A Very Harry Potter Halloween!

Halloween has come and gone, but not without some magical fun! 

Yes, I'm totally that mom that is doing themed Halloween costumes with my kids while they're still young enough to think it's super cool. 

This year's theme---HARRY POTTER! 

We kicked things off on the Friday before Halloween with a Trunk or Treat Event at my husband's work. So we decided to tie our Harry Potter theme into our Trunk or Treat decorations, and it turned out super cute and fun, and didn't cost much to put together. 

WELCOME TO AZKABAN PRISON!

We loved the idea of making our trunk kind of interactive, so we decided to make an Azkaban wanted sign, and all the kids were able to come up and take a photo as they passed our booth. We had our dementor hanging to the side (he had to be moved away a couple of times for the younger kids!). 

The sign was cheap and easy to make. 
I downloaded the Have You Seen This Wizard and Prisoner Number signs from Paper Trail Design. Then we printed and attached them to the board, cut out a square, and voila! Easy, and only about $1 for the poster board! 

The dementor was made out of a regular halloween skeleton ($12.50 at Target) that we covered with some black halloween cloth ($3.50 at Target!). Then we positioned it's hands to loo like a dementor and strung it up with some fishing line attached to our rear wiper blade. 

We also strung up a few floating candles (like the ones from the Great Hall) by rolling battery operated tea lights up into a pieces of card stock paper. The tea lights were easy to remove and turn on once it got dark out. 


As for the trunk decor, we kept it pretty simple, as we really wanted the photo booth to be the big attraction. 

We covered the entire back with a plain black sheet, and placed some battery operated strobe lights behind the sheet to give a flashing effect that wasn't too blinding as people came by. 

I had some potion bottles that I had picked up at the Target dollar spot earlier in the year. I downloaded some printable potion labels from Darling Doodles and Over The Big Moon, and sealed them to the bottles with Mod Podge. I used "Draught of Living Death", "Wolfsbane Potion", "Essence of Dittony" "Veritaserum" and "Skelegrow"-- all things I thought might come in handy at a place like Azkaban! 



I also downloaded a few spell book covers (also from Paper Trail Designs) and wrapped them around my Harry Potter books. I did want to use something that looked my antique, or parchment paper-like, but unfortunately none of the local places I checked had any. I think that would have given them a more realistic look--but this worked fine! 

We placed all of these items in the trunk, with a black witches hat, some black plastic pumpkins and spiders, and a couple of real pumpkins and played Harry Potter themed music through our Bluetooth speaker to top it all off! 


I was really pleased with how it turned out, and everyone commented on what a great idea it had been! We had a lot of kiddos and adults alike stop and take pictures behind the photo booth! I hope this helps inspire your next Trunk or Treat decorating event!!! 


Happy Haunting from Harry Sr, Hermione, Harry Jr. and Professor Trelawney! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hurry Up and Wait---Our Last Minute PCS Journey Begins!

Image
Army life. It always keeps ya guessing, right?! We found out this week that my husband's current contract has been curtailed (aka- cut short!) and they're bumping our DROS (Date Returned from Overseas) up by about 7 months earlier than anticipated. So a DROS date basically means that when they give him his new date, we HAVE to be gone from our overseas duty station, which is currently Hawaii. AND we were told it will be "highly likely" that his new date  to leave here will be the first week or two of February. AKA- 3 months until we have to be cleared, packed up and on our way to our new home in Missouri! >>Insert panicked Army Wife here!<< But in all seriousness--I know that this happens often, and I know it can be incredibly stressful, so I've decided to make lemonade from our lemons, and put together a comprehensive guide to last minute PCSing from an Army Wife's standpoint. I hope that once we start going through the motions, and ...
Read more

Answering The Call

Image
These last few weeks, I feel like life has been throwing me an insane amount of curveballs! From our last minute move coming up (which we still haven't received hard orders for, and therefore can't even START any of the many tasks that need to be started) to our car completely dying and us having to buy a brand new one, it's like all of these small things are collapsing, BUT they're doing so in a way that doesn't feel ominous. It's almost like the universe is conspiring to put me on a path that my soul has desperately been calling me to follow. I honestly have no idea what that path is yet, but I can feel it bubbling under the surface, just waiting for the opportune moment to rise up and reveal itself. I've been reading this really great book, "Light Is The New Black" , by Rebecca Campbell and it's really had me taking the time to connect and listen to the messages that I've been receiving from the universe. So last week, I was out fo...
Read more

Halloween: Teal Pumpkin

Image
 This is Halloween, This is Halloween  Here in our house, Halloween is a big deal. We love everything about it, from celebrating the fall harvest season, to decorating our front porch, and OF COURSE COSTUMES AND CANDY!!!  I mean, really, what kid doesn't love costumes and candy, right?!  EXCEPT---not every kiddo can actually have candy. So how do we make sure that Halloween is just as fun for them?  By becoming a TEAL PUMPKIN HOUSE! As a Teal Pumpkin House, you can still pass out your regular halloween food style treats, but you commit to also having non-food treats available for your trick-or-treaters who have food allergies that would otherwise prevent them from enjoying their All Hallows Eve experience.  Last year was the first time we've been a Teal Pumpkin house--so I was like WHOA---what the heck kind of stuff should I get for our Teal Pumpkin?!  I mean--everyone deserves something super cool for Halloween--s...
Read more