A Harry Potter Inspired Room

When Parker was moving into his big boy room, I thought it would be really neat to do a Harry Potter inspired room.  Parker is obviously too young to choose what he wants in his room and I knew I didn't want to be buying him character bed spreads or anything.  And obviously I love Harry Potter and am really hoping that I can push that love onto my kids if at all possible.

I'm hoping it's not overwhelmingly Harry Potter.  I think that everything in there is kind of neat, but maybe that's just me!

I started with the decal that I bought off Etsy.  There are a few Dumbledore quotes that I love and I was going to choose one of those, but then I came across the one that said "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" and nothing could be more fitting for our little trouble maker.

He also has "Whoo Whoo" on his bed, his very own owl for him to take to Hogwarts. 

I also bought a lumos/nox decal for the light switch.  For those non-Harry Potter fans, Lumos is the magic word to turn a light on your wand and Nox is how you turn it off.

Then I did a little gallery wall.  I didn't want it to be a whoa! Harry Potter! wall, so I tried to mix things up a bit.  I bought two pictures off Etsy, the Harry Potter glasses and the Hogwarts version of Starry Night, which I thought was really neat.  Then I added a couple of Parker's newborn pictures.  The double frame has a picture of the Hogwarts Express that I took at Universal Studios and a picture of the train tracks that are used in the movie that my cousin took while in Scotland.  I love that I was able to throw in a few real photographs that are still related to Harry Potter.  Then I arranged all of the frames around my wand, which is actually Ginny Weasley's wand.

One of the first things that I bought was this chest for the room that is supposed to be the type of chest that Harry would take to school with him.

On the shelf I have Parker's illustrated Harry Potter books, a Marauders Map, a white owl or Hedwig Scentsy and a Gryffindor scarf.

Finally, what has been holding this room up is the DIY items.  These things always take me longer than expected!

First up is my Free Dobby sock holder.  For those who don't know, Dobby is a house elf.  House elves must serve their family, unless they are freed by being presented with a piece of clothing.  Harry freed the Malfoy's house elf Dobby by presenting him with a sock.  But this also serves the useful purpose of being a place to hold mismatched socks.  Too bad I have about 20 of those right now and there isn't actually enough clips for them.

My second project was a flying keys mobile. I cut out wings from a Harry Potter book, glued them onto keys and tied them with fishing line onto the mobile.  

I really like how everything turned out and hope that some day Parker thinks it's neat when he finally understands Harry Potter! 

And this is real life.  So his room does have a mess of toys in the corner and a playpen, because some days the big boy bed just doesn't work out for us.

Hogwarts Starry Night - Etsy
Harry Potter glasses print - Etsy
I Solemnly Swear decal - Etsy
Lumos/Nox Decal - Etsy
Ginny Weasley's Wand - Universal Studios Orlando
Picture Frames - Homesense
Scarf - My Mother-in-law :)
Ceramic Owl - Scentsy
Marauders Map - Indigo 
Bed Spread - Ikea
Chest - Antique Warehouse
Keys for Mobile - mixture of Amazon and actual antique keys found at an antique market

Florida - The First Week

On December 27, my entire family drove down to Florida.  It was a two day drive and it was not enjoyable.  We hit a fair amount of traffic and it took a lot longer than it should.  But finally, we arrived, and then it was awesome!

 We were staying in a house outside of Orlando.  It was great because we all had our own rooms, lots of space and our own pool and hot tub in the backyard.  We all had lots of fun in the pool, especially Parker!  We were lucky and got some pretty great weather while we were there.

We spent a day at Universal Studios and a day at the Magic Kingdom.  This is not the most economical way to do things as they are separate parks, so there's no money savings.  But I knew that I wanted to do the Magic Kingdom and I had to go to Harry Potter land if I was going to be in Florida!

First up was Universal.  It was amazing!  Walking into Hogsmeade was like stepping into the books.  First we walked up to Hogwarts and the ride that goes through the castle had a 180 min wait.  No way were we doing that.  So we rode the other rides in Harry Potter land and did the Olivanders wand shop experience.  By the time we left Harry Potter land the line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was longer than the staff had ever seen it.  (If it was 180 minutes before, it had to be 5 hours long by this point, that's insane!)  

