Lego Party

   We decided to throw a birthday party for my son and his cousins while visiting our home state of Michigan this year. Seeing as how we were traveling, we weren't going to do anything big and crazy, so my sister graciously offered to host a "home" birthday party at her house. I let my son pick whatever theme he wanted and this year he chose a Lego themed birthday party. When I went to the local party store to check out what kind of decorations were available in that theme however, I was disappointed with my options. So what did I do? I logged on to good ol' Pinterest for inspiration!

   The first thing I wanted to tackle were the goody bags. I had decided that in each bag I would put a small Lego set (like the kind you see by the cash register at Target) and a small bag of Lego brick candy that they sell at my local bulk candy store. I already had some clear plastic candy bags, so I purchased a large bag of the brick candy and divided it up. I scooped some of the bricks into each bag and weighed them with a food scale that we had to make sure that each bag had the same amount of candy.

    To make the bags, I purchased some paper bags with handles from Michael's, a package of card stock that matched each bag, a 2 inch hole punch and some double-sided foam mounting tape. 

   I punched the holes out of the card stock and attached them to each bag with the mounting tape, measuring with a rule to make sure that the circles were roughly an equal distance from each other. The result was a Lego brick looking bag.

    For the decorations, I purchased square plates from Target, and napkins, cups, plastic tablecloths, balloons and streamers in the same colors as the bags (red, blue, green, yellow, orange) from the Dollar Tree (my favorite place for party supplies!). I happened to already have a "Happy Birthday" banner from last year so I used that as well. I put everything out on the table and scattered Lego pieces down the middle of the table. To create the Lego figure guys that I put on the windows and in various locations around the house, I Googled "Lego Coloring Page" and found a template that I copied into a Word document and then printed onto yellow paper. I then cut each guy out (in stacks of 3-4 at a time) and taped him around the house. 

   I wanted to keep the party simple, so I only arranged for two games. The first one was "Guess how many Lego pieces are in the jar?" I had my sister put Lego bricks into a jar and count them so that we would know how many were in there. Each child took a turn guessing how many bricks were in the jar by writing their name and number on a piece of paper. The child with the closest number without going over was the winner. The second game we played was "See how many Lego bricks you can move with chop sticks in one minute." I put out two plates, one with Lego pieces and an empty plate. I then gave the child a set of chop sticks and made them put their other hand behind their back. They had one minute to see how many Lego pieces they could move over to the other plate with the chop sticks (I timed them with my phone). The game was a lot of fun for all of the different ages we had at the party (ages 5-11) and it was interesting to see the strategy each child used to move the pieces. The kids all seemed to have a great time!

  

   For the cake, I ordered a "Lego brick cake" at a local bakery. I wasn't sure what I would end up with, but I thought they did a good job. I then purchased a small Lego set for the top and Lego brick candles from Target. I was happy with the end result.

    The small party was very easy to throw together and my son was very happy with the results. Overall, I think the way that I decided to create the decorations was significantly cheaper than if I would have purchased the Lego themed party supplies from the party store. The most expensive part of the party was the goody bags, but I thought they were worth it! What kinds of things did you do at your Lego party? Let me know!