A History of Magic

Or, ancient history anyway. I just realised that I have never done a blog post about the party I threw several years back. It was when Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince was coming out. I was INSANE about Harry Potter, so as soon as I knew the release date I started planning this party. A talking sorting hat sorted us at the start of the evening. We played an improvised tournament of Quidditch (I did have muggle neighbors you know), took O.W.L. tests on the previous books, spells, and who's who in wizarding(those with the best scores received handmade wands.)We ate chocolate frogs, cake, spider chocolates, treacle tart, pumpkin pies, and naturally drank butterbeer and pumpkin juice. We had our pictures taken with Harry, competed in trivia to earn points for our houses, fought a dementor pinata with a massive lion head mask, and generally made the muggles shake their heads in bewilderment.
My husband to this day has no clue how much money I spent on this party, because I deliberately did not keep track!
So, the evidence in a slideshow (I hope):

Included please notice:

• The dementor pinata (I made two, on for this party and one for a HP Lexicon Gathering)
• The kids, Harry, and I (it was hot, we were wilting)
• The gown it took me eons to sew. I beaded the front, hand crochet the lace on the collar out of thread, and even though I started it before the cover art was released... I MATCHED THE BOOK!!! lol
• My sister, the house elf was in an accident a few days prior, so she was on crutches, poor thing. Yes, I made the ears and the towel toga. BTW, Harry was a pic I downloaded and put on cardboard then attached to my shirt and old witch outfit on a hanger.
• My son fights the dementor (I always make my pinatas too strong, sigh)
• The butterbeer barrel I made to go over our big spigot watercooler, and the lion mask on top of it. For the barrel I used woodgrain contact paper over cardboard. For the lion mask (I wish it roared like Luna's) I used a punching balloon, "Great Stuff" spray insulation foam, paper mache', nylons, markers, and paint. You could see through the eyes.
• The snitch
• The "hourglasses" that held the house points (colored glass jewels from the floral dept.)