The scene where Harry Potter received his Hogwarts letter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is one of my absolute favorites. It’s whimsical, ridiculous and so iconic. It’s a beautiful example of the magic that the first Harry Potter book and movie brought to so many of our lives. For years, I’ve wanted to bring to life that scene in our house by creating a Harry Potter Fireplace Letter scene of my own and this Halloween is my chance.
I will say that as per usual, I bit off more than I can chew but that’s who I am as a person. So in this post, I’ll talk about both what I did and what I recommend to you if you choose to do this as well.
Supplies to Create the Envelopes
- Envelopes: I went with 150 of these in a cream color
- Sealing Wax & Stamp
- Black Tea
- Baking sheet (optional)
- Cooling Rack (optional)
- Printer or pen with green ink
You can find everything you need on this Amazon list.
Tea Stain Envelopes to Resemble Parchment
This instantly made me think of creating projects for 6th grade social studies classes. But this method of staining envelopes to resemble parchment is tried and true.
- Boil the black tea and pour it into a baking sheet or cookie pan. I used 3 teabags to 16 oz of boiling water to ensure the tea was as dark as possible. Set up a wire rack for draining beside the baking sheet.
- Saturate each envelope with tea. Time varies depending on the darkness of the tea and the tea and the thickness of your envelope. Using a heavier envelope like cardstock will make sure the paper doesn’t fall apart. Make sure to shake the puddles of tea off and out of the envelopes and these puddle may create much darker spots and possibly burn.
4. Place each envelope in the oven on the lowest setting for ten minutes. For my oven, the lowest setting is 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Make sure to flip the envelopes half way through the ten minutes so that they dry evenly. I sat my envelopes on the dry oven racks but this can cause grill marks to appear on your envelope. This didn’t bother me but worth being aware of.
5. For each envelope, you can handwrite the invite in green ink or you can download this font created by a fan, Robin Springett and print* them onto the envelope. The original font is handwritten by Miraphora Mina, one of the Harry Potter graphic designers and can be imitated quite well by hand if you need to. If you opt to create a small number of these, it may be faster to hand write them.
Note*: I went through an entire ordeal attempting to get my printer to work with these thicker envelopes. It was almost impossible to fit the inflexible card stock envelope into my printer so I ended up creating label, staining them and glueing them to my envelope. It was incredibly time consuming so I would recommend that you print on the envelope first and then stain.
6. Seal each envelope with sealing wax and a stamp. I chose this one that says “With Love”. I’m a Harry Potter fan but I would rather have a seal that I can use for other letters after this. If you do love Harry Potter, you can find the real deal here.
Supplies to Hang the Envelopes
- Clear elastic string
- Scissors
- Ladder
- Curved Needle
- Painter’s Tape
- White nails
You can choose to hang the envelopes any number of ways. This is the way that I chose and what worked for me. You can split this part of the project into two parts the actual fireplace and the envelopes that fly around the room.
Filling the Fireplace
For the fireplace, I removed one of my fireplace tools and leaned it against the back wall of the fireplace. I covered the tool in cardboard. Shape the cardboard like a triangle so that your letter cans be taped to it. I placed a piece of painter’s tape in a loop on the back of each envelope and attached them to the cardboard.
Hanging the Envelopes from the Ceiling
- I used the curved needle to thread the elastic thread through the rug and then made a triple knot. it’s difficult to see here but this was the best method I found for hanging the thread. From there,I stretched the thread from this position to the place where I wanted to hang it from the ceiling. And then I added extra for creating a knot around each envelope and to hang them to the ceiling.
2. Use the needle to begin placing the envelopes on the thread. Place the needle through the envelope and then come out the other side. After completing each envelope, weave the thread around itself to hold the envelope in its place. From there you can begin the next envelope. Each vary the thread goes into the envelope and the space between each one.
3. When each string is full, place a nail or a thumb tack into the ceiling and weave the string around it. Rinse and repeat varying the direction of each string so that it feels truly chaotic.
4. Alternate hanging: I varied the starting point for the strings from the ceiling. For some, the starting point was the fireplace hearth. I used painters tape to seal the string down to the hearth. The method works best if you wrap the piece of string in a piece of tape and then fold fold fold fold. Then tape that piece of tape down to the hearth. It was keep the string from slipping out of the original piece of tape.
And there you have it, a Harry Potter fireplace of your own for your own personal Hogwarts Letters. Let me know if you end up doing this yourself. I can’t wait to see it!
