We’ve been enjoying the Harry Potter films lately. Yeah, I know, those films have been out for, like, forever. But just a while ago, one TV station was showing one HP film each week. Of course, we’ve seen them before, but it was nice to view them again and review the forgotten parts. Besides, when you go browsing the net for HP themed parties and see all the details that others have prepared for their parties, how can you not hold one?

So, after throwing a Harry Potter themed party for hubby (yeah, he just let’s me do anything as long as I let him cook his favourite dishes for the party), we threw another HP themed party for Potterhead friends who missed out on the first party. So here are the details of the two HP parties:

 This is what greeted the guests at the entrance – Hogwarts houses banners, and HP related stuff on the table, including a few HP books, some wands, photo booth props (neckties in HP house colours), chess pieces, some potion bottles, a chess board, Hogwarts Express signage, and a letter from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

On the side wall, we had a huge rectangular mirror that’s normally stays there, so I decided to  pretend it was the Mirror of Erised and labelled it accordingly.

  As you step into the lounge area, you’ll see that I had stuck some ‘wanted’ posters on the wall….

…while on the other side, I had shelves of various potion ingredients (see potions and potion ingredient ideas here).

I placed some battery-operated tea lights behind some of the glass bottles to show off the coloured liquids inside the bottles. Otherwise, it would have been too dark in the lower shelves for people to notice somebody fun in there.

Just beside the painting, I also had some fake “wooden” arrow signs bearing names of some of the places in the HP world.

Here’s an early shot of the buffet table. Don’t ask me for a later shot of it when hubby started crowding it with all the foods, because I don’t have a presentable one. 😀 Hubby prepared most of the foods, which made him tired but really happy and proud of his accomplishment.  I prepared the sweets, bread and the salads.

 I made him a very simple birthday cake – my go-to carrot cake. I didn’t want to make him Hagrid’s cake, simply because we didn’t want a cake with pink icing. Instead, I just created a little bunting featuring the Hogwarts house colours and added a golden snitch in the middle of the cake. Simple, but super-yum…and I kid you not.

Of course you know that no HP themed party is complete without Bertie Botts’ Every Flavour Beans. They’re just the ordinary jelly beans I found at Coles, but that little striped box I painstakingly cut and assembled just nailed the illusion.

I am ever so glad Australia’s got Freddos – our very own chocolate frogs. Gave me the perfect excuse to take this lazy option, instead of having to search and shop for a frog mold and make chocolate frogs from scratch.

Finally, one of my most favourite HP-related item in the party – the Golden Snitches! They’re actually just egg yolks and condensed milk, cooked and shaped into balls (get the recipe here). Days before the party, I spent one evening preparing all these snitches wings while watching Avengers on the TV.

 I love how they turned out, even though I was a few wings short in the end. But still, admit it, they are pretty and look like they’re ready to fly away. The guests were very amused with this dish, and they weren’t disappointed ‘coz the yellow balls were tasty too.