March 27, 2023

A Lego Birthday Party

The key to a successful birthday party in my opinion are three things: balloons, cake, and a bounce house.  We had all of those at S's fifth birthday party on Sunday and the kids couldn't have been happier.
But do you think someone as obsessed with crafts and decorating as I am would leave it at that?  Of course not, so I did spend some time planning and creating some party stuff with a Lego theme, which was requested by my son.

Pinterest is naturally a great place to harvest ideas.  From this Lego sign I made for the front door of the party space
to the party bags themselves, it proved to be a helpful resource.
Speaking of party bags, I filled them with a few Lego-related items.
I picked up the Lego party kit on clearance at the Lego store, and while there, the sales clerk kindly offered us copies of their Lego Club magazine for the goodie bags.  The stickers I picked up for cheap at a local party store.

I bought some block candy from Amazon.com and added them to some leftover candy bags I had on hand, then stapled folded scrapbook paper on the tops to keep them closed.
and I made the Lego crayons using silicon molds and using up our stash of broken crayons.
Despite their apparent ease of cleaning, the crayons ruined the silicon molds, so I'd advise you to get another set for food items if you wish to reuse them for chocolates or other edibles.
I also added some pretzels and chocolates (my mom was trying to get rid of a big stash from Christmas) to the bags.  Hopefully the parents weren't too annoyed about the treats.

The bags were done using primary-colored paper lunch sacks, with construction paper circles glued onto the fronts to look like Lego bricks.
You may have seen the Lego party lantern tutorial I posted about yesterday.  These were my favorite decorations at the party, and pretty easy to make.
I would have liked to have given them a more prominent place in the room, but it was a rush trying to get the party set up after the yoga class beforehand ran late (we had this at a local gallery/community center).  I barely had time to get all the food out!
For activities, we just had a bounce house and balloons for the kids to kick around.
It's amazing how engaged they were just with those things. I was a bit concerned at first that I didn't plan any games, but I really didn't need to.  I did bring a bin of Duplo blocks, just in case any of the smaller kids needed a quieter activity.
I also used some of those blocks to decorate the food tables, and had made a utensil holder with Legos at home.
The color scheme for the party was so simple--bright colors.  Thankfully, I have lots of tablecloths and banners that already fit that scheme, so I just brought them along from home.

Since this space has an art room, it was obvious that I was going to use my rusty art teacher skills and do an art activity.  I thought the kids would enjoy using Legos to print onto canvases.
I gathered some uniquely-shaped Legos from home, as well as acrylic paints, foam brushes and 8x10" canvases (which were about $1 a piece when using a 40% off Michael's coupon for a 10 pack).
Paint was put on paper plates and kids were instructed to use the foam brushes to paint a thin layer onto the Lego, then press it onto the canvas.
The kids really seemed to enjoy the process and created some interesting art works.
After the art activity, we dug into the cakes (complete with block candles from Target) and ice cream.
While I'm typically pretty adamant about avoiding food coloring and dyes, I couldn't help but use it for these Lego cakes (the birthday boy requested purple, his current favorite color).  I just don't think they'd be the same with white and brown icing.   I modified this Betty Crocker building block cake tutorial, keeping the marshmallow pegs for the bricks, but not taking the cakes out of the pans.  It would have been too much trouble to transport to the venue.

For the chocolate cake, I used this recipe and for the vanilla, I made a Wacky cake which uses no eggs, dairy or soy (one of the guests was allergic to those things).  They both came out delicious, I must admit.
The food wasn't fancy, just take-out pizzas, a veggie tray, hummus, fruit salad and chips.  Everyone enjoyed it, despite its simplicity.

And I think the birthday boy had the best time of all.
Happy birthday S!

8 comments:

  1. I think is the better party for a boy; my son would be happy!

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  2. You throw a great party! I'm sure it is one he'll remember :) Care to fly out here and plan hers? Ha!

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  3. You're always so creative when it comes to these types of things! I kind of want you to plan ME an awesome party like this ^.^

    Happy 5th birthday to the lucky birthday boy :)

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  4. I always marvel at how similar our boys are. Salem turned 5 last month and we did a Lego party (scored the same deal at the Lego store too--maybe the first time Lego items didn't seem so costly). We used the silicone molds for melted white chocolate (with yellow oil-based food dye) on cupcakes and did bookmarks on foam with stamp pads and lego impressions.

    I love the lanterns--the faces turned out great!

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  5. Looks like he had a splendid birthday party! I really like the Lego sign you made for the front door, although all the decorations are pretty cool.

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  6. Love it! I love theme birthday parties. I wish I had the talent and energy to do them more often =).

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  7. You are totally the most fun mom, ever! Wish Jasper could have crashed this one...

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  8. Rental bounce houses offer many combos for increasing fun of your parties. so you can rent cheap bounce houses as a fulfillment option of your party. By renting combo ride you can enjoy different games on your budget.

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I'm a good listener...comment away!

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