Our oldest son turned EIGHT last week! He has a new found love for all things Harry Potter, so we celebrated Hogwarts style! He didn't have a birthday party last year {an unheard of thing around here} because he was having his tonsils out 2 days later and we couldn't risk him getting sick for surgery day. So this year, he was double excited to have a very small group of friends from school, along with his brothers to celebrate with him. {Luke really was awake & having fun... bummed I didn't notice his closed eyes until too late!} I made the invitations using scrapbook paper and a free downloadable font {Harry P from dafont.com}. I inked the edges of the paper to make them look old, and I printed "Owl Post Delivery to... " on the envelopes. Sorry, the picture is only a glimpse of the invite that I posted on Instagram. I have a lot more sneak peeks pictures that I posted there {#samsharrypotterparty} Guests were greeted by this black burlap wreath {repurposed from here} with a Platform 9 3/4 sign on it. I got this sign and a couple others from Dirt and Sunshine, an adorable blog that had tons of great ideas and free printables for a Harry Potter party. And I put together this little display using my Interchangeable Chevron sign with a print from Harris Design Studio on Etsy. The birdhouse is mine that I use in my Craft Corner, and the boys painted the owl to look like Harry Potter's owl, Hedwig. The glasses were part of Sam's Harry Potter Halloween costume. When everyone arrived, they each put on the Sorting Hat {my witch hat from Halloween} and were sorted into their assigned Hogwarts house. Then they each colored a banner for their house. Then we had a Feast in the Great Hall with flying keys hanging above the table... We changed our "Command Central" that was in The Great Hall to look like Hogwart's by covering the boys' chore charts with black card stock paper and colored Hogwart's house emblems. Our boys vinyl names were covered with the names of Harry and his two best friends, and we hung ties for the houses from our backpack hooks {one more house emblem not pictured here}. And quotes from Dumbledore covered up this beachy quote decoration I made a couple of years ago from an old fence post... We decided to come up with creative names for the food we served rather than serving food from the book. The Hufflepuff Cream Puffs were a big hit! Also on the menu was: Potter's Pizza Slytherin Salad Ravenclaw Raspberries Gryfinndor Grapes Draco's Doritos Butter Beer Elixir of Life {water bottles} After the feast we went outside for a Quidditch Match. I loved how our Quidditch set-up turned out, especially considering that it was made with hula hoops we already had and PVC pipes from a soccer banner. The whole thing only cost me $3.50- the cost of a can of gold spray paint on sale. Jake's soccer season ended last Saturday- I took apart his banner that same day to spray paint the PVC pipes for Sam's party on Sunday... how's that for re-purposing?! The Quidditch set-up also made a great place for taking really silly pictures. And what's Quidditch without a golden snitch? We had a few to choose from, made from ping pong balls & a styrofoam ball, all which got a coat of gold spray paint and some paper wings. Then the kids came back inside to decorate their own Hedwig the owl. I originally planned on having the kids make these cute owls that I saw on Not Just a Mommy, but we ended up with Plan B because I didn't save enough time to prep all of the felt. Also, Plan 2 was a lot less expensive {I returned $25 worth of styrofoam balls from Plan A to Michael's the other day... Seriously, why are styrofoam balls THAT expensive?!} And for the cake, I made Sam's favorite- yellow cake with homemade vanilla butter cream. But I wracked my brain trying to think of something fun and different to decorate the cake with. Finally, the night before the party I ran across this picture of Ron and Harry getting to Year 2 at Hogwart's in the Weasley's flying car. So, I bought an angel food loaf cake and cut it to look like a car, with Fudge Stripe cookies cut in half with the chocolate side face out for the wheels. It was super silly, and Sam loved his funny cake! Sam loved all of the presents he got, including this one that was wrapped to match the Harry Potter theme. I love it when I find another Mom who does stuff like me! :) At the end of the party, everyone got to stop at Honeyduke's Sweet Shoppe! And they filled it up with all kinds of fun candy and sweets: Chocolate Frogs Magic Wands Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans Edible Sorting Hats Dumbledore's Lemon Candies Magic Wands Cockroach Clusters Sour Slugs Golden Snitch Gumballs and Fizzing Whizzbees They also took home a "broomstick" bag filled with Honeyduke's Treat Mix {Chex cereal, marshmallows, bite-size pretzels, and candy corn}. The printable and idea is from this party featured on Hostess with the Mostess. It was such a fun day for our sweet Sam. He is a precious 8 year old boy. He is sweet and kind-hearted, sensitive, loving, and I've always said since he was tiny that he has an old soul. He is one of those kids that prefers to have a hand full of genuine, true friends over a bunch of fake friends. He is the best biggest brother that his three younger brothers could ever have. His best friend in the whole world is his brother, Jake. They share a room and every day at school they give each other big hugs goodbye in the morning, and every afternoon, they run up to each other SO excited and hugging after school. And anytime they happen to see each other while at school, I hear all about it right after school. Sam loves Science, Art, Magic, Reading, and making movies. Currently he loves to make his own versions of Harry Potter movies, of course. He also loves his new skateboard that he got for his birthday {padded up from head to toe, of course!} No matter how old he gets, he will always be my precious little Sam Ry! Happy 8th Birthday Sam! Thank you so much for taking the time to visit Gallamore West. I'm so happy that you are here. I'm sharing Sam's party at some of my favorite party places! xoxo