I wasn’t able to find a lot of teen and tween Harry Potter themed birthday parties. My biggest question at a birthday party is what do I do with the kids? How can I make this fun but not little kiddish. My kids helped me come up with the ideas. Tell me what you think.
We had passes to Universal Studio’s awhile ago and what I remember about the Harry Potter lands was how magical it was. Two images stuck in my mind were the old suitcases and walking through platform 9 ¾. Luggage’s and walking through a wall were my basis of what I wanted our front door to look like. I wanted the kids to feel a little bit of the Harry Potter magic.
Front Door: Platform 9 ¾
This is our front door. The luggage, lanterns, umbrella, and animal cages were my parents. They brought them to the house for the birthday party. I have some other plans for these vintage luggages. Platform 9 ¾ I got from amazon. The owl is from my in-laws. They gave my kids stuffed animal owls the last two Christmas’s, so we had eight owls (perfect for our owlery).
Invitation for Teen Harry Potter Birthday Party
I wanted the guests to be excited about the party, so we added a few extra elements to the invitation. I made acceptance letters to Hogwarts for the invitations. My kids and I made origami owls to go along with the invitations. Two tutorials we used on YouTube were Magic Folds and Well Done Origami. I got the old looking paper from Amazon, as well as supplies to make the Hogwarts wax seal. We liked it so much we decided that the teens could make their own wax seal at the party. They all loved using a candle and hot wax. I used the Harry P font from Dafont to make the invitation on photoshop. The guests were tickled with my word choice to respond via “muggle text”.
Invitation for Tween Harry Potter Birthday Party
For the tween birthday party invite I did a Marauder’s Map theme. We also just added to the owl theme and did white balloons. The kids who I knew their address got the origami owls, wax seal and an inflated helium balloon that I used Sharpie to make look like an owl. It was a fun invitation to give. The kids liked receiving it as well. If I didn’t know their address we just gave it to them in person with the wax seal and origami owl. Origami is a fun and challenging skill to learn.
Difference Between Teen and Tween Birthday Party
The biggest difference between the two parties was the time. I knew the teen girls could hang out and talk. They could decide when they wanted to do different activities. The Tween boys was a much shorter party, it was scheduled and they wanted to be outside running around. The teens would have loved the laser tag but I didn’t have the equipment in time for that party. Maybe next year I’ll do laser tag for the teens as well.
The teens did activities at Charms, Herbology, Transfigurations, Quidditch, Potions and Owlery. The Tweens did activities for Charms, Azkaban sign, Quidditch, Transfigurations, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions.
Classes: Charms
My daughter was invited to a Harry Potter party several years ago and it was so fun. The mom made wands out of chop sticks, we had floating candles, there was quidditch, there was a great potions station where the kids could mix all sorts of stuff together. My friend made these cool spell books and I saved one. So, I used her’s as inspiration on how to make mine. I used the website Harry Potter Fandom to look up spells. I just included the ones I wanted and knew of. We made our own wands using wooden dowels from JoAnn Fabrics, hot glue (for the texture) and paint. This was their party favor. The other debate for getting people favors was scarves (much less expensive than robes) but we didn’t know what house people would want to be in so no scarves.
Classes: Herbology
My neighbor gave me a sorting hat when she learned that my kids were having Harry Potter parties how nice! Such a nice decor. We decided not to sort anyone into a house so no one would be upset if they didn’t get sorted into the house they wanted. My daughter’s friend also made her this impressive sorting hat out of some brown pants she found in her home. It even had a face on it. We’re saving it- her ingenuity is inspiring!
The same vines I used as part of the decor for the herbology table were the ones I used for my daughter’s Posion Ivy costume. Interesting to me to see how versatile these vines were.
The girls made sugar scrubs with some essential oils. You just need a little bit of coconut oi, sugar, and whatever scent (essential oil) you want. We got some cute jars off of amazon and the girls had fun smelling all of the different scent options I had.
