A Celebration of the Harry Potter Films at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Happy Birthday to Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling! If you're Potter-heads like our tweens, you'll be interested to learn that tickets to a Celebration of Harry Potter Films at the Universal Orlando Wizarding World of Harry Potter go on sale at noon EST today. This event includes a Private Gala, screening with the cast members, and a Q-and-A with the filmmakers. It's pricey ($699/adult for the 3-day event), but it's an unprecedented event. Tickets are limited and available online only. The package includes four days at a Universal Orlando resort, three-day admission to the Universal theme parks, the set of all eight films, and admission to the cast member Q-and-A and Gala. This Celebration of Harry Potter Films takes place November 11-13, 2011 - start saving that allowance now!

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100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts Book: A Celebration of 100 Trailblazing Years

We were excited to learn about a new book coming out shortly to commemorate the Centennial of Girl Scouting. Betty Christiansen has authored "Girl Scouts, A Celebration of 100 Trailblazing Years", and it includes some very cool photographs of the largest movement of girl independence. We love the illustrations as well - sort of a silhouette-style - and the way the book tells the story of Girl Scouting through the 1900's and into today. We can't wait to add a copy to our tweens' library.

Note: MsTwixt is biased as she is a Girl Scout leader to three troops. 

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Tween Costumes at the Harry Potter Final Movie Premiere & Giveaway

Last night we were part of the crowd at DC's historic Uptown theater for the premiere of the last Harry Potter movie, "The Deathly Hallows Part 2". As usual, the wait for the film was filled with camaraderie, pick-up Quidditch games, and fantastic costumes. Here's a sample of some of the best costumes tween kids wore to the event:

Professor McGonagall poses with a young fan (she sewed every part of her costume, including the hat, and her husband carved her wand):

A few tweens were part of Team Pygmy Puff and had a wand duel:

Luna Lovegood was represented:

The most original costume was the Golden Snitch:

Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall field questions from tweens waiting for their Hogwarts admission letters:

We loved this tween's t-shirt from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes (she was a big fan of our Skiving Snackboxes):

Several wizards battled Bellatrix Lestrange:

We ran out of battery, but other cool costumes included Fleur dela Coeur, Dobby, and Rita Skeeter.

Our tweens also dressed in their Hogwarts best, and they LOVED the film. Unbeknownst to us the show we saw was in 3-D, so we have an extra set of special, opening-day Harry Potter 3-D spectacles to give away to a lucky reader. Just "Like" us on Facebook and post a comment here or on Facebook telling us about a cool Harry Potter character costume you've worn or seen. We'll select one winners at random from those who post comments, and you can post as many comments as you'd like. (NOTE: Tweens: if you would like to enter this giveaway, you must have your parent enter. As Facebook's policy is that you must be 13 years or older to have a profile, we hope that this helps to ensure that parents only enter. This is because we want to respect the privacy of tweens and will not collect personally identifiable information on kids. As always, please be smart online - see our tips on online safety for tweens as a reminder.) We'll post the winner on July 31st (Harry's and J.K. Rowling's birthdays).

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A Justin Bieber Singing Toothbrush?

Tween Justin Bieber fans will rejoice: a company called Brush Buddies has made a singing Justin Bieber toothbrush. The idea behind this "build a better toothbrush" is that the toothbrush plays a song for the full amount of time that one is supposed to brush your teeth. The Justin Bieber line plays "Somebody to Love" or "Baby" or "You Smile", and there's also JB floss (which looks like a CD), and a travel kit. Given the star's mega-watt smile, it seems the company has chosen a good product model.

Available online at BrushBuddies; $1.99 for the toothbrush

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Getting Ready For the Final Harry Potter Movie

It's no surprise that we are HUGE Harry Potter fans (even traveling to Boston to take in the Harry Potter Exhibition), and we've had our movie tickets for tonight's midnight show for months. To help us pass the time in line (and yes, our tweens will be in costume), we made our own Skiving Snackboxes. In the books, Skiving Snackboxes were an invention of the older Weasley twins to help students get out of class for medical reasons. Our version is designed to do the opposite - to treat our tweens as they wait for the film. Here's how we tackled this project:

We found these wonderful "cardboard satchels" at Paper-Source for $6.00 - they even have straps!  Then we lined the interiors with glittery purple paper (brilliant purple seems wizard-like, right?):

 

We're using colorful cupcake liner papers to hold little bags on goodies inside including Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (jelly beans), Puking Pastilles (chocolate nonpareils), licorice wands, crystallized pineapple (Professor Slughorn's favorite), lemon drops, Droobles Blowing Gum (gumballs), Peppermint Humbugs (York Peppermint Patties), Ton-Tongue Toffees (toffees), Fizzing Whizbees (Pop Rocks), and Chocolate Frogs.

