Diagon Alley
Our house has an office directly off the front entry, which we converted into Diagon Alley for the party. On a typical day my office desk is in this room, but we moved it out to make room for the 'curiosities cabinet.' Little Tomato's desk, an old schoolhouse desk from my grandmother, was kept in the room as a prop. The less to move, the better!
We emptied and moved a couple of bookshelves for 'store shelves' and moved a tall cabinet into the room as a 'curiosities cabinet' [A big shout out to Husband and my brother for doing the heavy lifting!]
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| Diagon Alley |
This was a 'one stop shop' for school supplies.
As the kids arrived to the party, they gathered in Diagon Alley and had fun checking out the potion bottles, creatures, equipment, and curiosities until the rest of the kids arrived.
The curiosities cabinet was filled with miscellaneous items. I made the mandrake out of clay and painted it. I found the mandrake sketch page online and printed it on cardstock. Potions bottles were made from old perfume & liquor bottles collected from friends and family. The brass scale was found at a secondhand store. Plastic fake coins were on display as 'galleons'... and so forth. 😋
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| Curiosities cabinet, with doors open. |
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| Cabinet Detail. |
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| Cabinet Detail. |
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| Cabinet Detail. |
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| Wiseacres Wizarding Equipment shop shelf. |
... I made a Monster Book of Monsters and a Bowtruckle...
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| Monster Book of Monsters, and a bowtruckle peeking out behind books. |
Then there were the course books and feather quills.
Each student received a course book, quill, and a mini cauldron in Diagon Alley. The course book was a combination of a cover I designed, a spell book download I purchased on Etsy, and a potions section that I designed. I printed them on parchment paper at home. The feather quills are ballpoint pens wrapped in white duct tape and a white feather. The students got to take home the course book and pen.
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| Course books and feather quills for the students. |
We had a lot of fun over the winter making various potion bottles. Once we added labels, we filled the bottles with various items, depending on the label's description. A few were just food coloring and water, however we got a little more creative on many of them. The 'Horn Dust of the Unicorn' was flour and glitter. The 'Skele-Gro' was a white glittery slime to give it a thicker viscous look. The 'Crushed Horned Slugs' was my husband's favorite to make, where he added corn syrup, food coloring and the rubbery heads of fishing bait (the long slimy green ends of the bait were made into Gillyweed in another bottle).
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| Potions bottles. |
The old schoolhouse desk was set up with "A History of Hogwarts" book, quill, and a couple of pieces of extra parchment paper.
I printed out a quidditch graphic and mounted it on a scrap of insulation foam I painted black and mounted it onto the wall behind the desk.
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| School desk setup. |
Finally Ollivanders!
The Ollivander's sign is made of insulation foam. I sketched & cut out the "O" wand logo and mounted it on a second piece to make it three dimensional. Cup hooks are used to hold the wands mounted to the sign.
We made all of the wands as a family during the winter, over a couple of weekends with wood dowels, hot glue & old craft beads.
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| Ollivander's Wand Shop |
In the Ollivanders corner, I had a mannequin set up with a robe and scarf (the robe was an old graduation robe that we had acquired at some point when my parents were clearing out their storage room) next to a metal lantern stand (Hobby Lobby clearance find). Inside the lantern stand, we had a single LED candle. This candle is remote control operated.
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| Mannequin with 'school apparel' and lantern used for the wand selection. |
After the students had received their quill, book, and cauldron, they were lined up at Ollivanders. Each student was handed a wand and told to wave it at the candle and to say "LUMOS!" If the candle did not light, the wand did not choose them. If the candle lit up, the wand had chosen them. Some students had the candle light up immediately, but others were 'tricky! What to do, what to do...' and had to wave three or more wands before they found their match. This was a HUGE hit. Once the wand chose them, I waved my wand and said "NOX!" and the candle turned off for the next student's turn.
Husband was very discreet with the remote control, and the girls could not figure out how it worked. The candle was also a color changing LED, so would turn different colors from girl to girl.
Once the wands chose their witches, the girls were ready to go through the brick wall to Platform 9-3/4
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| Time to go through the brick wall to Platform 9-3/4 and onto Hogwarts! |
Up next, Part 3: Hogwarts Great Hall Sorting Ceremony...
love the wand details!!
ReplyDeleteI had to show this whole thing to my husband."SEE"! I said,I am not the only one that goes over the top! Other men aren't afraid to get involved!" You are an inspiration, and I am so doing the remote candle thing! God bless you and your kind!
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