The mandrake was a fun craft I got to make. I got the doll from Good Will (my kids would have been mad if I took one of their baby dolls) and some greenery from Hobby Lobby. It’s paper mâché and paint as well. I got the tutorial from my friend Megan’s instagram page. She is one of the most creative people I know.
Classes: Transfiguration
The teen birthday party was in the evening and longer. I had all the “stations” out and they just did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. It was a hangout with some fun things to do. We came up with sugar cookie decorating and Pictionary with a large white board for transfigurations. We made all signs eyeballing the Harry P font. Drew the signs in pencil and then painted the cardboard. Since the signs were so big, they really added to the overall feel of the party.
The tween party did Codenames for Transfigurations. Both groups had the same extra decor described at the bottom of this.
Owlery
My parent’s had a decorative bird cage, so I used that for the owlery. The teens got to make the wax seals with the candle. They liked doing it because it was a novel thing to do. There were cards/ envelopes/ pens out for them to use. The younger tweens did not get to use the candle. They just had the owlery out for decoration.
Classes: Potions
Both Harry Potter Birthday parties included the soda bar. We labeled this area potions and let the kids have fun. They thought it was a blast to pick their own sodas and try some different mix-ins. I found these great Harry Potter potion labels on the blog Mad In Crafts. Putting Whipped cream and maraschino cherries in the soda were definitely highlights for the girls. The Butter Beer was purchased at Publix. Everyone wanted to try it, but the most popular soda was Sprite (because you could see the different colored mix-ins easier).
Classes: Quidditch
Both Harry Potter birthdays had Quidditch. We saw this tutorial online and kinda copied it. I bought hoola hoops at Target. We got PVC pipes at Home Depot and put them together. It was unfortunate there was torrential rain for my daughter’s party. So the girls got about one minute with the quidditch hoops. They were so excited to play ball outside. They played a bit in the rain and ball underneath the patio for a couple of minutes but ultimately decided to come inside. We were so lucky for the boys that there were blue skies for the boys. We had a total of 6 quidditch hoops for the boys (We were able to divide into two teams).
Classes: Defense Against the Dark Arts
My son came up with Death Eater’s versus the Aurors for the Defense Against the Dark Art’s Class. This was the highlight for the group – we played laser tag. We had 12 sets so we made sure we invited only that number of boys. They had so much fun running around the house. We had adults positioned in the front and the back so that they wouldn’t get hurt. they played for about 45 minutes. Took a break. We went in and played Codenames. Then we went back outside to play again. They didn’t want to leave.
Azkaban
I had each boy take a quick photo of themselves with the Azkaban Prison sign. They all thought it was funny.
Extra Decor Harry Potter Birthday
We purchased the floating candles from amazon. They were a hit. We read how some people put them on the ceiling and things like that but it also sounded like their were mixed reviews if it left a little damage to the ceiling. A friend of mine threw her daughter a Harry Potter party and took two tripods and strung the candles with that. The girls were eating on the ground so they were able to sit under the floating candles. It looked really good! Ultimately we tied them to the fan (disabled the fan so it couldn’t be turned on) and our chandelier. It’s definitely not as good as if the whole room was covered in floating candles but it added enough. Everyone loved (even adults) using the wand to say “Lumos” and turn on the candles!
I had some scraps of Harry Potter fabric and some black candles. They added some nice touches to the table, potions area and some of the signs. I printed a picture of Moaning Myrtle and taped it to the toilet cover. I also took some washable red paint and wrote on the bathroom mirror about the Chamber of Secrets. My lips were sealed about what decor was in the bathroom. Once one child used the bathroom, they beckoned others to come ove r and see. It was super easy. Kids who knew the story were able to get it immediately.
Food
We had pizza at both parties. Since the teen party was a bit longer I had chips and two different types of dip (Spinach Artichoke, 7 layer), we also had fruit and veggies. We blew out candles on the sugar cookies. They also had their soda. It was a great night. I love love the themed food for parties but also try to have a balance of what we eat at parties. The tweens had pizza, fruits, veggies, soda and chocolate chip cookies.
Overall, I can’t wait to throw my younger to a Harry Potter birthday party in a few years!
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