It was a "just for fun" shoot--we assured each other repeatedly that we weren't going to go overboard, weren't going to build a set or anything, because, after all, it was "just for fun"--just a means of documenting the fact that Hever, Chris and Lou were dressing up as Slytherin and Ravenclaw students for Halloween.

Yeah, right.

I should've known better right from the start. After all--Hev put the costumes together almost two months in advance--because that's the kind of person she is. She made individualized wands for each of them--because that's just how she is. She knitted house scarves, painted house badges...

And then there's me--obsessed with the theatrical.

So it should have come as no surprise when earlier last week, I wound up at Teavana, asking for cheap teas that looked like they might be Harry Potter potions ingredients. (Got four lovely ones, btw--all very interesting looking--including a genmaicha blend with POPCORN bits in it!)

And from there, it was only natural that I'd head over to Crate and Barrel to see if they had rock salt (so I could color it, of course!) and anything else that might be useful. (They did. Wooden ingredients bowls, an interesting and irregularly shaped tasting bowl and cutting board, and a really cool granite mortar and pestle that was too heavy and too expensive...but I think I'll get one eventually, because I'm sure it will come in handy on future shoots.)

And since Anthropologie was on the way home, I stopped there, too, and asked them if I could buy the tiny empty "tester" perfume bottle I spotted there. (I couldn't. But they let me have it for free! )

With Marshall's just a block further up the road, naturally I had to stop there, and found two bell jars (for $9.99 and $3 respectively!).

I then collected cordial bottles that came from home-made cordials that Maura bequeathed me, when she moved to DC...and a few random antique bottles that I had lying around, and filled them with various ingredients and colored water. I discovered that tapioca, when mixed with moss green cake decorator's paste dye, makes an interesting clumpy mixture that looks like mold. I also discovered that you can make a truly nasty looking bubotubor pus from powdered sugar mixed with buttercup yellow cake decorator's dye.