Anyone who has read the Harry Potter series knows that the students of Hogwart’s enjoy their sweets. Whether they enjoy them on the Hogwart’s Express or indulge at Honeydukes Sweet Shop, they are mentioned frequently in the books.  So this was definitely one of the big hits of the Harry Potter party, and probably my favourite part to create.

The kids enjoyed a trip to our version of Honeydukes and took home some sweet treats – Chocolate Frog Boxes, Edible Magic Wands, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, Lemon Drops and Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum.

Honeydukes Sweet Shop (sign I found here)

Creating the sweets for Honeydukes was a bit of a challenge, mostly because I didn’t want to spend a fortune buying “authentic” Honeydukes sweets from the internet. So the kids and I had great fun creating our own homemade versions of the most popular sweets.

First we created Ollivander’s Edible Magic Wands.

Ollivander's Edible Magic Wands

We took large pretzel sticks and dipped one end in candy melts, to represent the handle, and then decorated them with various sprinkles.  We then packaged them in cello bags and I added a great label I found here.

Next up was the Chocolate Frog box. There are a number of templates to be found on the internet that can be used to create your own Chocolate Frog Box (like here and here). But truth be told, try as I might, I could not get them to look the way I wanted. So I created our own box. I know, I know you’re thinking that’s not the right shape. Believe me I tried to create a hexagon shaped box but I ran out of time and patience so went with a fancy square box.

Chocolate Frog Box and Cards

My husband created the label for the box using an image he found on-line (he’s the Photoshop expert of the family). And since every Chocolate Frog comes with a Wizard Trading Card, I found some online, printed them and laminated them to go in the boxes. We used a candy mold with frog shapes to make the chocolate frogs and the finished box looked like this:

Other famous sweets from the books are Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum and Sherbert Lemon Drops. Drooble’s are big blue gum drops and I was able to find a close replica at Sugar Mountain here in town. While I was there I was also able to find real lemon drops from the UK (Taveners Sour Lemon Drops) that I used as the Sherbert Lemons. The Drooble’s label was created, again using an image off the internet and the label for the lemon drops I found here.

Another famous sweet would be the Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Bean. While searching for sweets, I discovered the makers of Bertie Bott’s, Jelly Belly, also make a product called BeanBoozled Jelly Beans. There are 20 flavours, 10 that are weird and 10 look-alike tasty flavours (ex. Baby wipes or coconut). And I was thrilled to discover them in The Candy Store in my neighbourhood. And to make them look more authentic for the party, my genius husband created the Bertie Bott’s label that I wrapped around the boxes.

It truly was fun coming up with all these sweet treats and I would happily do it again!

Stay tuned for the next Harry Potter party post, as these were just the sweets that the kids took home with them.  Up next will be the cake and other goodies the kids enjoyed.

The big Harry Potter birthday party has come and gone (and I now have a 9 yr old and a 6 yr old!) and it was a huge hit. So much so that my kids have asked for another one next year!

I will admit to being a big Harry Potter fan myself, so I had a great time planning and creating everything for the party.  We did get a lot of great ideas from the internet but also came up with a few great ideas of our own. So as I promised in a previous post, I plan to document everything we did with a series of posts. I’ve shared with you the invitations and now I want to share with you what we came up with for the decorations.

I always like to have a birthday banner at the kids parties and I used the invitations as the inspiration for this one. Although the party decorations were heavy on the Gryffindor side, I knew I wanted to have every House represented in the banner. This is what I came up with.

Hogwarts Birthday Banner

Next, no Harry Potter party is complete without some sort of Platform 9 3/4. I found this great sign here, printed it and attached it to a heavy piece of plastic then hung it over the door.  I had originally planned to take an old bed sheet and turn it into a brick wall (as they did here) but I was lucky enough to stumble upon some plastic brick-like tableclothes at a dollar store and used those to create the brick wall. I thought it looked pretty good and the kids had a great time going through the wall to see what awaited them on the other side.

Platform 9 3/4

We also tried to recreate the Enchanted ceiling that graces the Great Hall at Hogwarts. So we hung mini lights from the ceiling and it looked great.  I also found this great Gryffindor banner here, cut it out and hung it in the “Great Hall” . Was perfect for the party and now it hangs in the kids Gryffindor inspired bedroom.

Enchanted Ceiling and Gryffindor Banner

We also had other signs hung up around the house that I found here.  I will share with you the Potions Class held by Professor Snape (aka my husband) and the trip to Honeyduke’s the kids had, in upcoming posts.

Various signs

To complete the look, the kids made this great Hogwarts sign and thought their party wouldn’t be complete without including their versions of Scabbers, Crookshanks and Hedwig.

Scabbers, Hedwig and Crookshanks

The next Harry Potter post will feature all the treats the kid picked up at Honeyduke’s. So come back, you don’t want to miss it.

I’ve been looking for a new way to feel inspired with paper crafting and thought a new sketch challenge would help.  The ladies at Pals Paper Arts always seem to have great sketches and I thought it was about time to give one a try.

This week’s sketch:

This sketch was the perfect jump start I needed and the creative juices are once again flowing!  I just seemed to have gotten into a rut and had been using the same stamp sets and colours over and over again and needed to shake things up a little. And I think I did just that!

My card:

I had found some Rich Razzleberry ribbon in my stash that I had long forgotten and used that as the starting point for this card. This sketch was perfect for showcasing the new Summer Smooches DSP, which also happens to have Rich Razzleberry in it. Think I may have found my new favourite colour!

We have two family birthdays this week, so now all I have to decide is which one will be the lucky recipient of this card.

Thanks for taking a look.

Here’s what I used:

Card Stock: Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, Lucky Limeade, Summer Smooches DSP

Ink: Rich Razzleberry

Stamp Sets: Happiest Birthday  Wishes

Tools and Embellishments: Big Shot, Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder, Blossom Punch, Rich Razzleberry Grosgrain Ribbon, Lucky Limeade Designer Printed Brads