Lego Party (8-10yr) Lego Cake

My nephew, turning 9, called me on the phone and asked me if I could throw him a lego birthday party in 2 weeks. I had a very tight budget too.  This party was a lot of fun to organize and to throw. The kids were full of smiles and a group of 13 boys were entertained for 2+ hours! 

INVITATION: I used my scrapbooking tools. Needed: two colors scrapbook paper, a 1 circle punch.  I had a stash of double sided sticky rubber from my stamping supplies that I used too. I cut the paper into rectangle shapes and folded in half like a card. On the front I put 8 circles and used the rubber to give it a raised look. If you don't have this just use glue and a piece of cardboard to make the dots raised up. I used two different colors because I thought it looked cuter. On the inside I put the invitation information by printing them out on my computer on regular paper. I taped it on the inside of the card. I kept it simple by saying come to my lego party.  I figured the invite pretty much says it all! The card was so cute someone removed the inside invitation paper and replaced it with a birthday message for a gift card. A side note - make sure they are cut to fit in the envelopes you have. 

DECORATIONS: As I said before I was on a tight budget trying to keep the costs around $50.  So a trip to the dollar store was in order. I had 5 big walls to cover as the room was still under construction and drywall with no paint is not cute. So I purchased 5 tablecloths and two 2" wide party banner strips. Two of the cloths were for the table coverings - I chose red. I used yellow and blue and hung the rectangle shaped cloths to cover the walls nearly completely. I used the excess cloth that hangs off the ends of the tables and cut them into big circles. So I hung 8 red dots on the rectangle cloths on the wall to make them look like giant legos. I outlined one of the table cloths with the party strip to give it a punch of color. I used just the strip (no table cloth) and 8 red circles to creat a rectangle on the wall in the 2nd room.  I like the tablecloth wall better but it still worked and looked great.

I was preparing for about 16 kids so I took 16 pieces of yellow construction paper a roll of clear contact paper and 15 square printouts of the lego symbol on a red background. I also printed out a few extra pictures of lego things like lego cars from free clip art.  We taped the printouts onto the construction paper and laminated them with the contact paper. I used these for placemats on the table. When the kids walked into the room they made comments like "wow it's lego world!" It really looked colorful and inviting! The thrift store had baskets on sale for 50% off and I got really lucky when I found a set of 10 baskets taped together all different colors for $1.00. The birthday boy and I sorted through his huge stash of legos and put all the red ones in the red basket green in green.. You get the picture right? The baskets adorned the tables down the middle and really looked cool. Total cost: $15 

GAMES:
Game 1: Preparing: I involved the birthday boy to prepare. We wrote down 16 ideas of simple things people could build on an index card. I put a bowl of mixed up legos on each mat.I put the index cards under the placemats. Because I throw a lot of parties for my kids I've accumulated a pretty nice prize box of leftovers from the partys. So I wrapped with tissue paper 16 things and labeled them with award names. I bought a couple candy bars for this prize giveaway. I printed out the award names on paper with a transparent lego background. Some of the awards were Your lego statue is a blast (whoopee cushion) Your lego statue was the most yellow (A butterfinger candy bar most red - a kit kat bar - most green - a green bubble wand most striking - a rubber snake sunglasses - coolest statue award.. ***I always go to party supply websites like sav-on-closeouts windycitynovelties or oriental trading and look for supplies that provide 12 or more items for the favor prizes. Candy bars were $0.50 each. Total cost for me was $1.00 but for you the most would be $1.00 per kid for dollar store items. Party day: I instructed the kids to look under the mat and told them they had 10 minutes to build whatever was on their index card by using just the legos in the bowl. The "cutest" ones were the smiley face and the person. I had each child stand up and show off their creation and say what it was - we all judged nominated and awarded each child with the most appropriate prize.  

Game 2: TO PREPARE: Ebay was my friend. For $1.00 per kid I purchased wheels and axles. I loved this as they came in little bags. From the birthday boy's lego stash I found some small red pieces to use for "lights". I found an excessive amount of steering wheels too. I created little car kits in bags to pass out later. Total cost to me $12. The birthday boy had enough tires to make up for the 4 extra kits I needed to make and he agreed he would give them to his friends to take home. I had extra medals and trophy cups left over for the prizes. Dollar store sells 4 trophy cups in a pack. They are chintzy but the fun part was winning something special. I had some black and white checkered fabric and made two flags by stapling and duct taping the fabric onto a free paint stirring stick.

