Partying, Harry Potter Style

My friends (myself included) are dorks. We are completely, totally unashamed of this fact. And we love a themed party. Any excuse to be excessive is jumped at and this past weekend was no different. The Harry Potter fans in our group have decided to hold a month long movie marathon, in which they watch two movies per sitting and enjoy a meal together. My sister was up first and she is the queen of going overboard. I could give you tons of examples from her life, but figure I'll just let the pictures of this particular event do the talking. Below is a look at her condo, all dressed up for The Sorceror's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets.

Your first peek in the doorway was of Platform 9 3/4. She created this vignette by painting bricks onto kraft paper and hanging it to cover the entire length of the wall. A handpainted Hogwarts Express sign, coupled with a plastic lantern thingie (technical term) that we found at the thrift store really set you up for the awesome that awaited you in the rest of the room. But before you could move on, you needed to be sorted. The graphic in the white frame tells you to choose a card to find your house and you were also free to help yourself to a lemondrop. But, of course, danger was lurking everywhere and you'd best watch out for the devil's snare on the lower shelf.


Rounding the corner was the potions table. She took some of her regular artwork down and replaced it with a bulletin board full of recipes, a thrifted candlabra and a set of scales. A witch's cauldron was the perfect ice bucket and a butterbeer mug (direct from Universal Studios) held straws. Drink up!


On the opposite side of her living area is where the movies were shown. My sister has always had a gallery wall above her couch, but in true Mandy style, she swapped a few things out to keep with the theme. She made most of the things you see, but did purchase the Hogwarts and Quidditch prints here (they go with a third print that she had hanging in her bathroom). My favorite of the bunch is the signed head shot of Professor Lockhart. I mean, right?!


From there, if you look off to the left you'll see a bookcase filled with Harry Potter items, along with a snack trolley next to it. The bottom shelf has some plants and a gardening book, in keeping with that shelf's herbology theme. The middle shelf focuses more on potions and the top shelf is a mish mash of leftovers, including the elderwand (my dad's from Universal Studios).


My sister borrowed the trolley from yours truly. It housed a boatload of goodies. She got a frog candy mold to create her own chocolate frogs, used Ferrero Rochers and gold vellum to make golden snitches and made sure she had some Ton-Tongue toffee on hand too. She even switched out the art in a frame to say 'Anything off the trolley?' Yeah, I wasn't kidding about the whole going overboard thing.


Last up in the tour is the meal itself. Mandy is a great cook, so it's no surprise that she whipped up a full-blown meal for this event. Roast chicken, peas, carrots, brussel sprouts (a crowd favorite - for real), mashed potatoes and a Gryffindor trifle. It's the dessert you can just spy in the second photo in this next group. It's layers of pound cake, cool whip, raspberries and peaches. It's the raspberries (red) and peaches (yellow) that really make it Gryffindor. Oh, and did I forget to mention that she strung up candles (some real, some battery-operated) to create her own Great Hall. Yup. She did.


Awesome, right?! Now we just have to figure out what sort of crazily themed event we need to do next. The Olympics are just around the corner. Hmmmmm...