Rachel Mallett Photography

Max recently turned 9 and decided this year to have a party after not wanting one for the past 3 years. Lego is his number one thing to play with so we planned a lego party. I searched the internet and came up with some great ideas which I adapted for us.
The following are some of the ideas and images from the party.

First up the goody bags. These were made from plain paper bags (unfortunately only white was available at the time I went to buy them but you could use any bright lego colour). I cut out whiter round shapes for the 'connector' lego bits and glued them to the front. Then I made up name tags which said ' brickmaster ............... and had a minifig head image, which I also made up so they each had something different. A few goodies were put in the bag and the rest of the goodies came from the pinata.

This was a game we organised. Not the best image but it is a race track going down. I taped one end of a long sheet of paper to a picnic table which only had the legs up on one end. This made it into a ramp, and then taped the paper to the floor. Max made up sets with wheels, minifigs, steering wheels, bases, aerials, and a few other accessories. Each child got the same pieces with which to make a race car. I gave them about 20 minutes to make and trial their cars and then did 10 races. The person who won the most out of the 10 won a prize. They all loved this and spent a lot of time racing and building cars after the race as well.

At the beginning of the party each child got to guess how many lego were in the jar and the closest number won a prize. Note the little box for them to put their guesses in? It's the only thing I was able to make - but I did need some help with the hinge lid!!

The pinata. So very simple to make. This was made from a beer carton (?) only because it was a perfect rectangle shape and nice and sturdy. I did reinforce the sides with tape and cut a little hole in the top to put the goodies into. I used aerosol can lids for the round lego connector bits and then spray pained the whole thing black. It was an awesome pinata if I might say so and took quite some time for them to make a dent in it.

Little sister bashing the pinata.

Minifig cookies - boy did I have fun decorating these!! I made my own template from card and used a basic cookie dough recipe. Instead of icing them yellow and then having to ice again to put on the facial features I though I would cut a few corners and actually colour the cookie dough yellow before baking them. This worked perfectly well and cut down on the sweetness that icing them would have had. I did have trouble getting the icing black - well actually I couldn't get black and ended up with a kind of grey/purple colour! Then I piped the features onto the biscuits. I started off simple and then decided to spice it up with different looks. These were a hit with the kids and very yummy.

Another game that was awesome was the lego bingo. Now I got this from a website where it was available to print. lego bingo
Thank you so much to the person who put this together!!

Lego cupcake toppers. Ok so the icing of my cupcakes leaves a bit to be desired, I should have piped it on. I think the heat may have something to do with it as well. Anyway I made the lego cupcake toppers to go on them.

The table. You can't see it that well but we spelt out Happy Birthday Max with lego pieces. Ok so Max had to help because I couldn't work out how to make them.

This had to be one of the easiest birthday cakes I've ever had to make. It was a square chocolate cake and the round top pieces were cut off from the cupcakes. The whole thing was then iced blue and tasted delicious. Super simple.

We also played a couple of other games that I didn't get photos of. The first being a lego straw game. Each participant had a container of small lego pieces and a straw. The aim of the game was to 'suck' the lego piece to the bottom of the straw and transfer it another bowl. The first one finished was the winner.

The next game was using chopsticks. Similar to the game above they had to use the chopsticks to transfer their lego pieces to a separate container.

I had so much fun organising this party it was a blast. The kids all enjoyed themselves and had a great time. Can't wait for next year!

Day 365 / 365

Well folks this is it - the end of project 365 and wow what a journey it's been. I have learnt so much over the past 12 months and my perspective on the world, people, nature and things will never be the same. I have learnt to see things from different angles, found beauty in small and seemingly insignificant things and challenged myself to find interesting things or turn the most boring thing into something interesting to photograph. I now notice the ladybug on the leaf, the way the sunlight comes through a window, the clouds in the sky, eyes (yes eyes which are the most important part of any portrait) and how each and every person has a beauty just waiting to be noticed.

I have to say it will be a relief not to have the pressure of finding a photo a day but I am so glad I did it and persevered to the end. (even if I was a week later) I now also have an album of the past year in images to look back on. So thanks to everyone who has followed me on this journey, many from a distance and hopefully I can encourage someone else to do their own project 365. You don't have to be a professional photographer or own an awesome camera you just need the desire and you can achieve it.

I may be tempted to continue with a project 52 so stay tuned if you have been following, you may not have seen the last of me yet....