Lego Party

Like most tween boys, my oldest son is a Lego fanatic.  So not surprising, when asked how he wanted to celebrate his birthday, he only needed a nano-second to request a Lego-themed bash surrounded by family and friends.

Right about this time, my daughter had been learning to make stop-motion videos with a stop-motion app on our iPad.  I was quick to enlist her services to make an invite to the party which we sent to all the party guests.



Confession time, all!

I love throwing kids parties!  I love the games. I love the crafts. I love the smiling faces of the party guests as they leave with a belly full of cake.

While I'm usually pretty good about planning games and crafts within the party theme,  the "ambience" part of my little shin-digs...when left totally up to me...usually falls a bit flat.  Admittedly, I'm not a decorator.  I tend to delegate that to The Hubs whose artistic eye can find the treasure in every heap of trash.  (He's a picker.  Did I mention that?!)
 

So, what's a "decorating's not my thing" momma to do for trimming a party on a shoestring, debt-free budget?  Spend a late night scouring her Pinterest boards for some DIY Lego decor! That's what.

Decorations:

Click on the highlighted titles to see the original ideas on Pinterest. 

Plates

My artist-husband jazzed up some square/yellow Dollar Tree plates by using a Sharpie to add Lego mini-fig faces.  I glued some yellow cardstock to the top to make the classic Lego man nubbin.

Gift Bags

A simple circle cutter and some cardstock turned a pack of blue and red gift bags into Lego pieces stuffed with party treats.  

Lego Jars

I lined a handful of Lego-filled Mason jars down the center of the table.  I had planned to also sprinkle some Legos around the jars, but my library-table-turned-dining-room-table is super narrow and was getting a bit too crowded for any more bling.

Cake

Super Boy was VERY specific about how he wanted me to make his cake.  He wanted a 2 x 3 brick. Red.  So that's what he got.
Red cake.
2 rows of 3 pegs.
Easy-peasy! 

This was just a 9 x 13 sheet cake.  I cut the cake in half and then sandwiched the two pieces together with some frosting.  The pegs were made by cutting super huge marshmallows in half and painting them with a water/food-dye wash.  In case you are wondering, I did not let anyone eat the marshmallows.  I think all that dye and fluff would have put them all into sugar shock!

Games

Pass the decor off to Pinterest, but leave the game-planning to me!  It's my favorite part of organizing a kid's party.  Here's a quick look at our fun.

Tallest tower

After splitting the party guests into two teams, I dumped a bucket of Duplo blocks in the middle of the room.  The teams had one minute to build the tallest tower they could.  The team with the tallest, free-standing tower at the end of one minute won.  (While many of the kids wanted to just add height onto their tower, a few engineer-minded ones realized the need to also add depth for stability.  As a homeschool momma, this game was fascinating to watch!)

Classic "How Many?" Game

Ok...ok...I did borrow this one from Pinterest.  But, who doesn't love the old "how many things in a jar" game.  (In case you are wondering, there were exactly 253 Lego pieces in this giant Mason jar. The winning guess was 250.)

We took a brief pause to fill our bellies...

Then, it was on to...

Lego Find & Match

During our pre-party prep, I had The Hubs place a handful of very distinct Lego pieces onto a Lego mat.  He also found several EXACT matches to these pieces...some of the mat pieces had several duplicate matches while others had only one match.  He tossed all of these matches into a big bin of random Legos.

At the party, he showed the party guests the Lego mat filled with the previously selected Legos while I handed each guest a plastic cup.  I dumped the bin of Legos out onto the carpet and spread the pieces around the room.  On my "go", the game players had to find as many EXACT matches as they could and place them in their cups.  The person who collected the most pieces that matched those on the Lego mat won! Since two of the pieces on the mat only had ONE match in the entire tub of Legos, we awarded the finder of each of those pieces an extra 5 points to be added to his/her final total.  

Lego Car Race

Since the floor was already covered with random Legos, it was really easy to transition into this car race game.

During our prep, we had previously gathered some core car building parts...wheels, small flat mats, mounts, etc.  We placed these in one part of the room and allowed the kids to use these to make the base of a car.  They, then, had five minutes to add the "scattered about the room" Legos to their base to create a one-of-a-kind racing car.

Once all the cars were complete, we took them outside where The Hubs volunteered to hold an old rain gutter on his shoulder to act as a racing chute.  One at a time, the party guests lined their cars up in the gutter.  Each car was released and rolled down and out of the gutter onto the sidewalk.  The player whose car rolled the farthest down the sidewalk won.

Lego Picker-upper

Even after the creation of all those racing cars, there was still an enormous heap of Legos scattered all over my living room floor.  The final game of the morning took care of that in a flash.

I handed each party guest a cup and a plastic straw.  On my "go", they each had to pick up as many Legos as they could and drop them into their cup.  They could only touch the Legos with the tip of their straw.  By squeezing the straw into the holes on the back of the pieces, the kids were able to pick up one piece at a time.  The person with the most Legos in their cup at the end of the "clean up" won.  

With a little help from my Lego Love Pinterest Board, this party was Lego-tastic! (Yep...just totally made up a new word!)