Even with attending the SF Symphony fireworks concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre Monday evening, I have gotten a lot of party prep done this week…scarily I’m feeling like I’ll actually get everything done…we’ll see what really happens! 
Here’s some of what’s happened since I last checked in…
Staples has these nice tagboard preprinted parchment scrolls for like $1, which I used last time for the Nerf Quidditch rules. There’s a green background, but by cutting the scroll out from the background, it looks very cool. The drawback is you can’t fit it in a printer, so hand-lettering is usually what I do…however, I did print the Best Edible Creation contest flyer out large in two 11″x17″ sections, then after I ripped the edges as close to the lettering as possible, I tried oiling the white paper to make it translucent, which worked pretty well. I fear for the spray adhesive not sticking to the still-greasy paper, so I’m leaving it flat for now and will only hang it for the party…less chance of gravity working against me I think.
I’m at about 6 layers of papier-mache plus a thick layer of spackle on my tree-trunk garbage can. This is an idea I’ve had for a couple years now, since I never have good garbage & recycling receptacles for my parties. My mom had seen a Martha Stewart show on how to make upside-down plastic buckets into small tree stumps for Halloween decorations, but I mutated that into using the round plastic garbage can I have, putting plastic around it so the trunk isn’t permanently attached to the can, then starting with as many paper grocery bags as I could find, first to block out the organic-looking trunk shape, then to keep covering in layers. I think now with the spackle it will be sturdy enough, plus the spackle has the added bonus of looking very much like bark for texture – hooray! Painting & sealing is next…
Since the RSVPs are up to about 20 kids now (ack!), and I had originally only made 11 capes & black paper hats to decorate, I made 14 more of each. The capes are made out of two 3′x50′ rolls of weed blocker fabric, which is essentially slightly thicker gossamer you purchase for more money from party supply websites.
I bought (well, used free JoAnn pts) more white felt since I’ve changed my plan for blocking off my staircase, using the front door piece of flagstone gossamer (only needed for Halloween) for a fake wall, so that is handled – cut to size, stapled & taped.
I played around with furniture arrangement to get Potions into the kitchen while still having space for the main food table with clearance. By using a smaller tabletop, I think it’ll be perfect! Since the Potions table was already moved, I decided to get out the bricks & shelves & bottles to start setting everything up. It bugged me wasting the paper & gold thread ingredient tags on the liquid potions, so to improve on that, I got gold-edged scrapbooking tags on 50% off sale (made the free JoAnn pts go farther!), painstakingly cut the parchment printed ingredients to tag size, then used laminating sheets to stick the parchment to the metal tag edges, also hopefully making the tag water-resistant! Add a gold elastic cord (also free JoAnn pts) to the tag, and removable & reusable Potion ingredients tags! 
Both the kids prize chest and the adult prize chest are filled, and all the prize buttons are done. The Best Edible Creation statuette is all finished too…I won’t tell you what it looks like so you’ll be surprised…heehee!
Spot the Spell, Whirled Words and Ogle the Owl sheets are all printed – 60-80 copies each! (the little kids won’t do Spot the Spell or Whirled Words)
The signpost has been put up outside, with the 4 destinations written in chalk. (Maybe I should have referenced the original when I was setting it up? Ah well!)
I also have purchased stuff for the last new prop I’d like to make, so we’ll see what happens timewise. I would like to make the Quidditch scoreboard from the movies, which will be a challenge, and will be only manually functional by hand-changing the numbers, but we’ll see. Since all the spending I’ve been doing at JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts for this party has been all totally free money (I had $100 free from my JoAnn VISA card & still have $45 left! – that’s what happens when a new laptop, UK airfare plus major auto maintenance all happen in 3 months!), plus the tree trunk garbage can is only costing the glue since I already had the spackle, I figured I could spend some on Michaels for this one project.
8 dozen chocolate frogs are done, and I’m stopping there even though they’re small. There is no way I’ll have spiffy boxes for them all, so only a token few with be put into the pentagonal movie-style boxes I designed for the last party.
Only one week to go – wheeeeee! 
Subscribe RSS
I’m in absolute awe and totally impressed.
If only I had the time… wow!
And I can’t tell you how much your cauldron cakes got me excited to try some of my own.
Yeah, the cauldron cakes are way cool. The inset peanut butter cup is genius, not to mention utterly delicious (I presume).
Cauldron Cakes
B-Diddy; I must say, those cauldron cakes look mighty tasty to me as well. Seeing everything you’ve accomplished, I’m wondering if you haven’t managed to get your hands on a time-turner!?! Great tree stump! (Hmm…now there’s something I never pictured myself saying.)