With Finn’s birthday being at the end of July it means he’s one lucky boy who always gets a party in June with his mates and a family celebration on his actual birthday when most of his friends are already on holiday somewhere due to summer break. This year the theme was pretty quickly decided by my nearly 9 year old potter mad son and I had the crazy idea to make it into a sleepover because I try to make their birthdays a memory to remember forever, so when the lovely Dreamcatcher Sleepover Team contacted me to ask if I would be interested in a collaboration I knew that it would give the sleepover the epic-ness Finn & his friends would absolutely love!
Dreamcatcher Sleepover Parties are a Bournemouth based company run by 2 mum’s Kirsty and Hannah who have 4 kids between them. The inspiration to start the business came from their little ones love of sleepovers! Both have always been looking for new ways to excite and entertain the kids whilst also inspire their creativity and imagination!
Somehow I always make it my task to go one better then last year when it comes to throwing birthday parties for the kids. Last year was a fun Nerf Gun Fight Party but I honestly thought I could not top the very well received Ghostbusters party from 2 years ago but I decided to try my hardest anyway!
I started off with getting ideas together and making a new folder on my trusty Pinterest page because every great party starts of with a Pinterest inspired one right? After the Invites have been send out it was all about the decorations required to transform my front room into something similar to the great hall and sleeping quarters alike. Thankfully the Dreamcatcher team did a lot of work for me! Kirsty & Hannah arrived the night before the party to set up the tents, beds and themed blankets/cushions alongside some pretty light chains and some cool breakfast trays including Harry Potter themed placemats as well as some lanterns and midnight feast boxes (for me to fill) and some cool sleeping masks which turned out to be a huge hit with the boys.
To set up the 6 tents and decoration took them both (with a little bit of help from Molly-May who was way too invested to leave them alone) around 1 1/2 hours. It already looked fabulous once they finished the set up but I wanted it to look even more magical especially the Harry potter kind of magic! From floating candles on the ceiling to the famous fireplace, a brick wall with the Hogwarts Express 9 3/4 sign as well as the very important house flags of Hogwarts Ive done the lot! Here is a picture of the finished room which I was very pleased about it turned out pretty nice in the end I was very worried that the tents didn’t fit despite me measuring it three times just to be sure but as it turned out my living room was made for them:
Around the room I had various other Harry Potter decorations like the signposts to the famous establishments, a golden balloon Happy Birthday Banner and various Wanted posters from some HP movie characters. In the evening the boys had lots of fun raiding the ‘sweet shop’ whilst watching a Harry Potter movie! More pictures and info about my DIY Harry Potter decorations will follow in another post soon! Check them all out pretending to be asleep with their sleeping masks on! H in the back is apparently sleepwalking! If only it was that easy many hours later to get them to actually to sleep for real!
The next morning Kirsty and Hannah came along to collect the Sleepover pack again and within 30 minutes my living room was empty again (bar the many jelly beans who where used for a jelly bean throwing competition the night before (don’t ask, it was defiantly not on my party agenda)! It is rather hard to capture the magic of the Dreamcatcher Sleepover Harry Potter layout with just the pictures so I have filmed the boys reaction which you can check out in my Instagram Highlights alongside some more pretty close up pictures of the tents and HP setup the Dreamcatcher’s team supplied for the Sleepover party!
How cool are those sequin pillows which came with the set up, Finn decided to write each of his mate’s name on the pillow so they know where they will be sleeping! Wo needs place cards when you can have some shiny pillows to write on instead? This is Finn very engrossed in writing some spells in his new Harry Potter diary after their treasure hunt, he looks rather cosy in there!
If you are thinking of wanting to throw your child a rather epic Harry Potter Sleepover Party then I cannot recommend Hannah and Kirsty from Dreamcatcher Sleepover Parties enough. Both are professional, quick working and super friendly and from the moment I have been in contact via email I have had every silly question answered, I got given great advice and they also kindly left me the extension pillows overnight because I was worried that the boys might be too long for the normal setup but turns out they all like to sleep with their feet pulled up so I didn’t needed to worry about anything.
You can book a party for 4 tents or more simply by requesting a booking form once the chosen date is confirmed, they will then take 50% deposit to secure the party and arrange times for setting up and taking down again. A Dreamcatcher Sleepover party package starts from £149 and there are plenty of fantastic themes to choose from. You can have the magical unicorns or fairy packages or something cool like a games theme or recreate some wizard magic! We were very honoured to be the first to have a magical Harry Potter sleepover and I am pretty sure that it will be just as magical for any other buzzing wizards out there! You can find Dreamcatcher Sleepover Parties on Facebook, all the pretty pictures of their set ups are over on Instagram and you can also head over to their brand new website!
You can check out how I made the Invites and some DIY Wand Pencils on Finn’s 9th Harry Potter Birthday Party Invites and Party Bags.
Disclaimer: I have been gifted a Harry Potter Sleepover Party in exchange for an honest review about the party package, but all thoughts and opinion are my own!