** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**
The clues provided in the dark arts alley led to the divination classroom:
In the divination classroom there was a mug with the grim inside sitting on top of a locked box with a five digit number lock. There was also a logic puzzle about the divination balls.
The logic puzzle noted:
Each of the class divination balls is a unique color that will provide you with a unique letter and number. Use the clues provided to solve the letter and number for each ball.
Once the logic puzzle was solved, five divination ball colors (blue, black, gold, red, & green) had a corresponding letter and number associated with them.
The divination ball card had five circles of different colors inside the ball. The color order of black, gold, red, green, and blue was the key to unlocking the 5 digit combination number lock.
The box contained:
Two new clue cards: A trunk and a knight chess piece.
A third small key to match the first two.
A second piece of acetate with random letters on it, the exact same size as the first.
The clues led to the Common Room where there was a trunk of school supplies and a Wizard Chess set on the game table.
*At this point, the group also noticed that the "Unfogging the Future" book in the room was a keyed locked box. The keys they had found thus far were not the right size to unlock it. There was also another locked box in the room, again keyed, and none of the keys collected so far opened this box either. Another room with additional tasks yet to solve!
** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**
The clues provided in the wizard shops led to the dark arts alley:
Inside the dark arts alley, the matching 'finger point' sign helped clue that they were in the correct room. The rune was a hint that runes were important... and the key to unlock the next box. The shrunken head audio, while it explicitly noted to go to the dark arts alley, was also a clue to look closer at the shrunken head in the shop window...
... and a clue was found hidden in his hair!
The rolled up paper in his hair had nine runes with the numbers 1,000-9,000 underneath each rune.
Next to the shrunken head, in the window was a box of 'spider legs...'
It was a Halloween party after all, and this is a spooky area... so this box is actually a prank box. When opened, a spider attacked your finger. Little things amuse me. 😜
However, it wasn't just a prop. On the back label of the box there was an additional rune clue:
Nine additional rune clues, this time 100-900.
By this time, the group had noticed that there was a locked box in the room with a 4 digit lock. They also deduced that the rune they were given in the wizard shops had some importance. None of the runes they found so far matched exactly... but PARTS of their rune matched the runes they were finding.
... Hmm...
The additional runes that were easily spotted were hidden in a poster in the room. These were numbers 1-9:
So... now they had found a thousands place, a hundreds place, and a ones place. They correctly deduced that they needed to build a 4 digit number, and they were now missing one piece, the TENS place.
This one was deceptively hard to find. See... there were several "Wanted" posters in the room. They were ALMOST all irrelevant. Except one of them. On ONE of the posters the runes on his mugshot placard were replaced with the 10-90 runes.
Once they had all 4 sets of runes, they were able to piece together that the rune they were given in Diagon Alley was equal to 6859. This number unlocked the 4 digit box in the room.
This box contained:
Two new clue cards: The Grim & a divination ball with an eye and five colored balls.
A second small key.
A piece of acetate with random letters on it.
The Grim and divination ball clues led them to the next room: the divination classroom.
* At this point, the group did also find a book "Ancient Runes Made Easy" in the room, which was a locked book box. This was a 3 digit number lock. However, the clues they just found led them somewhere else... so they knew that something was left undone in this room...
** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**
The Escape from Wizard Prison party started with a video that Husband put together. As it contains movie clips, I will not post it here... but it was awesome. 😉
The video gave the objective of the Escape Room: You have escaped from a wizard prison, and must find the RAT that framed you. You have 45 minutes to reach the objective, or your time will run out. Then it transitioned to a faded countdown clock for 45 minutes in the foreground... Gameplay begins!
The players were given a clipboard with scratch paper and a bus ticket.
We told them to follow the clues they were given, each clue would lead to the next. If they kept to the clues, they would stand a much better chance of getting through in 45 minutes.
The bus ticket and the video were the first clues... There were two boxes with the bus logo on them in this room. One box was locked with a 3 digit number combination lock, the other could be opened.
Inside the non-locked box was a puzzle that needed to be put together. When assembled, the puzzle read "Check Your Ticket," with an image of the bus in the center of the puzzle, and three differently sized circles at the bottom of the puzzle.
The ticket has two numbers on it - the ticket number (16195) and the cost: 11.
... Neither is 3 digits.
