Chocolate Frogs And Other Harry Potter Treats (HP Month)

Those of you who have read my previous Harry Potter Birthday post know that a few days ago, my little sister turned 18 and to celebrate I threw her a Harry Potter inspired party. Today I'm going to show you the Harry Potter themed treats I made for the party, including little DIY tips and links to the eBay stores where I found some of the stuff I used. So to start, we have the must-have of all HP parties...

Chocolate Frogs 

To make these, I first had buy a frog-shaped mold. I found mine on eBay here but Amazon.com also has these if you're interested. To make my chocolate frogs, I also had to learn how to melt chocolate. Those who've tried it before know how easy it is to screw up and end up with burnt chocolate. Fortunately, I learned a little technique which makes the whole process super easy and practically fail proof. 

Melting your chocolate and making the little frogs

1. The first thing you need to do is break your chocolate into even pieces. Chocolate bars are easy to work with because they are already marked evenly where you're supposed to break them. 

2. Place your chocolate pieces in a microwave safe bowl. Place the bowl in your microwave and set it to 30 secs. 

3. Once the first 30 secs are up, take the bowl out of the microwave and stir the chocolate a little. Since chocolate can actually retain its initial shape even when melted, this will help you know whether or not it's melted. Don't worry if at this stage it's not melted yet. 

4. Put the bowl back into the microwave and set it again to 30 secs. Afterwards, take the bowl out, stir your chocolate and then put it back for another 30 secs. 

5. Repeat this process until you have melted chocolate with a similar consistency to, say, Nutella. You chocolate will really start to melt around the 2nd or 3rd trip into the microwave.

6. Once you have your melted chocolate, you need to work fast because your chocolate will start cooling and hardening quickly. 

7. With a spoon, take your melted chocolate and place it in the mold. 

8. Once the mold has been filled, leave the chocolate to cool. You can start unmolding your little frogs after a bit less than 2hrs. I was terrified of screwing up since it was my first time making anything like this so I ended up waiting for two solid hours before unmolding my frogs. You probably don't have to wait that long though!
9. And here's the final result:

The Chocolate Frog Cards

You can find free printables online including this one. I wasn't satisfied with the designs available online though, so I decided to make my own. I designed these on Microsoft Word with pictures I found online. After printing my cards, I folded then along the middle line and then glued both sides together. And in case you were wondering, the messages are written in French :) If you want more precision on how I made my cards, send me an email and I'll gladly give you further explanations.

The Chocolate Frog Box

You can find free printables of the boxes with the original design from the Harry Potter parks online, such as this one. I even printed one but at some point during the process of building the box I realized that it would end up being too small for my chocolate and card. So I instead downloaded a free printable of a pillow box here and used that as my box. I made a couple of Chocolate Frog labels on Microsoft word and stuck them on my box. And yes, Chocogrenouille is French for Chocolate Frog ;)

Bertie Bott's Flavored Beans 

This one was even easier to do than the Chocolate Frogs because you can just buy jellybeans to use as your Flavored Beans. I got a free printable of the box online here and after putting it together, I just filled it with my jellybeans. The only tricky part was probably getting the pointed top of the box right. 

So that's it for my Harry Potter treats. If you want to know more about any of the items mentioned here, don't hesitate to send me an email! In my next post I'll show you the crafts and DIY projects I made for my sister's HP party. Until then, you can check out my Harry Potter Birthday post to have a look at the crafts and decoration items I'll be talking about in my next post. 

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A Harry Potter Birthday (HP Month)

Hey guys. So some of you might have noticed that I was quite absent these past two weeks, with me not posting anything and not replying to your comments. Well, the thing is that I've actually been super busy organizing a surprised birthday party for my little sister, Pooja, who turned 18 this year. I might be moving out next year for uni and if I do, I'll end up missing her birthdays for at least a couple of years. So, to make up for the birthdays I'll be missing and to leave her with good memories for the years when I won't be here, I decided to turn our house into Hogwarts and throw her a Harry Potter themed party. 'Cause not only is she a Potterhead too, but it's also not everyday your little sister turns 18!

The Birthday Girl

My sister and I have been Potterheads since always. We've fangirled together over many series but Harry Potter remains our shared favorite. While my favorite Hogwarts House is Gryffindor, Pooja is totally a Slytherin. 

The Gifts

The Harry Potter Gifts

Apart from a bunch of other gifts, I got my sister a few Harry Potter stuff too, including this Slytherin scarf, and the Hogwarts pendant. Both the scarf and the pendant comes in different designs for the different Houses. You can find them on eBay at relatively low prices by clickling on the above links.

And since you can hardly call yourself a witch unless you actually own a wand, I just had to get Pooja her own. I got her Harry's wand (right picture), which I found on eBay here. This store also sells the wands of other characters such as Sirius, Snape, Dumbledore and a bunch of others. My wand though (left picture) was custom made by a friend of my dad's out of mahogany wood. Also, can you spot the Hogwarts Express train ticket and the Marauder's Map in the pictures? I made both myself using printables I found online. If you're interested in making your own, just click on the above links. 