The line ups at Universal were pretty bad.  In the whole day we only went  on 5 rides plus the Hogwarts express.  But they are quality rides and usually last at least 4 minutes.  Only my brother, his girlfriend and I payed for the park hopper pass so we got to go over to Diagon Alley, where we drank butter beer (so good!), bought wands (yes we are nerds), and went on the Gringott's ride (which was awesome!).  I have never felt like more of a geek than I did when I was in Harry Potter Land.  But I don't regret a single geeky line that was spoken.

Finally when we got back to the other Park the line up for the Hogwarts ride was "only" an hour and a half long.  The rest of the family had gotten VIP for it because someone saw them with Parker.  Lucky ducks.  Lucky for us they agreed to wait in line and go on it again. 

Later in the week, we went to the Magic Kingdom.  This is definitely a more kid friendly park!  But it's also enjoyable for adults because there is just a magic to Disney that you don't feel anywhere else.  Because we used our fastpasses smartly, we hardly waited in any lines at Disney.  (I am going to write a post with tips for anyone who is interested!)  Parker could also go on pretty much all of the rides, which made life a lot easier.

My biggest complaint about the trip was Orlando traffic.  Any time we had to drive through Orlando it was awful!  We decided to go to Downtown Disney (aka Disney Springs) for dinner one night and it made a 20 minute drive about an hour long.  Luckily dinner was delicious and we had the most expensive but most delicious sundaes afterwards and it made it worth it.

Ok that seems long enough for one post!  If you have made it this far, congratulations!  Next I will talk about the second week of our trip.

A Weekend With Harry

I finally checked something off my 30 before 30 list that I have been wanting to do for a while.

I watched all 8 Harry Potter movies in one weekend. 

How I feel about Harry Potter {via}

I know that people who don't get Harry Potter won't get this goal.  I don't really get why I wanted to do it.  Probably because I love Harry Potter.  And it was fantastic!  It wasn't easy, and it took a lot of commitment!  But I'm actually really glad I did it.  Of course while I was watching, I worked out, folded laundry and took breaks to eat and do a bit of cleaning.  Ryan was also away this weekend, so it was a great weekend to sit around and do (almost) nothing.

It's interesting watching all of the movies back to back, because you notice different things than when they are spread out.  There are some continuity issues and scenery that isn't consistent from one movie to the next.  I also feel like I noticed more things that were missing from the books.

Yes, I have an unnatural obsession with Harry Potter, but the release of the books and movies spanned over 14 years.  That's more than half my life that I was enthralled by this series, and that's kind of a big deal.  It's pretty amazing actually the impact that one story can have on your life.

I will leave you with this, the best line of the entire series:

{via}

 And the second best line goes to:

{via}

Confession: I almost didn't watch the last hour of the last movie, because I was running out of time.  But I stayed up last night and watched it.  So glad I did because it reminded me of how well done it was!

A Wand for Me

I am a huge Harry Potter nerd.  I want to go to Harry Potter Land like yesterday.  It's all my brother and I talk about.  So lately we have felt like should probably have our own wands.  We need them.  Pretty sure a wand is a life necessity.  We were talking about whose wands we would want.  Ideally of course I would want the wand to choose me, but if that doesn't happen I'm sure somebody else's wand would suffice.

Harry's Wand

I guess that the obvious choice would be Harry's wand.  That right there is a nice looking wand.  But everybody probably wants Harry's wand, and I don't like to be like everybody else.

Hermione's Wand

Next up is Hermione's wand.  I'm not really a fan of the light colouring, so it's out.

Bellatrix's Wand

Bellatrix had a neat looking wand, but I feel like the curve in it would be hard to handle.  My spells might go in the wrong direction.  And she's a bad guy.





Cedric Diggory's Wand

Now Cedric Diggory's wand would be powerful.  He's a wizard and a vampire.  

Ron's Wand

Ron's wand is nice looking too.  It looks pretty sturdy and I feel like it would do its wand thing well.


Ginny's Wand

In the end though I think I would choose Ginny's wand for a few reasons.  First of all, I'm a ginger so I relate to Ginny.  Also I like the colouring and size of this wand, I feel like it would be the perfect wand for me.

What's that?  You can't actually do magic with these wands?  That's the great thing about Harry Potter, we can always pretend that it's real.  Someday one of these wands will belong to me...I just need to make the trek down to Florida. 


All wand pictures from here.