Sunday, May 19, 2013

The Lego Birthday

For a boy who has been obsessed with Lego from pretty much birth, it has taken us nine years to actually have a Lego themed birthday party. Of course the first place I turned was Pinterest, and you can find all of my inspiration on my birthday ideas board. I will be the first to admit that I was a bit over ambitious, considering I had an eight month old competing for my attention, but I think the late night crafting sessions were worth it.

I used wrapping paper and punched cardstock circles to turn our front door into giant lego bricks. The Lego figure (our third place scarecrow from the Ruth Bancroft gardens contest last fall) held a bunch of balloons on the day of the party to welcome guests.

A birthday banner made using a Lego font and printables found on Pinterest.
Since Amazon is my best friend, I had plenty of boxes to wrap like giant Legos. The mini figure heads were from paper lanterns found in the dollar spot at Target and spray painted yellow. I just taped the features on so I could remove them later and re-use the lanterns for the baby's "You are my sunshine" themed birthday in July.
More giant Lego bricks and balloons that my AWESOME sister-in-law waited forty-five minutes to get! Who knew party stores had balloon traffic jams??
The birthday boy didn't want games, only building time, so we set up three large tables in the backyard and baskets of bricks. A simple cardstock brick banner and colored tablecloths were the only decorations.
Although the circles were punched and glued on, they didn't have enough dimension. Since I really didn't want to make a trip to the craft store for pop dots, I simply outlined the circles instead.
Cardstock again provided a backdrop for the party table. I used the extended area as a photo booth,
complete with props.
I think that may have been my favorite part.
I was too busy getting out the food to take pictures of it, but prior to the party the kids helped me assemble Lego juice boxes and utensil holders. For the party I used the crock pot hotdogs and fruit in waffle cones from my Pinterest birthday board, and all were pleased. I will definitely use both for the baby's party - so easy to prepare ahead of time!
I loved all of the brightly colored Lego party bags on saw on Pinterest, but our Michaels only had the white bags in stock. Sigh. At least it made the tags pop. Inside the favor bags were Lego mini figure crayons and chocolate bricks (I found both of the molds on Amazon) and a mini figure t-shirt that I silkscreened from an image in one of his instruction booklets. I loved the way the shirts turned out!
T-shirts are one of my favorite party favors - they won't rot your teeth or break after three days!
The boy was pleased, I think a good time was had by all, and I learned that it is never to early to begin planning. You can see my pins for the baby's birthday on my Pinterest board, too! Happy Birthday, big guy!