However, there was also a coin area of the wizard shops. Perhaps the ticket cost meant something?
Inside the brass scale, there were several coins. Most of these coins were gold, but a few were silver. The silver coins were in three sizes with different values....
The puzzle had a single large, medium, and small circle that perfectly matched the coin sizes. Only one of each. The ticket cost was 11, so the coins need to total 11.
There was only one solution that was equal to 11, with one large, medium, and small coin. This combination opened the locked box.
Inside the locked box was two pieces of paper, one a rune and the other a finger pointing, and a small key.
The finger point lead to the dark arts sign in the dark arts alley. The Rune will come into play in that room!
So... on that note... Next stop, the dark arts alley!
Our annual HP Escape Room party this year was an Escape from Wizard Prison theme. The party was originally scheduled for October 13th, but we ran into a little hiccup with a plumbing pipe that cracked and flooded part of our house (GAH!). The repair timeline pushed the party back a couple of weeks, so it was just this past weekend. Though the rooms were set up the first week in October (for the 'beta group' to run through the escape room puzzles), we did not want to post any photos until after the party to avoid giving away any clues.
** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**
The escape room had 4 areas to explore: a dark arts alley, wizard shops, a divination classroom, and a Common Room.
I'm embarrassed to say that we completely dropped the ball on photos this year. We had the house set up for most of the month of October, since it was ready for the original party date... but somehow we missed a LOT of pictures of the setup. I'm including what I have available, which is a hodgepodge of setup photos and day-of-party photos.
Dark Arts Alley:
This was a completely new area this year. We transformed our office into a dark arts alley, making false walls to cover the built-in bookshelves and windows in the room. The intent was to make it an actual alley, rather than a shop interior. Each wall was a different look, which was meant to accentuate that there were 'different buildings' clumped together.
Unfortunately, since this room is meant to be dark and spooky, and the main sources of light in the room are candles & 'torch lights,' the photos aren't great.
Overview:
The brick wall is covering the exterior windows, and the other two walls are covering bookshelves. The broomstick in the corner is motion-activated, so it cackled and scooted around the room while guests arrived. It was turned off for the escape room, so the groups could better concentrate on the task at hand.
The remainder of the photos were taken at various stages of setting up, so the shelves may not be full or posters may not be in place yet. I didn't realize how few pictures were taken until we had the room fully disassembled. A mental note has been made to 'over-take' photos next year!
Brick wall with Knockturn Alley iconic 'finger point' sign and "Wanted" posters:
I printed three different posters, where the facial expression is different in them. It wasn't moving photos, but at least gave the impression of more dynamic movement than the same poster for all of them. Once the posters were printed, they were tea-stained to make them aged and wrinkly. They all had various levels of bleeding and creasing, which also made them look less 'cookie-cutter.'
The back wall has an actual plexiglass sheet in the window to prevent the partygoers from touching the items in this window, so it is only for looking!
The Borgin & Burkes window is just framed out, so the items in this window could be reached and investigated... the next couple of photos were taken early on, so the window display wasn't completely filled and the poster wasn't tea-stained yet.
Final photos:
Wizard Shops:
The wizard shops wer in our dining room this year. This was a hodgepodge shop that had various magical supplies.
Owl Post area...
A close up of the winged keys resting on the packages (from the lovely Jana at Worn Keys Emporium):
The sideboard had our Leaky Cauldron sign propped up next to Knight Bus advertisements and the Gringotts coins and deposit slips were located in this area.
Magical books, potion bottles and herbology supplies were laid out display-style on the table. We included an 'Escape from Azkaban' Daily Prophet newspaper, complete with moving Sirius photo!
A full sized mandrake looks on...
Divination Room:
This was our living room. We just covered the coffee table and laid out the divination balls, 'Unfogging the Future' book, and escape room boxes props in this area:
Common Room:
I'm embarrassed to say that we totally forgot to photograph this room. The only photos we have of this space are close up photos of the escape room steps in here... so here is the table set up for Wizard Chess:
Last year's Horcrux Hunt escape room party was really just the result of our friends hinting that they wanted to see the props I made for Little Tomato's birthday party. However, as Husband and I love Halloween, and we are both giant puzzle nerds, we had a LOT of fun designing an escape room party.
With all of these props in storage, it really made sense to keep 'rolling with it' and expanding our props for an annual Halloween escape room party.
