Harry Potter Party

Thomas turns 6 in a week and a half. SIX! Suffice to say I'm freaking out a little, no make that a lot. Six is big, six is an age I can remember being.
For months he's been pestering me that he wants a Harry Potter birthday party. And I said, yes sure dear, thinking he'd forget all about it when the date was near. It appears he has not. So this past weekend we made invitations on old looking paper (torn and inked edges, woohoo for scrapping supplies), rolled them up and hand delivered them on Monday morning to the choosen few. If it was up to him he'd invite the whole class. I think not! Set my limit at 8. Surprisingly he invited girls, 3 of them. I always thought boys were of the opinion that girls were stupid. But maybe that age is still to come? Anyway, here I am tearing my hair out of what to do with this crowd Saturday next week. Thank goodness for the internet, I've done a quick google search for Harry Potter parties and an enormous list of sites came up. Will have to have a better browse a bit later. Must say that the games I've seen suggested so far seem a bit lame.
I think I'll let them decorate their own wizard or witches hat - at least 2o minutes filled he he.
Cake and pressies another 20 minutes.
Sorting Hat ritual (possibly divide them into the four houses or teams for other games)- about 5 minutes.
Find the Philosophers Stone in a dark and ghostly room (streamers and reflective stars from the ceiling, mock spider web?)- 15 minutes.
And that only fills one hour! Some more procrastinating is obviously needed.

Which brings me to Crafting Connections. I've signed up for the mini-event. Would have loved to do the big one but my budget won't allow it. I've come to the realisation I have to do homework for one of my classes (Perspective with Ali E) and I need pictures of me. Bugger. 1) I hate having my picture taken and 2)I'm not at my most photogenic at the moment with stress and sleep deprivation seriously marking my face. And then the homework itself, uhm, if I was to answer to questions seriously in my current state of mind it's going to be a thoroughly depressive read. I know it's all about capturing a moment in time but quite frankly I'd like to erase these past two years from my memory if I could. And it's not over yet.
And then there's the issue of swap pins. I was going to build on my theme from last year and do something jewellery related but with the latest For Keeps issue with Nic's awesome Queen & Co jewellery and with other jewellery themed projects popping up all over the place it's only going to look like a cheap rip-off. Besides, time is running out and I haven't got the energy at the moment to invest into making something really cool. I couldn't do something plain because that's just not my style. If I'm handing out something with my name on it I want to be proud of what I created if you know what I mean. So more than likely no swap pins from me this year...