1st Birthday: Little Fish
2nd Birthday: Bugs
3rd Birthday: My Little Pony
4th Birthday: Pink Pants
5th Birthday: Cowgirl
6th Birthday: High School Musical
7th Birthday: American Girl Doll/Store
Last year for her 8th birthday, she chose a Harry Potter theme and I ran wild with it.
Me & My Munchkin ... aka "Ginny & Hermione"
We started with the invites. We took some natural colored cardstock with flecks in it and dipped the paper in a baking dish of instant coffee and water then hung them out on the laundry line to dry in the sun. This actually ending up being a bad idea because I ended up having to iron each sheet of paper to get it to go through my home printer. I found a good Hogwarts logo online and copy & pasted it at the top of the invitation. To create the wording for the invite, I used a combination of examples I found online as well as the actual letter wording from the first Harry Potter Book. I printed two invites to a sheet of paper. Once they were cut in half, I tore off all the edges then hit them with a lighter to give them an even more aged look. Then we tri-folded them and sealed them with some sealing wax and a little thistle sealing stamp I had in my old craft bin. I got a lot of complements from some of the other moms on them. Thank goodness cause they were a total pain in the butt! Worth it though.I had to say I skimped on decor. I decorated with a Hogwart's banner I found online and a home-made Platform 9 3/4 Sign and then used purple & black plates, cups, etc. I wanted to make sure I stayed on budget so this is the area I cut corners on.
For food, I made the Pumpkin Juice from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook. I also made wizard wands from big pretzel sticks, candy coating/melts & silver sprinkles. (I used this exact same recipe -- just with different colors & sprinkles -- for my daughter's My Little Pony 3rd Birthday Party and called them unicorn horns.) I made cupcakes which I decorated with little black and green wizard and witch hats that I made from rolled out gumdrops (probably the most challenging thing I've done in my life). I found the instructions in an old kids' party magazine I had in my stash. I also made chocolate and chocolate mint frogs thanks to a $2 mold I found on amazon.com. The kids did not like the pumpkin juice but loved all the other treats. I ordered Drooble's chewing gum and Bertie Bot's every flavor beans online and put them in treat bags that I made from some wizard-y fabric my mom had given me years before and never found a use for -- until then. The treat bags were super easy. I just cut strips, sewed up the sides and cut the top edge with pinking shears. We also put in gold "galleons" from the local party store and bouncy balls with stars molded inside them.
As the kids arrived, I had them go into the kitchen and sit at the table to paint and decorate their own wands (wooden dowels). This kept them busy as we waited for all the guests to get there. Once that was all done we had them pick ribbons from a "sorting hat" -- which was just a halloween witch's hat. There were ribbons in four colors for each house at Hogwarts. Once the children were sorted we tied the ribbons on their upper arms so they would know what house they were in and could gather with their housemates. Then we informed them which color represented which house and what characteristics defined students in that house. Then we did some Harry Potter trivia and the top house won Harry Potter stickers. Then we held classes in Potions, Divination & Herbology. In Potions the kids partnered up. I used the little dessert shooter set from Pier 1 for the potion bottles and gave them each 1 bottle of ground unicorn horn (baking soda) and 1 bottle of dragon spit (vinegar colored with gree food color) that I had pre-assembled secretly the night before. One partner poured the dragon spit into the unicorn horn powder while the other partner said the magic word. For herbology, I gave them each a little terracotta pot and a marigold and some dirt to plant their own "calendula" which is known for its healing properties for skin. 
Then I sent the kids to the living room for some broomstick limbo -- the winner got a bonus chocolate frog -- and some Divination. My future mother-in-law was so awesome. She dressed up as a gypsy fortune teller and read each guest's palm. She learned how to do it at some community college class or something and the kids and grown-ups all got a big kick out of it. So, while they were all occupied with that, I cleaned up the arts and crafts mess in the kitchen (thank goodness for disposable table cloths -- I just folded everything up towards the center and threw the wad in the garbage) and busted out the cupcakes, edible wands & juice that I mentioned earlier.Then it was time for present opening ... and, just in the knick of time, the parents started arriving to pick up their kids.
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