Harry Potter Party: Decorating Tips and Ideas

The best part about doing a Harry Potter party are all the little details you can add.  Some will see them, some wont, but in the end-you know they're there. 

 

I displayed all the Harry Potter books around my apartment.  The pewter stein was a random find at my parents house, the glasses were a housewarming gift from a guest, the electric candles turn on with the dark (less than $5/ea at Walgreens during the Christmas season) and the scarf is actually pieces of felt hot-glued together as a last minute Gryffindor accent piece!

Candles were lit EVERYWHERE!  These photos where all taken with a flash so you can see the detail, but in truth-the whole party was lit with candles.  It was a perfect balance of eerie and comfortable.

*Not Pictured: I had a Fireplace DVD playing on the TV.  I know not everyone has a fireplace-so this is a great way to distract from all the electronics in the house and how the furniture is centered around them.

 

The dining room took the longest to do.  I wasnt sure how I wanted to do the Hogwarts Ceiling.  So I went to the dollar store and bought 6 plastic table cloths, picked up glitter spray-paint (clear with silver glitter) at Michael's and used packaging tape to put it up.  It looked beautiful with all the candlelight!

The candelabra (chandelier) was a $3 find at the Habitat store.  I found the flickering bulbs at Lowe's for around $5/ea (note: they look cool, but they give off ZERO light).  The other candles shown are all mine or were picked up at the dollar store.  

The old photos taped around are all actually the same woman.  I happened to inherit my great-aunt's modeling portfolio from her modeling days in the 40's.  I taped them all around to give the illusion of all the photos around Hogwarts.   

*Not Pictured: I had found Martha Stewart window clings of old-looking ghosts at Joann Fabrics.  I placed them around the apartment as a spooky accent!  They were only $8 and I felt I would definitely use them again!

The front door was a fun greeting!  I googled 'Azkaban Posters' and was easily able to print off Sirius Black's Azkaban posters and even Daily Prophet headlines.  I taped those outside my door in the hall to greet my guests.

The red cardstock I bought for the Howlers, came in handy for my 9 3/4 platform.  I taped the red paper to the door, used a black sharpe to make the grout lines and that it!  The cardstock I bought had a few different heues of red-so that helped to add to the brick effect! 

The 9 3/4 sign was just a white cut-out glued to a piece of red paper.  I had some gold paint leftover from another project-so I outlined the white with the gold and wrote the numbers in with a Sharpe.

*Note: I found the red cardstock at Michael's.

The bathroom was a lot of fun!  I used fake blood to write on the mirror (it dried REALLY dark-wouldn't use it again) and Levi's boss loaned us this huge fake spider he owned.  Levi hung it over the shower rod to spook unsuspecting guests!  

*Not Pictured: Little cauldrons of dry ice going in the bathroom-giving a nice bubbling noise and fog.