Harry Potter Book Night

This week our elementary school is celebrating "Read Across America" with many activites throughout the week. Some of those activities include Principal reading to classes, chalk painting, and an evening of magical reading of the Harry Potter, Chamber of Secrets book. I creating some of the props to transform the cafeteria into a magical place. Students will walk thru the 9 3/4 platform and will be greeted by Dobby (the elf). Then, they will be able to take a picture with HP flying car. I also created some magical wands for each of the students. I took my time working on all the projects, especially Dobby. He was created with recycled materials and paper mache. The following pictures are behind the scenes of all our creations:

Dobby was a labor of love for me. I started creating him during the summer and worked on him slowly. I became so attached to him, I almost didn't want to give him up. lol! I got started after watching a video tutorial (on cruz laporte -youtube) and basically created him using newspapers, plastic soda bottle, and pvc pipe. Since I had everything on hand, he was basically free. I used a paper mache recipe (ultimatepapermache.com) to put him together.Dobby is currently collecting new socks to be donated to the polinski center in San Diego

The Harry Potter Book Night theme was book #2 "Chamber of Secrets." This book introduces the flying car Harry and Ron use to get themselves to Hogwarts School. I used an old cardboard box that I had. I was inspired by a photo prop of the flying car in the website www.santanasstudio.blogspot.com

These wands were created with small dowels and a lot of hot glue. I then spray painted them black and added some gold shine. There are many tutorials on the web to help you with creating wands. I followed the tutorial at boxycolonial.com

I used an old drape and sponged painted the bricks on the fabric. To make the sign, I used an old foam board and painted it. I printed a free 9 3/4 sign from the website: jonesing2create.com

"Write it, already!"

"Write it, already!" shouted my husband as I exclaimed my new writing idea. I didn't realize how annoying I sounded every time I expressed a new idea out loud. It was day 16 of the 30-day writing idea challenge posed by Tara Lazar. I had been proclaiming ideas left and right. My husbands comment stopped me in my tracks. "What good are all these ideas if I never develop them?" I am more determined now to follow through. Writing a picture book has been a life long dream since childhood when I first entered a kids writing contest in 4th grade. No, I didn't win. Forty-plus years later, I'm still dreaming of writing a children's book. Now, I need to focus and set aside all the distractions that keep me from writing (cleaning house, painting, baking, washing clothes,etc). Wish me luck!