Harry Potter For LIFE: A Movie Marathon & Hogwarts Letter Creation

I’m a nerd/dork whatever term you prefer. It’s okay and I’ve accepted and embraced my nerdiness. One of my nerdy qualities is my obsessive love with all things Harry Potter. I love the books, I love the movies, I will talk Harry Potter any time any where you want.

Every year (sometimes every other year) I re-read the Harry Potter series. I like to do it in fall, it just feels right. This year I actually started the series in August so I would be well into it when we went to England. There was something really really cool about reading Harry Potter while being on trains in English countryside. It was…epic.

Harry Potter is obviously one of my favorites. Recently I decided it was time to host a HP Movie Marathon! I figured, my friends would love it and so would I. A full day of just HP on-screen, snacks, and great friends.

This is not a full-blown HP Themed party, but I wanted to have a few fun things around the house to make it feel very “World of HP.” I found an amazing blog that detailed DIY themed Hogwarts’ Acceptance Letters.

I decided to mail my 4 friends their Hogwarts letter/invitation to the HP Movie Marathon. Click here to see where I got my idea from!

I downloaded some fun fonts, used the wording from the above blog, and printed out the 3 papers for each friend.

1. The official acceptance letter addressed to each person
2. The school supply list with my addition of “house scarf will be provided.” (Each person will get their school scarf when they arrive) Yes, we took the pottermore.com quiz to find out where we were sorted.
3. The letter from Percy Weasley explaining why their letter was sent by post and not owl mail.

Once they were printed out I brewed some coffee and poured it into a baking pan to cool. Once cooled I took my letter and a rag and dabbed each paper with the coffee to make it look aged. Drying the papers was easy. The blog recommended turning on your oven to 350 degrees and placing the sheet of paper in the over for 2-3 min. I did 2 min and they were dry in no time.

Once fully dry I took a lighter (the extended kind for my own safety,) and burned the edges a bit to make it look like extra old parchment. You can see the resulting letters below with their brownish tinge and burnt edges.

  

 

 

Once the letters were completed it was time to make some coordinating envelopes to send out as well. I took envelopes and just fully dipped them in the coffee then dried them in the oven a bit. They weren’t quite as brown and old as I wanted so I took some of the wet coffee grinds and really rubbed them into the damp envelopes. This worked perfectly. I stuck them back in the oven to dry them completely. When they came out i just dusted off the excess grinds.  As the blog above mentions, you have to be careful because anything wet activates the glue on the envelopes. Just make sure you don’t put them glue side down on anything 🙂

You can see the envelopes below:

 

I had one final step, to address the envelopes. I wish I had practiced some script or printed the names on the envelopes using the printer like the woman recommended in her blog, but I got excited and dipped the envelopes too soon!

I wrote out the addresses on each and taped down the Hogwarts emblem in the return address spot. I figured, if it gets lost in the mail, oh well, I wanted it to look like it came from Hogwarts.

Since the envelope glue was gone, I just taped down the envelope to close it. Was it super authentic, no, but I’m very much about “what’s easy and what do I have?” I didn’t have glue so tape it was. No biggie.

Here’s the final product:

 

I haven’t decide how fully I’ll be “decorating” since it’s a Movie Marathon, but I have created a sign for the front door for my guests to come in!

I will be hanging a 9 3/4 sign with “Hogwarts Express” on it, so the guests have to enter the platform to get to HP Movie world 🙂

Here’s the sign I made that will hang on the front door:

 

I’m debating what else to do, might do a few treats (we’re planning to cook that day,) so I am using another blog I found here. I’m definitely having a veggie tray labeled “Professor Sprout’s Garden Treats” but more than that I’m not sure. We’re heading to Starbucks where they apparently make a Butterbeer on the “secret” menu.

This is just the start to my HP Movie Marathon and I’m having so much fun! I’ll take photos on the day, but for now I just wanted a few things to add some atmosphere!