Hello everyone!  I hope you have been having a good week so far.  I know I said last Saturday (sorry it was late) that I had been stressing over a potluck at work and I am here to show you what I did!

So it started 8 weeks ago.  I was given the task of being the Headmaster (aka Professor Minerva McGonagall) for the potluck.  Basically, I was going to be the person in charge of everything.

Well if you know anything about me, I take these things very seriously.

So the first thing I did was separate everyone into their houses.  I took everyone’s name’s and put them in a name randomizer to randomly put them into the 4 houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.  I also gave all of the department leads a different role as a professor and my fellow front desk receptionists a different ghost.  All of these people who were given roles were the only people allowed to give points to their house or the other houses.

So each person received a letter explaining what was happening.  The letter stated that people could receive points by taking quizzes, answering trivia questions, and overall being a good employee.  It was a great way to get people involved in the game and have fun.

I took each of the letters and dyed it with tea.  It was a lot of work to paint the tea onto each piece of paper along with baking them in the oven to seal the dye.  It also gave the paper a bit of a old feeling because it was hard and curled on the edges.  I then rolled up each letter and tied it with a ribbon to show which house the person was in.

And then the games began!  There were trivia questions that people could answer for 5 points and 4 separate quizzes people could take for up to 100 points.  Let me just say that there were a lot of cheating Slytherin’s who where coping the quizzes off of each other.  Oh well, it was all just for fun.

This went on for about 6 weeks with everyone vying to be the best house.  When it all came to a close I counted up the points.  Now, people received beads which were worth 5 points toward their house.

Can you imagine how long it took me to count 3000 points in beads for 1 house alone???  It wasn’t too bad, but it got annoying really quickly.  But in the end, the points were as follows.

4th-Ravenclaw with 1440

3rd Gryffindor with 1895

2nd-Slytherin with 2740

1st Hufflepuff with 3350

Congratulations to Hufflepuff!  Now according to the Pottermore website, I am a Hufflepuff.  But in the game, I was a Gryffindor.  So, I was happy if either team won.

And then it was time to decorate.  I bought some things from Dollar Tree that would work with the Hufflepuff colors, yellow and black.  I bought some tablecloths, candles, trays, jellybeans, and streamers.  I also used the black and clear jewels and the clear jar that I received from Oriental Trading Company to help with the decor.  I made some signs that showed off the house points so people could see who won the tournament.  And, I made a poster for different awards, like funniest quiz and most mischievous.

But before I could decorate, I wanted to make it even more special for people.  I wanted to make all of my coworkers a wand.  Unfortunately it was fake, but it was still fun.

Except for the looks I got from the workers at Panda Express when I asked for 8 pairs of chopsticks when I only bought 1 item.  Yeah…good times.

I found a tutorial on Facebook which told me how to make a wand.  So after following that and using lots of hot glue and paint, I had my wands for people to take.

And then it was the day before the party.  I set up some of the stuff, but not everything.  I got some help from my coworkers and the place looked like it was fit for Hogwarts.

And here are the pictures!

We had these awesome brick walls in the storage unit we have at work.  So of course I used it!  I copied some recipes from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook to hang up on the wall and found some front pages from the Daily Prophet (the newspaper in the books).  I also printed out some yellow lightning bolts to hang up and lay around.  The small sign in the middle that says ‘Did You Have Fun?’ was the trivia sign that we put questions on every other day or so.  And finally across the top were my ornaments.  Yes, I collect the Harry Potter Christmas Ornaments from Hallmark and used them to line the top of the wall.

This was the food table/other decor table.  I hung the two posters up so people could read them as they were plating their food.  But the table was the most impressive.  I had 6 of the 7 books (I don’t know where the 7th one went), 3 more ornaments, my fake Bertie Botts of Every Flavor Beans, the wands, 2 small pop vinyls, and the food.  I was very happy with how the table turned out!

PS-all of the ornaments make some sort of noise or music.  It was fun to hear people pushing the buttons to listen to the music.

And finally the small table that desserts went on.

Okay, I know shoes shouldn’t be on the table, but they are my Hufflepuff boots and it seemed fitting.  I also found a witches hat in our storage unit at work, so I obviously had to use it.  The boots are awesome because they have the crest of Hufflepuff on the outside and the traits of a Hufflepuff on the inside.

So that’s it!  That’s how I decorate the lounge.  It was so much fun and we had a great time eating until we almost exploded.  Hopefully you enjoyed reading about my potluck can I can almost guarantee that there will be another one in the future!