This year's big expansion is to convert our office into Knockturn Alley. Husband really wanted a presence of Knockturn Alley in our party. He loves the 'spooky' feel of it, and thinks it is only fitting for a Halloween party. I can't argue with that logic. 😋
Last year, we had a cabinet in our Diagon Alley setup that had a few 'Dark Arts' items, but he was really disappointed that it wasn't 'more of a thing.' So this year, true to form, we 'went big.' Some of the initial work is in THIS post, and while we aren't nearly at the finish line, I thought we had enough progress to add a few more sneak peek pictures.
A couple of years ago I started this little handmade doll. I had finished the body, embroidered the face, and sewn on the hair.
Then she sat on a shelf.
For two years.
The dress was awful. Well, to be accurate, the fabric I made the dress out ofwas horrible... which I had sewn into the body. Seriously regretted that move.
So this limbless doll was shuffled from shelf to shelf in my craft room for two years before I dusted her off a couple of weeks ago and started working on her again.
I had to cut off the dress as close as possible to the seam of the body, as I was afraid that if I seam-ripped the body, it would compromise the integrity of the body fabric (the weave would unravel and I would need to bring in the seam allowance and ruin the proportions of the body)... this made the limb attachment 'less than ideal.'
No problem. I decided I would put her in a Gryffindor uniform - the high neck of the shirt collar will hide where the dress was cut off the neck, and then a knitted little jumper (which isn't removable) will hide the arm attachment!
{Shhh, no-one will know how bad the Frankenstein job looks if they can't see it!}
The whole outfit was made out of scraps of felt and yarn I had left over from other projects. The skirt was a wool felt that I had on-hand and just stitched pleat lines onto.
Then, once the uniform was complete...
... I decided that the ensemble needed a robe.
The robe was a hot mess of a project.
I started with a pattern that I clearly did not edit enough. I realized this when I was finally able to fit it on her to check sizing... which was only possible when the robe was almost completely finished. The back panels were not wide enough, so it gave the poor girl the 'chicken wing look' in the arms. The whole thing was scrapped.
The next night, I used a different pattern (fewer pieces, easier to adjust sizing). This one had much better results... but the arms were a disaster. The arm-to-body seam had to be reinforced a LOT as the fabric kept wanting to unravel and open the seam- the joys of working in 'doll size' with tighter-than-ideal seam allowances! Then the arms of the robe were too long, so I had to take them in and ruin the really nice arm lining detail of the pattern... {sigh}.
But finally, after little button details on her shoes and a hook/eye closure on the robe, she was DONE!
Little Tomato already has a handmade doll from me, and something that takes this long to make is more of an art doll than a toy... so it is en route to it's new home now via 'owl post'. A little surprise for someone who I think will enjoy her. 😉
** This second robe pattern was a great pattern if you are looking for making a robe costume for someone. After researching several, and sewing two, this one has fewer components making it a quicker project, but still included a nice hood and lining details to give it a more complex finished look without the extra work: Pattern HERE
I've been an art geek for as long as I can remember. I like to build things, sew things, knit things, & draw things. Painting had never been a media that I delved into much. Over the holidays, I got the itch to start painting. It has been a bit of a crash course, as I have never taken lessons. I've gained some confidence in acrylics - I like the quick dry time, as I am impatient.
I have just finished my first 'portrait' painting, and have dubbed her "Mademoiselle Macaron." She is aptly named, as she has discreetly squirreled away a couple of delectable macarons in her hair to be saved for later.
The canvas is pretty sizable at 30" x 48". I'm finding that I like to paint large.
As my collection of paintings is growing, I'm looking into properly photographing them to open an Etsy shop of prints and things... any thoughts on sizes of prints that would be desired? Mugs? Totes? Other ideas?
For the upcoming Escape from Azkaban party that we will be hosting in October, we are including a 'Divination Classroom' in the party. Of course, divination balls will be needed! Tutorial on the divination balls below...
With Halloween quickly approaching, Husband and I are working on our next escape-room-esque party! We have both always loved Halloween, and after all of the work and props that we have accumulated with Little Tomato's Harry Potter parties, it only makes sense to keep with the wizarding world theme for our October shin-dig. Last year's party was a Horcrux Hunt. This year's theme will be 'Escape from Azkaban.'
