We like easy birthday parties that reflect our child’s interests, don’t break the bank, and don’t break our backs. And we think it’s possible to have one! Take a peek at the Easiest LEGO Ninjago (or Ninja) Birthday Party ever.
Please note there are some Amazon affiliate links below.
We started with favors, because those are always the trickiest part of parties. (Without going on a rant, I (mom) don’t understand party favors and, frankly, I usually don’t want them either. We don’t need more cheap, plastic toys or candy around our parts. We are plush with those things…they grow on trees here…they multiple like rabbits…But since favors have become a thing, I decided to try to come up with something that could be useful and fun.)
I bought some cheap long-sleeved (this is key) TShirts from a big box store and created a freezer paper stencil using these LEGO eyes here. I already had fabric paint, but it is cheap at Michael’s or JoAnn’s. Freezer paper stenciling is probably the easiest way I have ever experienced to customize fabric. You can see a tutorial on freezer paper stenciling here. Skip the cutting machines and just grab scissors.
The eyes were a bit more tricky than the mask. I gave my parents cheese and wine and they began to think about cardboard stencils and Exacto knives but in the end we used a Sharpie to freestyle it.
That was the hardest part of the party so if you aren’t as committed to saving a buck, as I was, Etsy has shirts you can buy.
We gave these to the kids as soon as they arrived so they could wear them as Tshirts OR
as NINJA MASKS.
See a tutorial for how to wear a Tshirt as a Ninja mask here. But this is a skill that comes in handy year-round, parents.
When you have kids at your house, you have to have some planned activities or they end up throwing pinecones over the fence into the community pool (go ahead, guess how we know).
(the Ninja birthday banner was from my friend who had used it for her son and no longer needed it)
The biggest draw to this party was the Ninja Obstacle Course. With most of the kids wearing their new Tshirts/Ninja masks, we gave them a few times to practice the obstacle course.
Here were our obstacles:
- ride a scooter between orange cones
- PVC pipe hurdles – we didn’t make these, we borrowed them from a neighbor, but you can find a tutorial here
- a balance beam – we husband made this with an extra 2×4 and old stumps that he hammered and screwed the board on top of
- through a tunnel made by stacking pine straw bales then laying a tarp across
- throw frisbees into a trash can
- run through the extra bicycle tires
As you will note, this obstacle course was made with whatever we had laying around, or that our neighbor had. It wasn’t fancy, we didn’t spend any money on it (the pine straw we use to mulch flower beds), and the kids LOVED it. We timed them running through the course and they spent an incredibly long time doing this, even allowing for kid-attention-spans. When it comes to creating an obstacle course, the only thing you need is a creative way of looking at what you own.
Eventually, we stopped the Ninjas and prepared them for the pinata.
I had extra small colored bags in my stash that I could use. As we kept the invite list very small, I didn’t think it was necessary to buy any, and I didn’t care if they were all the same color. Using these ninja stickers from Amazon, I quickly made bags for the kids to put their pinata candy in and used the extras on some balloons from the grocery store.
The only Ninja pinata I found was this one from Amazon. When not being bludgeoned, it made for a great decoration on the snack table (which had bulk gluten free snack items from Sam’s – because I don’t have the patience to wrap pretzel sticks with toilet paper or whatever).
I used a gluten free box mix and frosting from the grocery store and made white cupcakes with chocolate frosting, as requested. (NOTE: gluten free cupcakes would NOT work for kids with nut allergies. Usually these mixes are made with almond flour.)
I did a quick large-tipped frost and used these cupcake toppers, again from Amazon, to stick to the theme.
Hosting any party costs money. But ultimately, this was one of the cheaper ways to do it.
Our major expenses were:
- cupcake toppers ($7 for a set of six);
- pinata ($19);
- gluten-free cupcake mix, wrappers & frosting;
- sticker eyes ($7 for 18);
- Tshirts ($4.99 per shirt);
- yellow helium balloons;
- candy for the pinata; and
- snacks from Sam’s.
We already owned the fabric paint, freezer paper, tablecloths, paper products and everything we needed for the obstacle course.
All in all, we totally karate-kicked this birthday party to the ground!