Conjuring
Harry Potter
By
JILL WENDHOLT SILVA -
The Kansas City Star
Date: 10/23/01 22:15
What's worse than fighting off a boogery 12-foot
mountain troll on Halloween?
For some Muggle mom and dads (folks without
an ounce of wizarding wit), it's the thought of staging a truly
magical Harry Potter party in their own home.
"I think there are so many parents who are
scared to death to have 10 kids standing in their living room
waiting to be entertained," says Mary Ann Ross, co-owner of
www.thepartyworks.com, an online theme-party planning
service that sells licensed party ware.
But planning a Harry Potter-themed birthday
party, Halloween party or a party to celebrate the much-anticipated
release of Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"
movie, due out Nov. 16, (2002) doesn't necessarily require a
cauldron of special effects.
"You can take all the traditional games. Just
change the words around and the kids are delighted," Ross says.
Read on. We've pulled ideas for food, decor
and party games straight out of the magician's cap.
Re-create
a wizard sweetshop
(even if you're a Muggle)
Last year, before there was a glut of Harry
Potter merchandise on the market, Chris Martin put her imagination
and graphic designing skills to work to create a basket of candy
from that wizard-famous sweet shop, Honeydukes of Hogsmeade.
Now for all you Muggles, Honeydukes is the
Purveyor of Fyne Sweetes detailed in Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban, the third in British author J.K. Rowling's
ongoing series of children's literature.
"There were shelves upon shelves of the
most succulent-looking sweets imaginable. Creamy chunks of nougat,
shimmering pink squares of coconut ice, fat, honey-colored toffees;
hundreds of different kinds of chocolate in neat rows; there
was a large barrel of Every Flavor Beans, and another of Fizzing
Whizbees, the levitating sherbet balls that Ron had mentioned;
along yet another wall were `Special Effects' sweets:
"Droobles Best Blowing Gum (which filled
a room with bluebell-colored bubbles that refused to pop for
days), the strange, splintery Toothflossing Stringmints, tiny
black Pepper Imps (`breathe fire for your friends!'), Ice Mice
(`hear your teeth chatter and squeak!'), peppermint creams shaped
like toads (`hop realistically in the stomach!'), fragile sugar-spun
quills, and exploding bonbons."
"When we read the book, I just loved the candy
shop scene and I thought, you know, I could go and get the candy
and rewrap it," Martin says.
The Lenexa mom and her children, Claire, 8,
and Owen, 11, count themselves among the legion of Harry Potter
fans who are eagerly awaiting the movie version, which arrives
in theaters Nov. 16.
A trip to Mr. Bulky's and a Hy-Vee's grocery
store revealed Brogdon's Mint Double Dip Dessert Sticks could
double as Toothflossing Stringments, Bizzerks Candy that fizzes
mimics the action of Exploding Bonbons and an Adams & Brooks
Psychopop makes for a tongue-tingling Acid Pop.
Martin then took it upon herself to repackage
and relabel the candies with a Honeydukes name using a Hallmark
greeting card computer program with an assortment of clip art
and typefaces.
One basket was so popular at a silent auction
fund-raiser that the high bidder paid more than $40 for it.
"I was thrilled at the response," Martin says. "A year ago Harry
Potter was popular, but it's only been within the last year
that all the commercial products have come onto the market,
so I thought I was sticking my neck out. I thought people might
say, `What is that?' "
Potter
party potions
Sure, you can buy Harry Potter eyeglasses
at Target and pouches of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans at
Linens 'n' Things for $4.99 a pop or order licensed Potter party
ware off any number of Internet sites, including www.thepartyworks.com.
But with just a dash of creativity and some
magic of your own, a Harry Potter theme party can begin where
the beloved books left off.
Instead of the traditional yawner Pin the Tail
on the Donkey, yuk it up with Pin the Pig's Tail on Dudley Dursley,
Harry's evil Muggle cousin.
Conjure up Chocolate Frogs, a candy available
at Honeydukes sweet shop in Hogsmeade, by using molds available
at craft and specialty baking stores. Or simply create a clever
pun: bake chocolate cupcakes, ice them with fudge frosting and
decorate with Gummie Frogs.
Opt for a licensed cake topper or simply tint
some frosting gold, add cardboard wings festooned with feathers
from a craft store and it's a Golden Snitch cake.
Serve Kool-Aid in science lab beakers. And in
the spirit of the jokester twins Fred and George Weasley, sprinkle
the brew with some Pop Rocks just to get a rise out of the recipient.
On the Internet, where Potter fans are known
to congregate, we found recipes for the highly edible Cockroach
Clusters, as well as an inedible recipe for Gooey Gunk, a fascinating
cornstarch and water mixture, or as one mom described it, "a
metastable non-Newtonian fluid." If that sounds like so
much hocus-pocus and mumbo-jumbo, suffice it to say the gunk
oozes so coolly between your fingers because it is neither liquid
nor solid.
Larry Wheeler, in-house florist at the Fairmont
Hotel, has some clever suggestions to help create a magical
ambiance on any budget:
Daily
Prophet invitations
Use a computer program, typewriter or
handwritten script to re-create a page from nosy reporter Rita
Skeeter's column in the Daily Prophet.
The
Hogwarts Express
Decorate your front door to read
Platform 93/4.
The
Sorting Hat
Rig a walkie-talkie in a witch's hat.
Have an adult who is out of sight intone the house of each child
who wears the hat assigning them to the houses Gryffindor, Slytherin,
Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw.
Magic
classes
Divide the party-goers by houses. Then
ask several adults to come dressed as the various professors,
such as McGonagall or Snape, to teach "classes" in
herbology (plant seeds in a paper cup), transfiguration (tie-dye
a scarf) or potions class (make Gooey Gunk, see related recipe).
Hedwig
in the owlery
Cover the good china with a piece of fabric.
Then place children's stuffed toy owls in the cabinet.
The
Golden Snitch
Use gold lame balls or spray Styrofoam
balls with gold spray paint. Add wings and hang throughout the
house.
Moaning
Myrtle
Use a spooky sounds tape or record some
of Moaning Myrtle's lines and play them in the bathroom for
a little bathroom humor. Post a sign on the door that reads
"Beware of Moaning Myrtle." ("It would only take
one kid to get it before everyone was turned onto it.")
Fairy
lights
Cover miniature holiday lights with nylon
netting to create a mood.
Shopping
in Diagon Alley
Outfit your young party-goers with inexpensive
robes. This can be as simple as a pillowcase with armholes.
For a take-home craft project, help them make paper wizard hats
and wands.
Quidditch
There are any number of ways to play this
game without leaving the ground. You can play the equivalent
of soccer while riding a broomstick. (Look for inexpensive brooms
at a dollar store.) Or set up a croquet obstacle course. Or
create a relay race using a broom and a hat. Or hunt for a Golden
Snitch that has been hidden in the house or back yard.
For
more spells, potions, games, activities, magic tricks and licensed
Harry Potter party & cake decorating supplies go to...
http://www.harrypotter-birthday.com
Halloween
April
Johnson
