The Sorting Hat

It FINALLY arrived - our sorting hat has arrived, and its GORGEOUS!
The boys have been sorting everyone they can all weekend. Thank you EBay!!

Another potions class

Now I'll add photos of the same experiment done in a test tube.



Potions class - snow experiment

I managed to get hold of some insta-snow off www.stevespanglerscience.com though no thanks to the actual website ($80 order and they quoted me $5300 to ship it to Australia) THANK-YOU http://shop.australiangeographic.com.au/ for bringing the stuff in AND having it on sale.

So, step 1, place 1 scoop in your palms

Step 2, add water

Step 3, watch the snow form

Step 4, it increases by 100 x, so a small scoop (1/2 scoop in this instance) will fill a 10 year olds hands.  We still have some snow we made about a week ago in a ziplock baggie and its still snow - apparently if you let it dry out, it returns to its powder state and you can re-add water to make it snow again.

Golden snitch

I found large gold Christmas baubles in Spotlight for about $2 each and in the hat-making section I found these netting bows which I then sprayed with gold spray paint and used a glue gun to attach onto the top of the golden snitch.  With some fishing line attached and hanging from the ceiling I think these will make great decorations.

Spooky Spiders

So.......................... I decided to get crafty this weekend, no not wicked crafty, make something crafty LOL.
I can't remember where I got the idea for the egg carton spiders.

You will need:

• empty egg cartons
• petite single hole punch
• black spray paint
• black pipe cleaners
• googly/wiggly eyes
• glue gun

First I cut the egg carton up (in fact, I cut up 3) and punched 4 small hols on 2 opposite sides of each one.

Then I took them outside and sprayed each one black (remember to do inside as well - they'll lose their scary factor if you get to see the grey egg carton colour.

Then I cut 2 pipe cleaners for each spider, in half and diagonally inserted them from one side to the other.



 Next I got out the hot glue gun and stuck on 2 googly/wiggly eyes for each spider.

I am so stoked with the end result.  I'll use fishing line to tie them hanging upside down from the ceiling in the "great hall".



"Holy hell batman!"

I've not had a lot of time for sewing the last few days.  Between working full time and trips to optometrists for Luke for glasses and then James fracturing both forearm bones and trips to doctors and physio and cast put on, I'm SHATTERED!

THANKFULLY Luke and his dad are going camping for scouts this weekend and best of all they leave tomorrow morning (Thursday) and won't be back till Sunday night.  Now with James' arm in a cast, he doesn't really want to do anything so I've declared this my BIG SEWING WEEKEND..... I'm super excited.

Stay tuned for many more posts and uploads this weekend, I intend on making a BIG dent in my prep for the party.

Cake ideas

Luke and I had a discussion about the cake yesterday.  Since one of the highlights on the day is going to be Florean Fortescue's Ice-cream Parlour after lunch, we don't think we're going to need a very big cake.  Every year I do a massive cake for the boys' birthdays and we end up giving so much cake away to go home AND eating cake for the next 3 days ourselves and STILL throwing out a decent % of the cake - so this year I'm going small, even though we're looking at 30 - 40 kids.

We decided we wanted to keep the cake simple and true to the first movie (even though Luke and I both REALLY want a Monster Book of Monsters cake) we've decided to go with a simple spell book with a wand, scarf and snitch on top.

10 minutes of drawing and colouring and we had a sample of the cake we wanted to take with us when we went cake ordering.  If you're reading this and live in Sydney and you make cakes, please contact me, we'd love to hear from you colkeevy@gmail.com I now have quotes of between $200 and $300 by about 5 different people (an entire day of driving around yesterday from cake store to cake store proved successful).

Honeydukes Sign

Exactly the same concept, design and construction as the Hogwarts express sign.  The mathematical ability required for this sign however nearly drove me to drink LOL.

Hogwarts Express Sign

I bought some ply wood from Bunnings, measured out a border, drew on the 9 3/4 sign and the letters for "Hogwarts Express" and got to work painting - All up it took me about 8 hours to get this sign finished.  Ideally I would have liked to use a proper font, but in the end I figured it didn't have to be perfect, it just had to look similar to the sign in the movies. I got hunny to drill a hole on either end, used a small nut/bolt/washer and some lightweight chain in order to hang the sign.

The boys are so excited and can't
wait to get onboard!

Magic Wands

Expecting 40 kids and at $2 a pop per wand for each kid, I decided to have a go at making my own wands.  A few dowels bought from Bunnings cut into 30cm lengths, I wrapped and twisted some air drying clay around one end to form some personalised handles, let them dry for 48 hours.  Brown spray paint for the wand, gold and silver spray paint on the clay handles and VOILA.... one of a kind wands for each witch and wizard attending the party.  My kids had SO much fun making these.

