once we had the bag of missing items things started moving quicker, however due to not finding the right items this kid opened up all bags of LEGO and it was scattered all over the living room floor!

Daddy was called in as apparently I was not saying or doing the right things for the kid who was constructing the Great Hall.

He didn’t know if he should do it, or just help and the kid should be building it or what level of help was okay before it got met with annoyance, anger and tears.

These LEGO sets are big and they do take a while to build, we only had less than an hour to build it before I had to collect Alex from care.  It seems sad, as we had all day and then it was a mad scramble to get it done in less than an hour.

Getting there building Hogwarts Express, and having fun
Getting there building Hogwarts Express, and having fun

As you might imagine, all remaining blocks for each set have been put in a sealed bag and waiting for another day when we can build the rest of the models. I cannot wait to see the train finished and also Hogwarts Great Hall.

I love LEGO and I’m so proud of how the girls can look at the instructions and know what to do. Both girls have gained confidence with constructing sets to look exactly like it should and also use skills from other sets to build their own creations.

LEGO is such a great educational toy, they are playing and not even realising they are learning at the same time.

Have you been involved in some major LEGO creations? Let us know and send in photos to Facebook to show us.

 

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Categories
Family

Winning Games from Winning Moves

Do your kids love playing games? Winning Moves has some amazing games that I’m sure your kids will love.

Harry Potter Match
Harry Potter Match

Would you love to have some new games to keep everyone happy and occupied?  If you would like some more ideas,  I have some games to help you out.

Lillian playing Top Trumps Match with her sister. You can get different types of Top Trumps Match and the girls were playing the Harry Potter one.
Lillian playing Top Trumps Match with her sister. You can get different types of Top Trumps Match and the girls were playing the Harry Potter one.

The girls and I were all invited by Winning Moves to test out some new games. Winning Moves aims to get kids away from screens and playing more games. This is a huge win if you ask me. Games allow children to think strategically, learn new things and to play with others. It is also great that kids are not just staring at a screen and actually interacting with each other.

What Games did we try out?

The twins favourite game was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Top Trumps

Playing Harry Potter Top Trumps with Veronica from Winning Moves. The kids were winning at this stage and very happy about it.
Playing Harry Potter Top Trumps with Veronica from Winning Moves. The kids were winning at this stage and very happy about it.

How do you play the games?

Top Trumps Match

Top Trumps Match is a matching game like the name suggests.

To start the game you pull out the square on the top of the game board. This is where you start. Each player takes a turn to remove a square and add a square anywhere on the board.

You work away and try to match one character that you have chosen. If you get presented with a square without your character you will have to change which character for matching.

Top Trumps Match has fabulous carry cases. This makes it easy to take the game anywhere. Perfect for travel.
Top Trumps Match have fabulous carry cases. This makes it easy to take the game anywhere. Perfect for travel.

 

You need to get five of each character in a line. This line could be horizontal, vertical or anywhere. As long as there is five of the same character in one line you win.

However, that win might be short-lived. In the game you have cards. These cards sit on the top of the match carry case.

Each player gets two cards each and they are placed face down in front of each player. Once one player yells ‘Match!’ Each player then turns over their two cards.

If the other player has the same character as the player that yelled “Match!” they can take the win. If they don’t and the winner who yelled “Match” has the character they are safe. If no one has the character then you are still safe.

Top Trumps DC Comics Who's The Strongest?
Top Trumps DC Comics Who’s The Strongest?

Top Trumps 

Top Trumps is a card game.

You get presented with all the characters from a film or topic and have to challenge other players with the qualities of the character.

The twins played the Harry Potter Top Trump and had a lot of fun.

The characters have qualities like magic, cunning, courage, wisdom and temper. Each player picks the higher number of one of the qualities and then ask others what their number for this quality is.

If you have the highest number of this quality you collect the cards with the lower number of all other players.

The winner of the game is the one that has all the cards.

Happy due to a winning streak. The kid on the right lost her cards and it was all down to her sister.
Happy due to a winning streak. The kid on the right lost her cards and it was all down to her sister.

As you might sense the twins are keen fans of Harry Potter and therefore played these games more than the other ones. There were plenty of other games to choose from and not just ones with Harry Potter.

Other themed games were:

  • There is Disney Movies (we did play a bit of this one and soon realised that we have watched all the Disney movies too many times. We knew nearly all the answers and without looking at the card)
  • Marvel
  • Superheroes
  • Farm animals
  • Star Wars
  • Dinosaurs
  • Space
  • Australia
  • Pixar Cars
  • Bugs
  • DC Comics
  • Disney’s Frozen
  • Minions
  • Shopkins
  • Transformers
  • And much more!

Top Trumps, "Where would you like to go". Countries of the world.
Top Trumps, “Where would you like to go”. Countries of the world.

The girls loved the games so much that they played them while we waited for lunch and also on the car ride home.

Playing Top Trumps Harry Potter while waiting for lunch.
Playing Top Trumps Harry Potter while waiting for lunch.

If you wish to get your kids some fun, interactive games that they will also learn great facts, then Winning Moves is the place.             Of course you can purchase all Top Trump games from the Winning Moves website. And also from the following stores:

  • Big W
  • Toys R Us
  • Australian Geographic
  • Newslink Airport stores
  • Kidstuff
  • David Jones
  • Zing/EB Games
  • The Gamesmen
  • Hobby Co.
  • Toyworld
  • Mr. Toys

Thanks so much to Winning Moves for the invitation to test out their new fun games.

The kids and I had a great time, and I am very excited that we now have a few more games for the kids to play.

This year is a year where I am cutting down screen time, so having games that the kids love is ideal.

 

The girls having fun playing Harry Potter Match. They are seriously thinking about their next move!
The girls having fun playing Harry Potter Match. They are seriously thinking about their next move!

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