Kids Wednesday: Our Lego Birthday Party

As you all know by now, I try to figure out how I can do anything the cheapest.  Birthdays are no exception.  Although I know that kids need to have a great time and make great memories, I know that it doesn't take a lot of money to do that.  Many people in our area (and probably across the country) spend way too much money on kids birthday at least in my opinion.

My son declared last year that he wanted a Lego Birthday party so I started keeping my eyes out for things that I might want to use.  I grabbed some Lego City Birthday Cake Decorations (for $1) at a consignment sale.  I wasn't sure what I was doing but seemed like a good investment.  We also save the candles from the parties from the previous years because they never burn very far.  I wash them and keep them in a bag.  It was a little challenging to find them in the new house but I did it at the last minute so that we didn't have to buy new ones.

Sadly, I was still slightly unprepared when it came down the time for the party because I was just getting over Christmas.  I had a pile of notebooks that I picked up at CVS with the after summer sale for $0.25 each (so that was about $4 spent).

I decided that I was going to decorate the front of the notebook with some Lego brick print in different colors.  I wasn't sure exactly how to do it so I asked one of the teachers at work.  With her great advice, I came home and did them.  It got easier as I went on but I think that they turned out pretty cute.

I made an activity book for the good bag with stuff from lots of sources.  I included coloring, mazes, word searches, and more for the kids to take home with them.  They are all about Legos in one way or another. Some of the sheets came from here and I printed some pages from the Lego Movie coloring sheets and Lego City to make it super complete.

I also made yellow Lego man and green Lego Bricks out of chocolate in these neat molds that I bought from Amazon.  My son wasn't big on the plain vanilla flavor so I added peppermint to the green and they were way tastier!!  I enjoyed the look of the Lego man but was a little disappointed in the brick because they were much larger then the normal Legos.  Jollylife Building Bricks and Minifigure Ice Cube Tray or Candy Mold --For Lego Lovers are the ones that I got (around $6).  I bought the chocolate on clearance at Target at the after Christmas sale last year but I don't remember how much they were but they were at least 50-75% off (around $4).

I was making the goodies to go on the top of the cupcakes but my son decided that I needed to be in the goody bags to take home.  I made the ones for the decorations for the cupcakes and started on the good bags. 

I decided on two Lego men and two full bricks even though I cut the bricks in half because they were so big for cupcakes.  I guess I made more then I thought but I used all of the chocolate that I bought so at least nothing will go to waste.  I used bags that I bought ages ago and never used and blue curling ribbon to go with the colors. 

I made the goody bags from white lunch bags with a thank you Lego man on one side a face on the other side with the kids names written in red marker.  The faces can found here and the Thank You Lego Man here.  We also put a little bag of M&Ms in there because they are my son's favorite candy and we had them at the party to decorate the cupcakes (as well as we got some from my sister in law from the candy she didn't give out at Halloween).

I made a banner with letters that I printed.  I cut the paper to look like bricks.  I decided that I had to link them together with some white yarn that I had and a hole punch.  Super fun and colorful and free with things that I already had at home.  I don't like to pay for things that end up going to waste after the party is over but well worth the time to make this cute banner.  I also have a red table cloth that I have had for a little bit so I used to cover a table for snacks.  Super colorful and with the colors of the party theme.

For fun and games, we printed out a Lego man to pin the hat in the Lego man (found here).  I was going to come up with something where you had to pin the head on the Lego man but the hat seemed so much easier.  My husband printed it and we just needed to put the kids names on the hats so that they could do that as they were coming into the party.

My husband decided that after he blew up the picture that there were a few things that needed to be photoshopped so we had an extra poster.  Since I hate to let anything go to waste, I cut up the paper from the notebooks that was leftover and put it around the extra poster to make this neat decoration for the room.  I think that it turned out super cute and will make a great addition to the sort of boring room that we are having the party in.

We borrowed Lego Bingo Cards (found here) from another mom who had a party and was done with them.  We just had to clean off all of the markers that the kids used.  They were a blast and super easy to use and pass on to the next friend having a Lego Party or to be used as a family Bingo night down the road.  The kids were cheering that they had three or two left so we knew that they were into it and we did two rounds.

We had a mason jar filled with 176 legos.  The kids were supposed to guess the number of Legos in the jar and I was super surprised on how many fit in the jar so I was hoping the kids wouldn't be able to guess either.  They wrote their name and their guess on the paper.  There were a few that were hard to read because they wrote 1002 which was 100 and 2.... most commonly known as 102.  The kids are still a little young for some of the big numbers so it was so funny.  We had one guess that was only 13 away for he won a prize.

We also decorated a Lego Man for which I had three or four different options depending on what the kids wanted.  I pulled out the markers, crayons, stickers, glitter glue, jewels, pipe cleaners, pom poms and more.  I figured that the more creative the better although I was a little worried about drying time.  I am sure that the parents would be carrying them home with lots of not dry items and careful balance.

I bought juice boxes (after sale and coupon the two boxes were $2.50) and I bought green plates another after Christmas purchase a few years ago (about $2).  I used blue and red paper napkins we had leftover from other parties so that I didn't have to get any new ones.  I made cupcakes with things that I already had around the house so I never know how to count how much those cost but they were pretty inexpensive and the kids spent time decorating them as one of the fun activities.

In addition, we had the birthday party at Home Depot.  My son really enjoys the crafts that they do there once a month.  They offer a birthday party free of charge as a public service and they do a craft with the kid.  When my son heard that was an option, he was all in.  When I realized that I didn't have to have all the kids in a house that wasn't done under construction and boxes not unpacked.  I was sold too!!  It took a little more pre-planning to make sure that we had everything but check with your local Home Depot to see what they offer because it is a great party on a limited budget!! We threw our stuff back into the boxes that I brought and we were done with clean up.  Awesome!!

We had a great time at the party with lots of memories and very little money.  I kept adding more and more things to my to do list but I was pretty happy with the work that I put in to pull off a fun party on a very small budget.