Lego Invasion: Maintaining Organization and Your Sanity

Here from Pinterest and looking for an Elf on a Shelf Post? Have no fear – look here!

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Over the last couple of years, I’ve had to learn to tolerate embrace Legos.  Legos, Legos everywhere!  We have Lego nightlights, Lego pajamas, Lego spoons and forks.  We have been to Legoland in Florida and our Elf on a Shelf is even named “Lego!”

 If your little ones haven’t quite reached the appropriate age for Lego obsession or they are still in the Duplo phase (count your blessings, along with the pennies still left in your pocketbook), here is a preview of things to come when Lego-mania kicks in (and a few tips to deal with it).

First of all, the Lego guys have you cornered.  It’s just a matter of time.  They have Lego sets for all ages groups, skill levels, and interests.  Anytime a new movie comes out, you can bet there will be a Lego set related to it (think Pirates of the Caribbean and The Hobbit).  They now have Legos geared specifically to girls.  They have sets in all price ranges, from small sets perfect for a classmates’ birthday gift to larger, more expensive sets that Santa brings.  They have a Lego chess set I am eyeing now that will be a perfect  gift for the kids to give Dad so they can not only build it together, but can also play a game of chess when it’s built (Dad has recently taught Dudette how to play and she is very interested in playing).

Legos are a great activity for creativity and it’s how my husband spends lots of quality time with both kids.  They purposefully ask for big, difficult sets so they can build it with Dad.  They so look forward to a night where they have a special set to be working on with Dad, just the two of them.  Last year we even bought the Christmas Village set to build together as a family and worked on it a little each night in December.  We didn’t quite finish it, so we’ll break it out again this December and finish it up.[divider]

Now as much as I love to hear the words “Dad can we build my new Lego set tonight?” and I love seeing them working so hard on it while talking and laughing about all kinds of things, what I don’t love so much is Lego pieces everywhere.  I mean everywhere.  We’ve all stepped on that curse-inducing Lego piece while barefoot.   If you haven’t yet, just you wait.

For starters, I needed to reclaim the dining room table and the living room ottoman from being the usual Lego building spots.  When you are building 800 piece sets, it can span over a few days and usually contains quite a few bags of pieces.  And once you get started, it’s not easy to relocate.  So I bought this table for less than $20 at an antique furniture store and painted it.

I originally thought about gluing a Lego board to its top (like you see on Pinterest), but then decided I would rather the table be more versatile and used chalkboard paint instead.  It’s a great building table that can easily be moved throughout the house and is also used as a nice display area for completed sets (until the novelty wears off and it’s on to the next set!).  Speaking of moving on to the next set, at the height of Lego mania the kids wanted to keep intact every set they were building.  That’s just not possible, so we resorted to taking pictures of the sets for posterity’s sake.

The next greatest thing I’ve done for Lego management was purchasing these little plastic bins at the dollar store.

I used scrapbook letters to label them (so they will actually be used for that purpose, when I’m not around to micromanage, instead of my nice dinnerware bowls or tying up every piece of Gladware we have in the house ). These bins are perfect for housing Lego pieces and for easy transport of pieces during the building process.  Hands down a fantastic purchase![divider]

I also gave in and splurged on these cute Lego heads for organization.

I found them calling to me at the Container Store (they have other great Lego organization bins too) and for awhile they successfully housed a huge mini-fig collection we had going on.  However, when I went to take this picture they were both empty. Hmmm…no idea where they all are?![divider]

As you can see, we’ve got Lego pieces coming out of our ears.  And this is after two major cleanouts in the last year and a half!

 

What to do with all these pieces? The first go-round, we sold a gigantic garbage bag full of random pieces at a garage sale.  We quickly realized the value of these when the kids had a ton of interest in their wares and were able to sell them for a premium.  I’m assuming Craig’s List would get a similar response.

This summer I thought we would donate them to the cool Lego class Dude takes at Summer at the Academy , but his instructor surprisingly pointed me to the San Antonio public library!  The Cody Branch  has a monthly Lego club after school that is a great way for kids to play with other Lego enthusiasts and a great place to donate your Legos.

For more Lego fun, sign up online for the Lego magazine and VIP membership.  The kids love getting their monthly magazine to see what’s new and cool in Legos.

I would love to hear your Lego organization ideas and tips! Do you have any fun display ideas? Party or craft ideas? Let me hear them! [hr]

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