Hogwarts Teachers' robes

Since this is going to be quite a huge endeavour, I'm going to enlist the help of some of the parents of the kids attending the party.  In the spirit of getting into character, I decided to make a few teachers' robes in the same material as the kids' robes, but in colours.

Dumbledore - Grey/silver
McGonagall - Emerald green
Slughorn - Maroon
Snape - Black
Quirrell - Navy Blue
Lockhart - Red
Trelawney - Turquoise

Made exactly as per the kids robes except the robes are longer and I made longer hoods (approximately double the size)

My husband trying on the Dumbledore robes
- I did make it shorter after this fitting ;) LOL

McGonagall robes

Quirrell robes

Lockhart robes

Hogwarts School Robes

As part of the craziness, I decided that if I was going to "go big" with this party, each child attending would also have their own Hogwarts School robe (hooded cape)

In my new happy place (Spotlight) I found stretchy crushed velvet (Panne velvet) in black, which was perfect for the robes... well so I thought being a complete newbie and never having sewed with stretchy material before.

The material I bought was 112cm wide, each cloak I cut to 90cm and depending on age, I'd cut the 112cm width down. I used the following sizes

4 year old - 80cm length
6 year old - 1m length
10 year old - 1.2m length

For each cloak I simply pleated and sewed along the top edge of the cloak so that the finished product fitted around the child shoulders comfortably and met in the front without choking them around the neck.  Even though Panne velvet doesn't frey, I still used a zigzag stitch to finish off all edges (if you sew close to the edge it almost looks like its been finished off using an over locking machine)

All hoods for the kids' cloaks I cut to a 15" square, simply drew and cut a curve around one corner, sewed the edges to form a hood, then as I did with the cloaks, I made pleats in the edge that will be attached to the cloak and then simply attached the two pieces together.

To keep to the colour theme from the book bags, I use yellow satin ribbon and sewed a piece to the inside of each end of the cape joining at the throat - be sure to use a zigzag stitch and go over it several times, the kids will be pulling on these ribbons a lot and you don't want them breaking off.

Luke - my very excited Hogwarts student :)

My 1 tip for success on this project - BUY BALL POINT NEEDLES

FOR YOUR MACHINE!

This needle has a medium tip that is a slightly more rounded than a universal needle and passes between the fabric threads instead of piercing hem. Ball-point needles ensure more even stitches on coarse and heavy knits and won’t damage spandex, interlocks and other knits that snag or run easily.

Hogwarts Book Bags

I decided early on that to debut my sewing machine skills, each child attending the party would get a Hogwarts Book Bag (A simple, black drawstring bag).  I found this REALLY EASY tutorial on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A82qJnhPN0 and got going. 

After a bit of practice, I can knock out 6 of these bags in about an hour and a half.  I decided to use yellow satin ribbon to break the amount of black that will be used.  I asked one of the friendly ladies at Spotlight for some 'tougher, slightly more rigid cotton' which was about $6 a metre.  Bags are cut out at 31cm x 41cm - so I get 3 bags to the metre with some leftovers for my material collection.

My 1 tip for success on this project - USE YOUR IRON!

My new 'baby'

Elna Elina 40 .... my new 'baby'. LOVE this sewing machine, so easy to use (especially since I'm a complete newbie beginner @ sewing). Purchased from Spotlight for about $400.  The sad thing is, I've spent more than that on material in the 3 weeks that I've had it. (don't tell my husband LOL)

A magical Idea is formed

I was lying in bed one night shortly before Christmas 2011 watching the last installment of the Harry Potter movies when a little spark of an idea started forming.  "Luke's 11th birthday in June (6 months away)... I wonder if he'd like a Harry potter party?!"

I ran the idea by Luke the next morning and to say he was "super-duper excited" (his words not mine LOL) was THE understatement of the century. Secretly my mind had already spent HOURS formulating ideas for the party I hadn't even confirmed would be taking place (Yes, I am a self-confessed Harry Potter MANIAC). A quick run-through my ideas with hubby (I told it was happening, not asking him LOL) and that small spark of an idea grew into a 6 month planning session.

I asked hubby for a sewing machine for Christmas and quickly sprung into action buying material and making all sorts of goodies for all the 'intended' party guests.

From here on I'll make specific entries for each item I make with full instructions in case there is any other mother out there crazy like me taking on such an enormous project.

Welcome!

Well since I'm having issues uploading my own art to customise our page, I thought I'd begin with our logo.  Welcome to Keevy Konect - our attempt at keeping record of what is happening in the boys' lives not only for our own records but also for those family and friends who live overseas.