A LEGO Themed Birthday Party

This past weekend we celebrated our son’s 9th birthday… LEGO style. We had an absolute blast and mommy found some creative ways to make the party even more memorable. From the invites to the goody bags, name tags and everything in between, I made sure that every aspect of the party had something to do with LEGO.

We celebrated the day with our son and a few of his school friends at LEGOLAND California (thankfully everyone had their own memberships!) but you don’t have to actually go to the LEGOLAND Park to have an awesome LEGO Party. Here are some things that I did for the party– and some ideas for a home LEGO party, too!

THE SUPER COOL LEGO INVITES

I used Paperless Post to create a custom email invite. I went through the thousands of pictures on my laptop because I knew I had some recent ones of the LEGO creations that my son had made. Voila! Instant invitation with a LEGO theme. Isn’t the Polaroid look a nice touch?! I thought so. And yes, I sent an invite through email (which goes against every bone in my body) but there were only a few kids invited and I was running out of time.

The reverse side is fully customizable and then the invite/site prompts the invitees to RSVP. I picked Paperless Post for the online invitations because the tracking is beyond easy.

Note: you will need to pay a small amount for coins and “stamps” to send out custom invites through this site.

ALL THE LITTLE (LEGO) DETAILS (from right to left, top to bottom)

1. Most of the details for the party stemmed from a LEGO MINIFIGURE Ultimate Sticker Collection book. The last 20 pages of the book are filled with “extra stickers” meaning they don’t necessarily need to go with the sticker book. I tore out the last 20 pages, used them on everything for the party and then gave my son the sticker book as one of his gifts. Perfect.

2. Because we were spending an afternoon at the LEGOLAND California theme park, I filled the goodie bags with snacks for each kid (a good way to save a little money). In addition to snacks, I provided water bottles. I peeled off the labels and made personalized name tags for each water bottle– no mixing up water bottles (aka swapping spit). To make the labels, I took some Avery Mailing Labels (from our Christmas Card supply box), affixed a Minifigure head to each one, and wrote each child’s name.

3. I also made name tags for each partygoer and parent. Just as I did with the water bottles but I made it a little fun (and sometimes silly).

4. Finally, the goody bags were colorful gift bags from you guessed it Target. Once again, I used the stickers from the Minifigure sticker book to decorate each bag… and I used some alphabet stickers, that I had laying around, for each child’s name.

THE ULTIMATE LEGO GOODY BAGS

I’m not a fan of small, cheap and useless toys and gobs of sugar in goody bags so each year I try to get a little creative. This year’s goody bag is going to be hard to top in the future. Each LEGO Goody Bag had the following items:

• 1 mystery Minifigure pack
• Snacks: a bag of Popchips, a water bottle (pictured above), and a Clif Kids Organic Z-Bar (not pictured but also labeled, of course)
• Minifigure stickers (I cut some out of the “extra pages” from the Minifigure sticker book)
• A mix CD full of my 9-year-old’s favorite songs (most of the songs were the Kidz Bop version of the original song– for “cleaner” words). I burned the CD on my computer, cut a piece of cardstock for the inside sleeve (listed the songs on the inside), and then stuck a label and a Minifigure sticker on the front. You can also design and print the case inserts on your computer– I ran out of ink the night before the party.
• and last but certainly not least, a Recycled Bracelet Starter Kit from Shains. I not only wanted to include a new trendy item but I wanted to keep with the building theme. Get it? Build your own bracelet. The kids went nuts for these (and the CD).

THE LEGO BIRTHDAY PARTY

As I mentioned, we celebrated at LEGOLAND California. LEGOLAND has Birthday Party Packages but because everyone had a membership (and I knew a group of 9-year-old’s wouldn’t want to sit in a room for very long), we opted to go for the LEGOLAND Birthday Cake only… and I’m SO happy that we did! The cake was huge and decorated with Duplo pieces (one was a special Birthday piece). It said “Happy Birthday (child’s name)” and came with a Minifigure smack dab in the center! LEGOLAND also supplied the plates, napkins, forks, and gave the birthday boy a special crown and a Happy Birthday button! All for twenty bucks. Yes, the cake was included in the price. We grabbed an open table, sang Happy Birthday, ate cake and then went (well, the kids ran) about our way. The market even refrigerated the cake and held it for us until we were ready to leave. The kids had a blast exploring the park and riding the rides… and mommy had nothing to clean up. Perfect party!

HERE ARE SOME IDEAS FOR A LEGO BIRTHDAY PARTY AT HOME:

• MINILAND- create your own Miniland with your child starting weeks before the party. The sky is the limit when it comes to what you can create for your Miniland. On the day of the party, display your own Miniland for party guests to see (and take pictures next to)!
• Xbox Family Game Space- set up a space in your house where party guests can play LEGO Xbox games. (or Wii or PlayStation… whichever system you have)
• LEGO Playstation- set up a space for guests to build their own LEGO creations. Tip: You can even buy a bucket of LEGO pieces and allow guests to take their creation home as part of their goody bag.