Lego love - the party edition

We celebrated a 5th birthday here last weekend. It was a very bleated party, with the real birthday being in early January. But with lots of little friends away on holiday during that time, it made sense to celebrate a bit later.

I've long wanted to host a "Lego" themed party, we are a Lego loving family. Lego is the single most played with item in our house, played by family members young and old. I did a little Internet research for party ideas, adding some to this Pinterest board - Lego party ideas. I wanted to keep it fairly simple and easy to prepare keeping in mind a budget too, I do believe you don't have to spend a fortune to have a fun and memorable party.

I kept the cake simple (it was his third cake!) butter-cream icing and some stack-able Lego lollies that I bought from Crazy Candies. They stock an impressive array of confectionery mainly imported from the USA.

We kept the menu simple too, but I had spied this amazing Jelly recipe a while ago and was keen to give that a go. You can find the recipe for Glass block Jelly here. If like me, your country doesn't have sachets of gelatin, each sachet mentioned in the recipe is equal to 2.5 teaspoons. I was so impressed with how it turned out, as were the guests! Not to mention it can be made ahead of time, always a winner in my books.

I bought a Lego silicone mould off Trademe and poured melted crayons in it for take home gifts. Along with a printed Lego colouring in book. We also spent an afternoon in the school holidays making polymer clay (Fimo)  pendants, squishing the clay into the moulds. It was a fun activity that even the youngest member of our family could take part in.

I printed off some little Lego guys and hid them around the garden - "I spy a Lego guy". Super easy and the kids had a blast trying to find them. I set them a task of finding three each, although I'd hidden many more, just in case some went astray.

Simple white bags were transformed with printed Lego guys and washi tape, other than the colouring in books and crayons I included a small bag of the Lego candy and the Lego pendants.

We greeted the guests with VIP tags, attached to a lanyard so they could wear them easily during the party. There were five activities planned so I added some little check box circles at the bottom to mark them off as we did them. Once all the activities were competed each child could have their goodie bag. It was amazing how enthusiastic they were about getting their passes marked off and asking about the next activity, it made the time go so quickly.

We had a "Lego spoon race" and we played "don't eat Pete". I printed off the game from Delia Creates and had enlarged it to A3 size, instead of laminating it, I just used washi tape to attatch it to the table. Don't eat Pete was the biggest hit, probably my favourite activity of the day. It was a new game to me, but I love how you could easily make one to match any party theme.

It was such a fun party and the feedback suggests it was the "best birthday party ever" possibly a slight exaggeration, but I'd definitely do it all again!

Argh - part 2

pirate flag bunting

pirate ship jelly cups 

Shrink plastic pendants

a treasure chest borrowed from Nana to set the scene

treasure map game!

A few little glimpses into the pirate party -Argh!

argh!

Mr A turned four in January, with all his friends away on holiday we decided to have a small celebration a few weeks later. He's pirate mad, mainly because of this jacket!  (You can get the pattern from here or here, designed by Lisa of Big Little - or if sewing isn't your thing Lisa will custom make one for you!). So we decided on a pirate theme. For weeks and weeks, it's been "pirate party" this and that. We worked together miss E, mr A and I over the school holidays to put some of the details together, it was our little project and I had good helpers. We made invitations, aged the paper by soaking it in tea (a great little helper job), I made some little pouches from some hessian type fabric (cut a circle and thread a length of ribbon around the edge - easy). We filled these with some chocolate coins and some cute chocolate fish!

We also made some colouring in books for the kids to take home. I did a google search for pirate colouring in images and sized them to fit on A5 sheets. I stitched them together on my sewing machine and also included some blank pages for their own drawings. I used a bunting image designed by Stella for the cover of the notebooks, you can find it here, she's also got a bunch of other free printables - she's so clever! You can see the nautical party here that she originally created the bunting for - AMAZING!!!!

I've got a few more pics to share from the party, maybe tomorrow. The weather is absolutely stunning here today, a nice crisp cool morning and it's starting to heat up now. The cicada's are singing and there is just enough cool breeze to get my washing dry fast, better go and hang it out then!