My Harry Potter Crafts and Decorations

I planned my sister's birthday in a story format with her even getting her own Sorting Ceremony. You can find Sorting Hat replicas online but those tend to be rather pricey and I'm too much of a DIY newbie to attempt making my own. So instead, I just used a regular witch hat which I kept folded for a couple of weeks to give it that beat-up Sorting Hat look. 

These are the things I made myself. I made a bunch of potions, including the Felix Felicis pictured above, by filling discarded perfume bottles with colored water. I then scattered my little potions on the party table and in different rooms of the house. The Weasley clock (bottom left) was made from a free printable I found online here. The broom from the picture on the right was possibly the hardest to make. There are a lot of YouTube videos that show you how to make your own Quidditch broom but I personally found them too hard to make on my own so I instead went for a simpler model using a normal broom and a mop handle. 

I wanted the magical feeling to last throughout the day, so I put little nods to the Harry Potter universe all over the house... including the bathroom! When my sister went to take her shower in the morning, she was surprised to find a framed mermaid picture in the bathroom along with a cupcake soap with Honeydukes written on the box. The soap is actually from a local shop that sells candy and cake shaped, homemade soaps. Even if you're not from Mauritius, you might still want to visit their Facebook page to look at the pictures of their awesome cupcake soaps.  And yep, they smell just as good as they look!

Cake and Treats

Since this was a HP party, we just had to have Chocolate Frogs. These were surprisingly super easy to make. In an upcoming post I'll tell you how to make your own, including the box and card, with links to free printables for the box and the eBay store selling the frog shaped mold I used. For the birthday cake, I wanted something that remained close to the magic/HP theme and ended up selecting this one because of the stars and color scheme. You can find the original model on which this cake was designed here. 

The Party

If you look closely, you can spot my homemade potions in the bottom left corner. There's also my Gryffindor scarf draped over a chair in the top right area. 

I also had little witch hats as table decorations, which I made out of black paper after cutting out the models for the cone and round base from a free printable I found here. 

Final thoughts

I made this from a HP font I found online. I just printed each letter on a separate page, before cutting and arranging them on the wall to form Happy Birthday. 

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I may or may not be here to celebrate my sister's birthday next year, so I wanted this one to be really special. Here's a picture of us with our witch garbs. Who said Gryffindor and Slytherin can't hang out?!

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What if characters from other fictional universes had to face Boggarts? (HP Month)

Continuing with the month's Harry Potter theme, I thought it would be fun to imagine the forms Boggarts might take if they were faced by characters from other books than Harry Potter. For this, I'm going to be considering books that are among the current major fandoms, so long I've read the books of course. 

Originally, I wanted to include Divergent in the lot but figured that since the characters already face their fears in the books (and movies), we kind of already know what their Boggarts would look like. And now let's start.

Loud and clear everyone... Riddikulus!

(Not So Fun Fact: Ron Weasley and I share the same Boggart...)

Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 

Art by Alice X. Zhang on DevianArt

Throughout the series, Katniss fears not only for her life but also for the people she loves. However, as demonstrated by the very concluding scene of the series, her greatest fear and the thing that has affected her most, are the Hunger Games. If Katniss had to face a Boggart, it would either take the form of a contestant she has to kill or a reproduction of the arena. 

Percy from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan

Art by viria13 on DevianArt

As the series progresses, Percy's fears do change but one which is pretty dominant, especially in the earlier installments, is his fear of planes or simply flying. Zeus, the God of the Sky is pretty pissed that Percy's dad, Poseidon, broke the pact he made with his brothers to not have any more half-human children. Consequently, Zeus warns Percy that should he ever come in his domain, by boarding a plane for instance, he'll be blasted out of the sky. So Percy's Boggart would probably take the form of a plane.

Jace from the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare

Art by chrysalisgrey on DevianArt

This one is pretty hilarious. It's mentioned in the books that Jace has an irrational dislike for ducks. Where this weird and totally random phobia comes from? Well, I suppose it's a weird genetic thing... If you've read The Infernal Devices trilogy, you probably know what I mean XD. So yeah, Jace's Boggart would be a duck!

Cress from the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Art by CzareenYJ on DevianArt

Having spent all her life alone in a satellite, Cress is pretty much an introvert. She's so shy that at some point in the books, when she receives a COMM (kinda like a call) from another character, she actually ducks and hides. Public speaking sounds like something she would be afraid of. So if Cress faced a Boggart, it might just as well take the form of a stage in front of a huge audience. I don't know about you, but to those of us who happen to be introverts, public speaking is. the. worst. 

So that's it for this HP Month post guys. Did you read any of the series mentioned above? If yes, what is your favorite character and what form do you think his or her Boggart might take? Let me know in the comments!

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