The Wands

The party favors: Wands and Spellbooks

Steve had made the kids some wands out of bamboo earlier in the year. Then at Halloween he made some more and we discovered that even the small Bamboo is sometimes hollow in the center, making it not always ideal for wands. The bamboo wands were pretty quick and easy to make but we were concerned that bamboo might break.

So in the end we opted to buy oak dowels from the lumber store.

Steve then made a lathe out of his drill and carved each of the 16 wands individually by hand so each was a little different. WARNING: THIS IS DANGEROUS. They were then stained using wood stains we already had. And clear coated with Rustoleum clear spray paint so the stain wouldn't rub off on the kids' hands.

I'd read on one of the party sites that a woman had put the wands in a light up cup so I thought I'd give that a try. We used a cup from The Rainforest Cafe (I got a 24 oz electric lemonade out of the deal.) and I covered the logo with an Ollivander's label I made by using a picture I found on the internet. The button is on the bottom of the cup. I had each child select a wand but if the magic cup did not light up it was "not the wand for them" and they had to select another. It was fun.

Sometimes they'd get the right one the first time sometimes it seemed like they had to try every wand in the cup. It's hard to see in the pictures but it was a cool effect and the kids loved it. Of course they eventually caught on but were still good sports as they selected their wands.

The Hogwarts Charms, Spells and Potions Book

I really wanted the kids to have Spellbooks as party favors. I looked for some to buy with no luck so we decided to make our own. I wish I could say this was easy. I found the information on the internet and thought oh this will be easy enough to copy into Word, change the font and print at home. I didn't count on Word having some major formatting and spacing issues that took hours to fix. I assume this is because I was copying web content.

I thought I'd be able to print them at home but then realized that a 50 page booklet isn't easy to print if you don't have a duplexing printer. So I thought I'd have it done at Fedex Kinko's. But they didn't have the paper I wanted so I bought that from the Paper Zone and brought my custom stock with me. The black cardstock was thick and with 12 pages of paper the booklets had to be trimmed to look their best. After the hours I'd put into them I figured $5 extra was worth it.

Then I had my husband design the labels using a Hogwarts crest image I found on the internet. We made some modifications in Photoshop and printed them onto full sheet (8 1/2 x 11") labels I purchased at Office Depot. I then cut them with a paper cutter and applied them to my booklets.

I was surprised at the amount of time and money these booklets took but in the end it was worth it. The kids loved them. I anticipate my kids will use them for years. There are references to the books which I hope are accurate but figure if they aren't it'll give the kids something to do to check them.

The finished cover.

The title page. Obviously we aren't real publishers this was just to make them look authentic.

There were three sections: Charms

Spells

Potion Ingredients

Potions

  Each section had a place to take notes at the end.

The Spellbooks on display in "Diagon Alley".

*Edited on 8/20/10. As I said above I got the information for my booklet off the internet. It would be illegal for me to sell the booklets and I don't feel comfortable giving them to others.  If you want to make them yourself that is your choice but as I warn, it was a LOT of work and they are expensive to print. How I did it is explained above. For those whove been unable to find the spell information themselves you can find a list of the spells on Wikipedia and the potions and ingredients at The Harry Potter Lexicon.  There are probably other sources for this information as well.

Potions Class - The Potion Jars

My kids had so much fun making potions in a cauldron with their friends earlier in the year. I knew this could be one of the best parts of the party. I had been wanting to create potion bottles for Halloween anyway so I was excited about this because I knew I could reuse them for that purpose after the party. That part was easy.

But what to mix the potion in. I knew one big cauldron would be a disaster as I'd already witnessed the arguments about who gets to add what ingredients to the potion. Each child needed their own container to mix in. Preferably something that was water tight so the kids could take their potions home with them. Fortunately I'd been saving large jam jars so I had a good start but with 16 kids I was going to need a few more so I saved jars for a month prior to the party. Just cleaning the labels off was a job.

I had done some research on the internet and found a few antique English chemist labels. We used those for ideas and then designed our own in Photoshop including the Hogwarts crest our own Chemist logo with a place for the student's name. I printed them onto full sheet (8 1/2 x 11") labels and cut them with a paper cutter, then applied them to the jars.


They turned out cool and I know my kids will continue to make potions in theirs for a long time.