Harry Potter Halloween Party

Well, it's been a while again, but this time I just can't apologize. The past couple of weeks have been the strangest couple of weeks I've had in a while. I'm not going to go into detail right now, but let's just say I'm glad it's over. To make the craziness a little bit better, I had a Harry Potter Halloween party! Planning that is what has kept me sane lately. This post is going to be about all the details that went into this amazing party.
But first, WE HAVE A WINNER! My new blog name is (obviously) Thoughts of Beauty In Her Head. Thank you to Melyssa Boggan for that suggestion!

Now, on to the PARTAY!
First, for the invitations. There's a sad story about these. I put in A LOT of work on them. First, I dyed the paper

Coffee!!

Stacking them was a mistake. They stuck together.

For this batch, I "baked" them. If you decide to do this, watch them VERY carefully. I set the oven to 200 degrees and put 2 pieces of paper at a time in for about 6 minutes. 

The final result.

Well... there was only about a 20% success rate in printing on the pre-parchmented paper. So... I had to print the invites on plain white paper and THEN dye them. So.

This time, I let them air dry.

The finished product was pretty good. Envelope stuffing time!

So, here's the sad part. The date changed. I had to move it up because the high school is doing a play on the date I originally scheduled it. So I didn't have time to mail or even hand all of them out. I ended up having to make a Facebook invitation. What kind of wizard uses Facebook? Gah. 

So, when I finally got people invited, it was time to start collecting decorations and making food. I decided to do the foods that are mentioned most in the books and movies. Yes, I said BOOKS. Because people that have only seen the movies won't know about everything I had. *cough* Mudbloods *cough.* 

ANYWAYS. 

LOTS of groceries. I went to Walmart, Target, and back to Walmart. By the way, these pictures are in the order that I did things. And I am an extremely scatterbrained and random person, so things were done in no kind of order whatsoever.

First, some candy. I used M&Ms to keep them standing up.

Pumpkin juice. I gotta be honest, the stuff tasted like baby food. But it's what Harry liked, so I made it. I got the recipe HERE. 

Eyeballs in a potion jar, duh.

One of my main dishes was Mrs. Weasley's cornish balls. I kind of made my own version of this up based on a bunch of different recipes. the end result turned out DELICIOUS.

Literally just mix a bottle of grape jelly and a bottle of chilli sauce...

Pour the mixture over frozen Italian Style meatballs and stick them in the crockpot. You're done.

Took a break to do a little decor (AKA vandalizing my mother's living room mirror.) I told you I'd clean it, Mom. 

I went ahead and lit my candles to make them look used. I got the candle sticks at the thrift store.

BUTTERBEER TIME! The recipes HERE. 

Now time for everything to come together! The guests started showing up, so I was rushed taking the pictures. That's why some of them are blurry. 

On the dessert table was: licorice wands, acid pops, chocolate eyeballs, Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans, bought on Amazon (thank goodness for my Prime membership and free two day shipping!), lemon drops, and cauldron cakes (AKA Little Debbies)! The pumpkin says "Candy provided by Honeydukes."

This was the "main dish" table. the meatballs from before and Kreatcher's French Onion Soup. This was simply Campbell's version. 

This table was nothing but decorations. I bought these AWESOME bottles from Michael's and I mixed water, oil, soup, food coloring, and glitter randomly for my "potions." As you can see, the candles are no longer lit. The wind wouldn't stop blowing. Darn nature.

The drinks ended up being Pumpkin Juice, hot and cold Butterbeer, Hot Chocolate, and Polyjuice Potion (Dr. Pepper).

Of course, we had to go a little healthy and the Herbology Department kindly provided us with an assortment of fruit. 

Sadly, I focused on candy and drinks too much and we ran out of real food. Oops. Thanks to the tardiness of my great friend Emily Goodall, we got some pizza to fill everyone's bellies. 

Now, here's some pictures of the lovely folks that showed up. 

BETH!

 And her lovely twin Carla...

Miss Crowe in her Hogwarts robe and failed attempt at Muggle clothes.

 Oh yeah! So this cat showed up at my house a day or so before the party and we decided to feed it, so he's been hanging around. He wouldn't let anyone touch him for a long time before he decided he trusted them. For this reason, I've decided to call him Buckbeak.

PJ was a little tired.

Buckbeak took to Mary almost immediately. 

That's all the pictures I have. After eating, I sent them on a scavenger hunt to find the seven horcruxes I had hidden around my house. Then, we played a little bit of Harry Potter Scene-It, but some people had to leave, so that was short lived. 

I would call the party a success, though there are many things that I will do differently next time. I think now that I've done it, I will know what to do better and what to leave out completely in the future. 

For all of my inspiration for this party, check out my Pinterest board. 

I think I may write another post sometime in the next few days about life in general, so look forward to that! 

Thank everyone SO MUCH for your support in this. I would be forever indebted to you if you would share my blog with your friends. 

Also, shout out to an old friend for encouragement and advice for my blogging journeys! Giann Hoosier has her own blog, and you should check her out on her page! She's got a few years on me in blogging experience. 

I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL Sunday tomorrow! Much love to you all!