PARTY DAY: I passed out the kits and told them to make a fast car. Rules - they had to use everything in their kits and could use the legos from the bowls on the table. I asked them how much time they thought they would need and we all agreed on 20 minutes. They pretty much used it too. I lined all the kids up along the edge of the driveway and ready set go waved the flags they pushed the cars. The car that went the farthest won the prize. I was able to award a prize to all the kids but first prize got a trophy cup and the others got the medals to hang around their necks. We did this a few times for fun. This was the most favorite game when I asked the kids later what they liked. We put all the cars on a table for them to take home later. 

GAME 3: To prepare: I purchased a package of bouncy balls - enough and extras for each child.. PARTY Back to the tables we went. I simply instructed the kids to build a sturdy structure that was wide and about 6-12" tall using any legos they wanted. What a variety of structures we had. We took them outside and lined them up along the driveway again. (my mistake) If I had this to do again I would have done it inside or in a more enclosed area so we wouldn't lose the balls. Or I would have lined them up along the garage door so the balls would bounce back. Anyway - I told them to knock their structures down using their bouncy balls. This is difficult to do and they tried over and over again. We lost a few balls in the grass so I was happy I had some extra's.  

GAME 4: After cake and presents were done I had a little extra time. I told the kids to work together to build a statue or a wall so we could destroy it. They decided to break into groups and each others group got to destroy the creations.  

PARTY FAVORS: before the party I took a white king size flat sheet (note - I buy these at the local thrift store periodically for about $1.50 - they are usually on sale right before halloween)I cut the bags into about 25" X 25" Strips and sewed them into bags. I used extra ribbons I have on hand to create a drawstring take home bag. I used a happy face lego clipart image and a cute font to create a happy birthday decoration. Using iron-on transfer paper I decorated the white bags with a cute picture. A couple mom's complimented how cute they were and asked where I bought them I made sure each child's name was on them as I put some of their lego creations in the bag to take home later.   $2.00 On ebay I found some lego stickers - enough for all kids and extra   $30 - I purchased 6 lbs of legos on eBay. I sorted them and put them into some of the storage bins the birthday boy had on hand. I wrapped them up for a birthday gift from me. I took the remainder for take home favors for the kids. Plus they got to take home the lego creations and the car pieces.  

FOOD: this party was not a meal party but rather a snack/cake party. I had a lot of ideas though! I combed the grocery store for ideas simply looking for circles and rectangles. Here's what I found.

SNACK 1: Needed: Graham crackers frosting food coloring 2 boxes of the candy called "dots". This is so easy it was ridiculous. I mixed some food coloring in the frosting - yellow blue and green. I frosted the crackers and put 8 candy dots on top. My daughter loved helping me make these too.

SNACK 2: Needed: a package of yellow wafer cookies 1 bag of miniature marshmallows a small amount of frosting. Again super easy and fun to make with the kids. I took two wafer cookies wiped a small amount of frosting down the side. I stuck them together for a larger rectangle shaped base. Putting a small dab of frosting on a mini marshmallow we stuck them onto the cookie in the shape of a lego. 

THE CAKE: While shopping for food ideas I noticed the bakery department had loaves of angel food cake prepackaged and ready to go for less than $2 each. I had planned to purchase those.  The day before the party I couldn't find them anywhere. So I purchased two confetti cake mixes for $1 each and a few tubs of white frosting and a bag of big marshmallows. I baked the cakes in loaf pans. The baking time took a little longer this way but they were almost perfect rectangles when done. I cooled them upside down which flattened them out a little bit too. When cool I cut 8 small holes into the tops and stuck a marshmallow in them. It's better to cut the holes a little smaller than the the mallows and not too deep. I made two cakes one green and one yellow. Frosting them was a little putsy but were they ever cute! I've never had a marshmallow with frosting before and having a sweet tooth myself I found those to be sooooo good!!

A note: Don't get hung up on the colors as the food coloring and white mix makes for a pastel color. Nobody noticed and they all complimented on how cute and GOOD the cakes were. The kids loved everything and asked for seconds. I stuck the candles in the marshmallows too - very cute.   Ideas: Some other food items I found and thought could be used were twinkies with marshmallows for a personal cake. Make your own pizza using pizza dough cheese sauce and 8 sausages. Just cut the dough into rectangles. Brownies or other bar bakery items could be used with chocolate chips candy kisses or rolos It really is kind of fun to look for circles and rectangular food to come up with a fun food surprise. The kids really get a kick out of these things. "