Gracen’s little weekly play date buddy turned 4 today, which called for another homemade gift. Like almost all of our expat friends here in Kuwait, he and his family will be headed home for the summer shortly, so we wanted to make him something he could easily take along and hopefully use during the journey back to Canada. Since he and Miss G play with LEGO pretty much every time they’re together, we figured a portable LEGO kit would make a great gift. I had lots of different ideas about how we could put one together, but when Grae and I spotted this old school metal lunchbox in H&M a few weekends ago, I immediately remembered the LEGO lunchboxes I saw on If Only They Would Nap last Christmas. I knew I wanted to put ours together a little differently, but overall, a portable LEGO kit in a lunchbox is what we would make. Besides the metal lunchbox, we collected a large LEGO building plate, some good scissors, a sanding sponge, some mounting squares, a piece of thick white felt, our favourite ever craft glue, and a bin of basic LEGO bricks.
Then it was time to get started. Since Gracen was at summer camp this morning, I did the majority of the project on my own which made it super quick, but had she been home, there would have been plenty of jobs for her to help with. First, a cut the building plate down to fit in the lunchbox’s lid. I was a little worried about how it would cut, but it actually wasn’t too hard at all. I just went nice and slow, concentrating on cutting as straight as possible. Next, I trimmed the corners to make them rounded and sanded both the corners and the cut edges to ensure that they were smooth. When it came to adhering the base plate to the lunch kit, I wasn’t sure what to do at first. I did go and check out several glues, but the few that I thought would hold had nasty warnings of cancer and toxins and poisoning on the bottles – obviously not something I wanted to use for a kid’s gift. After giving it some thought, I decided to use mounting squares instead. I use them to hang all sorts of things around the house instead of drilling holes into our concrete walls, and they hold really well.
Plus they are removable should Miss G’s little friend ever want to remove the building plate from the lunchbox and use the two pieces separately. I probably didn’t need this many, but I decided to be safe rather than sorry and applied 9 mounting squares to the base plate, pressing each one down well to ensure a good stick. I then removed the paper backings and carefully centred the plate inside the lunchbox’s lid, once again pressing it down firmly to ensure a good hold. Next, I laid the lunchbox onto a large piece of white felt and traced around it. Using a sharp pair of scissors, I cut just inside the line I’d drawn to make the felt piece a little bit smaller than the box. I then adhered the felt to the bottom of the lunch kit using a very thin layer of Aleene’s Tacky Glue. The hope is that the felt layer will cut down on some of the noise created by the LEGO bricks clanging against the metal. While I did seriously consider cutting out another strip of felt to line the sides of the box, I ended up just leaving it as is.
After a little bit of drying time, I dumped the entire contents of the bin of LEGO pieces into the lunch kit {sort of deflating to see how little actually comes in one of those big bins, isn’t it?!} I could have left the kit like this, but I didn’t like the fact that the building would have to take place on the sloped lid in order to keep all of the LEGO bricks in the main part of the lunch kit. I tried a few things {none of which worked well}, and finally settled on creating a little ‘fence’. I still had plenty of my base plate left, so I cut out a thin piece to fit across the width of the lunchbox, trimming the corners and sanding the edges just as before. Then I simply placed the new plate piece into the bottom part of the lunch kit when it was lying down and gently tilted it upwards so that the lid was flat against the table. Sure enough, the LEGO fence worked exactly as I hoped it would. The little ridge around the edge of the lunchbox kept it in place and held the pieces in place as we built below.
Of course, you could also just use the ‘fence’ piece for building on too if you prefer. Just for fun, we decided to create the birthday boy’s initials on the building plate so he’d have a little surprise when it opened it. We added a little tag to it like we always do, and it was ready to go. Miss G was very excited to give the birthday boy his gift and now I’m thinking I should probably make another one so we too can build with LEGO during our travels. Be sure to check out our portable activity kit and our other homemade gifts too! Are you following us on and yet? We’d love to have you!My kids love Lego so much that it borders on obsession. We have a lot of these plastic bricks and, until recently, no way to keep them easily accessible and ready for play. So, we decided to make a Lego table. Sure, you could buy one—but they’re both expensive and not necessarily the most attractive piece of furniture to place in your living room. You can, however, make a functional, good-looking Lego table by upcycling a piece of furniture you already have, or tracking one down at a thrift store or garage sale.
In fact, if you can let your imagination see the potential in something that’s been cast off, creating a Lego table can be surprisingly easy. If you know how to spray-paint and glue, you can DIY a Lego table! We also added casters to ours so we could roll it from room to room, but even that process was not difficult and required only a drill and hammer. Kids can help with most parts of this project, but when it’s time to paint, I recommend letting them hold the top of your hand while you apply the spray paint, rather than allowing them to spray-paint by themselves. Small fingers may not have the strength and control necessary for a quality job. Likewise, be cautious with the superglue, as it can cause irritation if it makes contact with your skin. - Spray urethane (optional) - Casters and hardware (optional) - Drill and bit (if you’re attaching casters) For this project, we started with an old thrifted table so we wouldn’t have to build the base from scratch.
Coffee tables, end tables, side tables, and play tables make great candidates for upcycling into a Lego table—especially when they’re already equipped with room for storing all those tiny pieces. Our table came with bins in it, as if it were born to be a Lego table. If your table doesn’t have drawers, consider how you might solve this storage dilemma, whether by fitting a bin on an open shelf under the table or attaching hooks and buckets to one side. Another key factor to keep in mind: surface area. Ideally, you’re repurposing a table with a square or rectangular top that will be mostly covered by Lego baseplates. Baseplates come in 10-inch and 15-inch squares, so as you’re selecting your table, consider how the baseplates will lay out on the surface. Carefully inspect your table for any areas that might need repair. Glue any loose or broken pieces, and sand down any rough spots. Vacuum and wipe the table thoroughly, then allow it to dry before you start your paint job.
Set up shop in a well-ventilated area, and lay out a drop cloth where you plan to work. If you’re using more than one color, prep your piece by properly masking the areas that you don’t intend to paint in the first round. For ours, we removed the legs and bins, and masked all but the top of the table so we could paint those elements a hammered brown. After those pieces dried, we coated the bottom of the table in red. (I purposely chose a color scheme that I wouldn’t hate seeing, whether in the playroom or the living room.) Hold the can of spray paint about 12 inches from the surface, and apply using a back-and-forth sweeping motion. Distribute the spray just a little wider than your piece: Start depressing the nozzle a couple of inches off the left edge of the piece, sweep across, and let go a couple of inches outside the right edge. For best results and fewer drips, apply several light coats (leaving an hour to dry between each) rather than a single thick one. To protect the newly painted finish and help it resist chipping during the playtime that’s sure to ensue, apply at least two coats of spray urethane, employing the same technique you used for the spray paint.
Allow the urethane to dry for at least 48 hours to completely cure. Once all the painting is done, reassemble any pieces you took apart. In this project, that meant screwing the legs back into place to prep them for casters. If you are using casters, flip your table onto its top and attach them to the legs. For wheels with a threaded stem, drill a hole into each leg, hammer a T-nut into each one, and screw the casters into place. If you’ve picked up a set of plate casters, simply use four screws to attach each metal plate to a leg. Finally, it’s time to attach the baseplates using superglue, which will bind them to almost any tabletop. Measure out and mark where the baseplates should go. Lightly dampen the surface of the table according to the manufacturer’s directions. Apply glue to the bottom of each baseplate, one at a time, and place it on the table. When all the baseplates are in position, either clamp them down or weight them with something heavy to help them bond while the glue cures.