Potter-Ween

Okay, so a month later I'm finally getting around to telling you all about Potter-ween! It's been a crazy month, which I feel like is my excuse every time it takes me forever to put up a new post and I apologize but this one was worth the wait!

This year I decided to try to start a new Halloween tradition by celebrating my favorite wizard book series, Harry Potter. I coined it Potter-ween and set out to put together most of my favorite Harry Potter moments and objects in this themed party.

It took SO much time combing through pins and blogs and so many links to find printables, labels, fonts, tutorials and ideas so hopefully if you love Harry Potter and would like to throw your own Potter-ween then this will be helpful for you! I'm trying my best to compile everything in this one post, or you are also welcome to visit my Harry Potter Pinterest board for more ideas and links. here

First things first were the decorations. I decided on 5 main areas: Potions class, Honeydukes, Ollivanders, The Three Broomsticks and The Great Hall.

Potions Class:

 

 

So I coupled the classroom with a little bit of Chamber of Secrets. I created TONS of potions (here are a few up close pics) I basically just took names that I knew from the books and made stuff that I thought they might look like.

I used pumpkin guts for Boomslang Skin, and pumpkin guts with green food coloring for Gillyweed. I used some coffee beans for Bezoars.

For the liquid potions I just used water with different food colorings: Felix Felicis (yellow), Herbicide (green), Veritaserum (clear). For the containers I used a lot of Mason Jars that I already had around the house for decoration (I know all of you are really surprised that I decorate with Mason Jars) and some old candle jars, glass mixing dishes and some small glass vases that I picked up at the dollar store. Hobby Lobby also has great sales on glassware every now and again if you want some with lids or with more interesting shapes (also, don't forget they always have a coupon online that you can use on one full-priced item!)

I used just basic folder labels for the jars and used a cool Harry Potter font that I found here. I used Parseltongue for these jars.

 

To give it further ambiance as a potions classroom I got a huge black pumpkin/cauldron from Target that I filled with glow sticks (dry ice would also be a good touch, but I honestly just didn't have time for that haha). I also scooped the tops out of several baby pumpkins that they sell in the grocery stores and put tealights in them. They gave a really great glow to the area. I also draped some purple Halloween light strands around the potion containers. All in all I thought it was a pretty effective area :)

 

Honeydukes:

 

This area was unfortunately right next to the Potions class so it wasn't as bright as I would have liked it to be, but for the layout of things it just worked best for me to put it here. I used a pink plastic table cloth I picked up at the dollar store, some candle sticks I already owned and just glass pinch bowls. I didn't really feel like making any of my own candy so I just used store bought: Blow Pops (acid pops), Twizzlers (licorice wands), Jelly Beans (Bertie Botts Every Flavored Beans) and Chocolate covered peanuts (cockroach clusters). Jelly Belly does make non-traditionally flavored jelly beans in two collections: Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans or Bean Boozled, but I honestly wasn't sure if anyone would eat them if they knew there were gross flavors ;).

For the labels I found these super cute ones. I just used the blank one and wrote in my own, but you can absolutely use a fun Harry Potter font if you want. 

 

 

 

The Three Broomsticks:

 

I used this location as my drink station. I made Pumpkin Juice and Butterbeer for the night, of course. Honestly I thought they both turned out really well! There was a topping for the Butterbeer but I chose not to do it just for time management and I wasn't super sure what would happen to it if it sat out for a few hours at the party.

 

Pumpkin Juice Recipe:

1 bottle apple juice

1 large can pineapple juice

1/2 cup pureed pumpkin

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

Blend together in a blender and serve chilled

 

Butterbeer Recipe:

1 liter cream soda

2 Tablespoons Butterscotch syrup

Blend together in a blender and serve chilled

(you can also add ice before you blend and make it more of a slush)

 

The Great Hall:

I used some tulle I had laying around and tied some emergency candles that I found at the dollar store to simulate the floating candles that are famous in the Great Hall. It would also be really cool to use LED candles but they were a little pricey for me :(

I used this as a place to serve some appetizers. I made Cornish Pasties and they were really easy and really yummy! Here's the recipe I used. (The measurements are in metric, but I just searched for conversions).

I used place cards to label everything and I used another great Harry Potter font from Mugglenet (link is above in the Potions Class section).

 

I also used this as a place to have all the guests sorted. I had a sorting hat of course

 

It was just a witch's hat I picked up on clearance at Target and spray painted with some black/bronze/silver and stuffed some plastic bags in the point so I could fold it and make it look like it had a face. I also made name badge stickers with each house's emblem on it so that after you were sorted you could proudly display your house! Here's the link to the pictures I used. I also posted this picture so that my guests who weren't as familiar with the intricacies of Harry Potter as I am could understand a little bit about their new house.

To perform the sorting, I made mini cupcakes that I then filled with different colored icing (red, green, blue and yellow). I thought it was a fun way to incorporate a dessert and self-pacing so that sorting everyone didn't have to be a huge ordeal.

I also hung some portraits, Educational Decrees and the Marauder's Map on the wall for some added character. I'll post links to all the things I hung up down below.

