Do-It-Yourself Hogwarts - the beginning...

So you want to know how to do-it-yourself Hogwarts do you? Well this post can't tell you exactly how to build your own Hogwarts (sadly, I have no talent in building anything as my Resistant Materials teacher from GCSE would happily tell you with evidence of my 'chair') which I know probably makes you feel led on but don't go yet, wait! No, come back here... Ok, thanks. What I was going to say is that it WILL give you a little idea of  how my PSM/housemate and me plan to decorate our uni house next term so we can get it as close as we can within our small, student budget to the inside of Hogwarts and I shall tell you how.

Firstly, the rooms we are creating are the Room of Requirement, The Great Hall, Gryffindor Common Room, Ravenclaw Room, Hagrid's Hut (we have a shed...), The Forbidden Forest (our crazy garden) and Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom.We are also using the idea of passwording our front door like Dumbledore's Office... Yeah, we are that cool.

As we haven't actually decorated it yet, this is just a general idea of what we're going to do, once it is completed pictures of course will be posted with more details but the general ideas for decorating is as follows: The Great Hall a.k.a our living room will have candlesticks being hung from the ceiling (lots of bluetac and string as well as hoping they won't drop on our heads as we walk around) and it'll have pretty dishes and cutlery, the hallway will have our chocolate frog cards and printed pictures of the portraits all along the hallway leading to Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom (can't really decorate that except with a sign to be honest :p) and then to the common rooms. This is where the real decorating comes in! The common rooms will have the House colours and banners hung outside the room, portraits on the room doors  which require a password to get in and then of course in the room they'll be decorated in those colours. But, yes, this is just a general idea of what the madness of our Harry Potter themed house is going to be like, it'll be more detailed when we begin decorating it as my descriptions aren't that great, sorry! However, it is not just decorating the house, the PSM and I are going to have wands (courtesy of Wizarding World of Harry Potter), robes, scarfs and lots of Bertie Botts every flavour beans so it's not just about where you are but the company you are with XD

Anyway, am going to sign off here, sorry it's not a massively interesting post but just thought this be one of three posts most likely on creating our own Hogwarts. Look forward to pictures in September, I'm off to make butterbeer now. TTFN.

No! Not the videos of the school music show! NOOOOOOO!

As I sit here, chuckling to myself over le boyfriend's Oscar award winning performance in one of his youth group shows as a tramp, an Elvis impersonator amongst countless other characters, it makes me think how filming such shows should really be outlawed. I say this in defense for my boyfriend, who now instead of getting love and affection, is instead receiving smirks accompanied with sarcastic side glances and comments as I write this, shall we say interesting, background music that is inspiring this post. Now, personally, the sight of my boyfriend at the age of eighteen dressed as a wannabe Elvis and singing something that I assume links with the costume brings me great entertainment after a hard day at work as well as the question if I will ever be able to look my boyfriend in the eye without stifling a laugh. Bless him, eh? But I can hardly make judgement, there are no doubt a stash of these haunting videos that I have myself, my parents weird idea of a joke to store videos of me when I was... less refined... and cause no end of laughter to those who somehow manage to sneak them past my careful watch and relish in my 'adorable' childhood years to the hell raising teenagehood. But I ask you, why?! Not why must they be filmed, of course every parent wants to hold onto the treasured memory of their children growing up, but why must they be shown to people OUTSIDE the family?! There is no need for this! Especially when it is your boyfriend (in my case) who is delighting in your humiliation which you cannot always exact revenge on. It's just not right I tell you. By all means parents, keep the records of my youth and watch them when I have moved away to university, or get married, or have my own children, but DO NOT SHARE THEM AROUND AS IF THEY ARE CHOCOLATES!
     Yes, everyone will act that they are cute but you know what they are secretly thinking, as you would think yourself, your instant thought is 'Hahahahahaha! and I'll log that away to alway use against you when you are causing me hassle" or even "Hahahahahaha, thank God my parents don't know where I have stashed my videos otherwise I would have to endure this" and feel smug that you are not the one who's head is shoved deeply into their palms, mumbling inaudible curses and complaints. I know you feel smug for a fact as this is how I am feeling currently, having the little video of my boyfriend making a fool of himself now permanently locked away so that in times of despair I can laugh at someone else looking more stupid than I am. I will always treasure that, even in my old age when I forget who I am, I will fight life and limb to cling onto that little memory and taunt him with it. Evil? No, I think this is more an effective way of keeping my youth and mind agile instead of using the Philosopher Stone.
     Anyway, drawing a close to this rather long post, the morale of the story is this - hide your childhood videos! Because one day, if has not already happened to you so far, there will be someone who charms and persuades your parents to retrieve them out of whatever crook or cranny they have been stored in, put them on and revel in your 'beautiful' singing and dancing that the example of le boyfriend (which I only wish I could describe to you into more detail, yet I value my life just enough to withhold that information from you... at the moment) has shown to you as a warning.

Introductions, Introductions...

Hi again!


I'm not very good at introducing myself, but I'll give it a go! Hello, I'm Stephanie but known as Stephie to most. As you can probably tell from the name of this blog and it's title I am indeed a fan of Harry Potter as well as baking (my speciality being cupcakes and banoffee pie... Well by 'speciality', what I actually mean is these certain types of baking haven't exploded, caused food poisoning and have, to my knowledge, been edible...) so that's where the names came from. Interesting, I know. Moving swiftly on before you fall into a boredom induced coma, I'm guessing you might be interested in just what sort of person you are reading adventures about so here's go: I love everything Disney related and worked in Disneyworld Florida after my first year at university, I am a history student so am quite geeky about everything in the 'modern' history section and my summer job is actually history related, I love books which range from the classics to  modern, I am very into the 1940s/50s and have a vintage clothes collection as well as loving everything from that period. Moving on again, I have a PSM (Platonic Soul Mate) who is my best pal and have known her since our first class together in our first year at uni, we are basically the same person and after much deciding between calling ourselves 'horcruxes' due to our almost identical personalities we settled on the term PSM from first year onwards - this will be the person who will be most mentioned in my blog most likely so remember that term :D Next is le boyfriend who I have known since my first year of uni as well and who, like me, is also a history geek who reads all the time and is insanely smart, so much that I now use him as my personal dictionary and encyclopedia. It's very useful. These two people are who I spend most of my time with at university and at home (along with the magnifico family) so you'll be hearing about them alot which is why I introduce them to you here. Very polite, you see? Anyway I think this suffices for introductions, you'll find out more in upcoming posts but yes, hi! Welcome to my blog. It's a bit rambly, but stick with it and I'm sure you'll find something interesting...Maybe?