LEGO On-The-Go

Recently my friend Jean posted a DIY LEGO travel kit to my Facebook page. She knows how much Jack loves his LEGO and how much we travel, so she was correct in thinking this would be right up my alley!

Basically, the blogger had taken a metal lunchbox and filled it with LEGO, and then glued a base plate into one side of the lid so the child could play inside the lunch box. I loved the idea but saw some room for improvement. Even with the little barrier they put in one side to keep the LEGO from spilling out, I felt like pieces would go all over (and be super loud rattling around a metal lunchbox). I also thought playing inside the lid would be a little limiting. But I really liked the idea of ordering a thin green base plate and cutting it to size (so easy!) and I knew Jack would enjoy having at least a small number of LEGO for traveling.

So, for our trip to Disney World a couple weeks ago, I made this little kit for Jack:

You could in theory let your child decorate it; this was a surprise for Jack.

Room to spare!

Here's what I used:

1 plastic divided container (I had ordered a larger one that was WAY too big from Amazon, so I used that one to organize the jewelry that I'd previously kept in two of these smaller containers)
1 LEGO base plate
Stick-on Velcro
LEGO pieces (Jack had been asking me for the Cloud Cuckoo Palace set for a while, and it ended up being a great size for this project - none of the pieces were too big and the whole set fit on top of the base plate when built.)

I liked the idea of Jack being able to move his finished product around, so I used Velcro under the base plate rather than glue like the other blogger did. The base plate was super thin and easy to cut, and I did follow the advice to sand the edges down a little so the corners weren't sharp. The whole kit fit perfectly in Jack's backpack, and when our flight was delayed four freaking hours, I was SO HAPPY I'd brought it. I don't think this would have been ideal for ON the airplane - it's still too easy to drop pieces. But for a kid who likes to have his LEGO when he gets to his destination, and for those hours spent waiting around, this kit was a life-saver.

Jack keeping busy in the world's worst terminal; Will approves.