The tweens made custom decals for the boxes like this one:

Then we envisioned what a Skiving Snackbox would look like in the Muggle World and went to town with some paint pens and glitter:

And here it is filled:

 Now we're off to join the throngs of other Harry Potter fans in the movie queue. Even though we'll be in line for hours, there's a carnival-like atmosphere amongst the crowd. It's always fun to see other kids' costumes and to play (Wizard) Chess and broomstick Quidditch while we wait. 

We'd love to learn what you're doing too - what are your tweens doing for the last Harry Potter movie?

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Tween Foodies Can Meet Cupcake Wars Chef

Our tweens are huge Food Network fans and know their celebrity chefs. Sprinkles was one of the first cupcake-only places, and chef/owner Candace Nelson will be in Washington today to host the First Annual Congressional Cupcake Wars. This unique cupcake battle will feature seven bakery teams competing to create stars-and-stripes-themed cupcakes and will benefit military families at Fisher House. More details on this fun event are here.

Our tweens met Candace at the opening of the Sprinkles DC store this spring, and she graciously gave our girls a hands-on tutorial of how to frost cupcakes the Sprinkles way - details here.

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Just Announced: the Members of "Healthy MEdia: the Commission for Positive Images of Women and Girls"

Co-chaired by actress Geena Davis and former FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate, an organization to "lead the national dialogue on how women and girls are portrayed in the media and outline a blueprint for promoting positive and healthy media images" has been created. Members of "Healthy MEdia: the Commission for Positive Images of Women and Girls" draw from the public, private and non-profit worlds and include:

• Co-chair Geena Davis, Academy Award-winning actor and founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
• Co-chair Deborah Taylor Tate, former FCC Commissioner
• Maria Brennan, President and CEO, Women in Cable Telecommunications
• Alice Cahn, Vice President, Social Responsibility, Cartoon Network
• Danielle Carrig, Senior Vice President, Advocacy & Public Affairs, A&E Networks
• Salaam Coleman Smith, President, The Style Network
• Sean Cunningham, President and CEO, Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau
• Madeline Di Nonno, Executive Director, The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
• Carmen DiRienzo, President and CEO, V-me Media, Inc.
• Emme, Social Reformer, TV Host and Founder, EmmeNation.com
• Ivelisse Estrada, Senior Vice President, Corporate and Community Relations, Univision Communications
• Janice Ferebee, founder and CEO, National Council of Negro Women
• Erin Fuller, President, Alliance for Women in Media
• Marie Gallo Dyak, Executive Vice President, Program Services and Government Relations, Entertainment Industries Council
• David Honig, President and Executive Director, Minority Media Telecommunications Council
• Sherri Hope Culver, President, National Association for Media Literacy Education
• Myung Kang-Huneke, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Sesame Workshop
• Jean Kilbourne, Creator of the "Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women" Film Series
• Linda Kinney, Vice President for Regulatory Affairs, Motion Picture Association of America
• Jeanine Liburd, Executive Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs, Black Entertainment Television
• Vicki Lins, Chief Marketing Officer, Canoe Ventures
• April McClain-Delaney, Washington Director, Common Sense Media
• Cindy McConkey, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Scripps Network
• Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Children's Media, Public Broadcasting Service
• Katherine Schwarzenegger, author, "Rock What You've Got"
• Ann Shoket, Editor-in-Chief, Seventeen Magazine
• Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Director, Miss Representation
• Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Chief Medical Editor, NBC Nightly News
• Belinda Van Sickle, President and CEO, Women in Games International
• Alexa Verveer, Senior Vice President, Discovery Communications
• Jess Weiner, Author, Self-Esteem Expert and Dove's Global Self-Esteem Ambassador

Eight teen Girl Scouts were also selected to serve on the Commission: Allie Lundell and Jasmine Dent of Maryland; Caitlin Claire O'Brien of Texas; Kulsoom Ahmed of Illinois; Katie McGrath, Maggie Burgos and Caroline Tydings of Virginia; and Toni Guiterriez of California.

The first meeting of the Healthy MEdia Commission will take place next week in Washington, D.C., and we hope that we can bring you live reporting from the event - stay tuned! 

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