So - about that Harry Potter themed birthday present I mentioned last week. I can now reveal it, as it is the recipient's birthday today and I won't ruin the surprise. Happy Birthday Lily!
I handcrafted a Harry Potter Hogwarts acceptance letter for a special treat for Lily's birthday. I will mention that she is 19 - might not be best to do this for a child and get the hopes up of an 11 year old and have them realise they can't actually go to Hogwarts. Who am I kidding, of course they can.
Anyway, I got some tan coloured Murano paper and cut it up into a4 sized pages. I then used my desktop printer just to put the Hogwarts crest at the top of each page, and wrote out the letter word for word from the book (my friend would have pointed out any mistakes if I had not done this!) in a lovely emerald green acrylic ink using a dip pen. I also printed out a Hogwarts Express train ticket and popped it all inside a cardboard envelope. I wrote out her address in the style of the letter that Harry gets in the movie version, and then put another Hogwarts crest on the back with the words "owl post" in script. I finished it off with a sealed wax stamp. It's safe to say that she loved it!
Hogwarts letter page 1. I signed Minerva's name with black ink instead of green for a bit of authenticity!
Owl post with a Hogwarts crest which I found simply through weheartit here
I added this train ticket to the envelope too. Again, probably not so good to give this to a child that may believe in it all too much...
Hogwarts crest printed through my normal everyday desktop printer, with hand written school name underneath.
This was such a fun present to make, and I really felt like it was going to mean something to her. She definitely loved it and she told me she's going to frame it for the wall. It took me around two hours to finish the letter fully, so it didn't exactly take much of my time either - a great gift idea I thought! I also made one for my flatmate as it was her birthday last week, will put some photos of her birthday cake in the next post.
