At some point in the fall of our Senior year, Melissa, my roommate, got it in her pretty little head that we should have a Harry Potter party (we both had been considering hosting some sort of party for a while). Once that simple idea was planted our creative genius took over and it just snowballed from there. Pictured below are the invitations which are oragami owls carrying parchment with the invite printed on it. They are arranged on the table cloth that I made from Harry Potter fabric I found at Joann's. In addition to date and place, the invitations indicated that it was a costume party and that dressing up as a character from the books, or in that style would be greatly appreciated.
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Once everyone was invited we set about planning the decorations and food. In the end, the decorations were minimal, but the food was crazy. Pictured below is the final display for the tray of chocolate frogs.
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Here are the frogs before their tray was beautified.
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And the frogs from up close. In order to make the chocolate frogs, take tootsie rolls and heat them in the microwave (after removing from wrapper) for 15 seconds or so. This will soften them enough to make them bendable into shapes. For the body, fold one toostie roll in half. For each leg fold over 1/3 of the end of the tootsie roll and squish onto the body. Make small balls from another tootsie roll for the eyes and forelegs.
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For the remainder of the food we made Canary Creams (cream puffs with Peeps on top) Cauldron Cakes (chocolate cupcakes with raspberry jelly centers and licorice stick stiring rods) and Cockroach Clusters (chocolate covered pecans). To make the Cockroach clusters just take a bag of semi-sweet chips, melt them in the microwave and stir in pecans. Then spoon them out into bite sized lumps to cool on waxed paper or parchement paper. Our crowning achievement in the food department wasn't actually food though it was Butterbeer.
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Here is the recipe we followed for the Butterbeer, which we got from an episode of the Rosie O'Donnell show that I had seen at Christmas.
Ingredients:
Directions:
1. Cream butter, sugar and spices together.
2. Beat in the vanilla ice cream.
3. Re-freeze the mixture.
4. Scoop out the frozen mixture into a glass.
5. Pour hot Apple cider over the ice cream mixture.
Optional: add an ounce of rum for an adult treat.
Once the guests arrived, the first thing we did was enjoy our treat (the non-adult version). Except for Hubert, because we weren't sure if the nutmeg would kill him or not. We even let the two yutzes (Mark and Matt) who didn't come in costume enjoy the goodness.
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Pictured all together is everyone who came in HP specific costume. From left to right, Gilbert as Dumbledore, Walter as Voldemort, Jed as Harry, Melissa as Hermione, me as Madame Rosmerta (the perfect host for a party) then Irene as Cho Chang and Risa as Fleur Delacour.
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There was also Pete and Elizabeth who were a wizard and witch doing their best Muggle-Impersonation to defray suspicion while attending the Quidditch World Cup.
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It was only shortly after that that the Butterbeer apparently began to take effect... Voldemort started getting all uppity on us and trying to impress us with how evil he was.
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Dumbledore then suggested that perhaps Moldy Voldy had had too much to drink and should get a cab. Affronted with being called an old school name in front of such an array of dazzling young ladies Voldemort threatened to turn Dumbledore into a newt.
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But in the end apparently love conquers all, and a nice kiss from Dumbledore quickly sobered up the slightly snockered Dark Lord.
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P.S. While all other accounts of the evening are accurate, the whole Voldemort Dumbledore business is utterly fictional. I don't remember exactly how all these images came to pass, but it makes for a good story.