 

 

Ollivanders:

 

The famous wand shop! I thought this would be a super fun way to incorporate a craft for the kiddos, and adults ;). I combined several wand tutorials I found online into something that I thought was super fun and pretty successful.

I used these giant cinnamon sticks I found at Hobby Lobby. I was really hoping for some bamboo sticks but it just wasn't in my luck to find any when I went shopping.

The key was to find something that was hollow with a big enough hole to stick the magical core in to.

I plugged one end of the sticks with nail hole filler.

After that dried, I then had some fun putting crazy designs all over the sticks with hot glue. I basically just put a bunch of squiggles, lines, dots everything to make it textured and "magical" looking.

 

Then I painted them with some metallic acrylic paint.

 

I had to do a couple of coats especially with the gold wands because the paint had a difficult time sticking to the hot glue in some areas.

 

Once dry they were ready for a tag and time to wait for the witch or wizard to choose them!

I used some gift tags that I found at Hobby Lobby, of course. I wrote Ollivanders on one side and then wrote a wood, length, and descriptive word on the other side. (example: 11 1/2 inches, Holly, surprisingly swishy) I just made up the descriptors and lengths and I got all of the wood names from Pottermore.

 

Now for the craft part: I had three different wand cores to choose from

 

Dragon Heartstring: I pulled some strands out of a pom pom that I had

 

Unicorn Hair: I found these awesome pipe cleaners and just cut them in half to ensure they would fit inside the wands

 

Phoenix Feather: just a bag of craft feathers from the store in fun phoenix-y colors

 

After choosing a wand and a wand core, everyone just put the core inside the open end of the sticks then I filled the other end with more nail hole filler and put a dab of matching paint on the end and they were off to perform magic!

 

I also included some spells for the new witches and wizards to try:

Information was found in the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling

 

I also included some information about the different wand cores and wand woods found at Pottermore (link above).

 

 

I even incorporated some Harry Potter in the jack-o-lanterns on the porch, which of course Dooleydog helped me carve!



 

 

I also had PLENTY of pictures hung randomly around the house. Here's a link to all of them.

Marauder's Map

Educational Decree

Ariana Dumbledore

The Fat Lady

I Solemnly Swear

Ministry of Magic

Wanted: Sirius Black

 

All in all it was super fun to decorate the house with my favorite book and unfortunately to fully expose the extent of my nerdiness, and it most definitely is going to become an annual event!

 

 

Can't wait to hear all about your own Potter-ween!

 

<3 ME

 



 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Win Some Lose Some

It's been a tough few weeks for my Georgia Bulldogs, and not such a happy environment around the Dailey household. But even with the doom and gloom associated with learning how to love despite losing, my favorite season is taking residence here in the south! It's been down right chilly and I've even gotten to wear a coat to work in the mornings.

And with this I bring you the last pumpkin recipe of the season.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Here's where I found the recipe originally.

As always, first things first we assemble the ingredients.

 

 

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl first (flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg).

Then combine the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. We've talked about the importance of this process previously when we made the pumpkin pound cake, but basically this puts a lot of air in the dough which will help the cookies rise, which is an essential part of a snickerdoodle!

 

 After you've creamed the butter and sugars together, add in the pumpkin.

 

Then slowly add the dry ingredients into the butter/sugar/pumpkin mixture until it comes together in a dough. If you've never made snickerdoodles before, the dough will be extremely sticky and that's completely normal. To help the cookie making process easier, chill the dough for at least an hour until it's nice and firm.

 

After your dough has chilled, it's time to add the sugar mixture to the top. Mix together the sugar, cinnamon, ginger and allspice on a plate.

Now you're going to dip a glass in some water to wet the bottom and then dip in the sugar mixture. I set up an assembly line to make it a bit easier and contain any mess!

 

 

With the sugar-coated glass you'll press down each cookie until coated with sugar and flattened slightly.

 

 

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Let them cool for 5 minutes on the pan and then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling completely. Then enjoy the taste of fall!

 





You can find a printable version of this recipe here.

THE REVIEW:
So, if you don't know, snickerdoodles happen to be my favorite cookie. I am somewhat of the snickerdoodle expert in my family and I make them every year for Christmas. That being said, I'm probably a little more harsh on this recipe than the average pumpkin recipe because of my absolute love of these cookies. The pumpkin version did taste good, however, the texture was off a bit for me. The pumpkin, as it does in most recipes, made the cookie kind of spongy. Instead of a crisp coating and an airy and chewy center, these were more cakey in consistency. So, although they tasted good the texture will probably turn me off enough to not make them again without some serious tweaking of the recipe. I would definitely try draining the pumpkin and hopefully the decrease in moisture will also decrease the cake-y-ness of the overall cookie.

Here's my recipe review card.

So unfortunately we close out the pumpkin recipe reviews with a bit of a let down for me, but hopefully it'll be a good recipe for you guys to try out and I'll keep hope that good things are on the horizon for us!

Stay tuned for my next post where I'll show you how we celebrated Potter-ween!!

<3 ME