Clever Lego birthday invitations

I LOVE doing creative birthday parties (see my 2-yr-old's Space/Robot party post), so this Lego birthday invitation idea really caught my eye.  In the spirit of recycling, if I did this I'd probably pick up a bag of Legos at my local thrift store...while they still often charge quite a bit for Legos at thrift stores, it would still be cheaper, greener, AND much more memorable than any paper invite!  I could totally see a kid taking this apart (after Mom has written it on the calendar and rsvp'd of course), tossing the pieces into his or her Lego stash, and remembering the fun they had that day the next time they come across one of these bricks!

Not sure if these would be the type you'd mail to someone, unless you glue the pieces together and ship in a padded envelope, but I'd definitely hand these out to family and friends in person.  Plus, it would be fun to see their reaction! This will surely go into my file of ideas to be pulled out next time I'm looking for a birthday party idea...maybe for the big oh-three! (via Inhabitots)

Garage Sale Finds of the Week

It's that time of the week again...time to do my part to recycle used toys into "new" toys for my son! I found a lot of great items, both baby and household, but here are a couple more good toy finds of the day:

Fisher Price Little People Alphabet Learning Zoo...regular price $43.00...Garage sale price: $6.00! This is a cool little toy where you set the animal figure on it's corresponding letter, and depending on what you have it set on, it'll either play the animal's noise or say the letter.


Still collecting a stash of legos...this week it's the regular Legos (non-Duplo), and this nice pile...roughly $15.00 worth for $3.00!

Garage Sale Find of the Week

Yesterday was Thursday, which in the summer is synonymous with "garage sale day" in the Junk Mail Gems studio. There were not a lot of sales around, being right up against a holiday weekend, but my little man and I headed out to hit just a few sales in our neighborhood.

In my opinion, purchasing used stuff is right up there with other green practices like purchasing cool gifts hand made out of recycled materials. Of course, there are certain things one may not want to buy used...underwear, toothbrushes, wedding dresses, you get the picture. There are also things that lose their value and functionality over time, and it's our job as creative people to find ways to repurpose these things. But Lego's are not one of them...they last forever and are a timeless toy!



Today's best find for the little guy was this big bag 'o Duplo Legos. I got all of these for $6. I think you'd be lucky to get like one Duplo animal or car for $6 new. They were trying to sell these for $12 along with an old, wood end table that had a lego base screwed to it. While I admired their nice DIY Lego table work, I didn't want another large piece of furniture, so they sold me just the legos for $6. I later found out it costs $15 just for one Duplo base...should've snapped that up and just removed the base!

The thing about Legos is they last forever, and old and new blocks still connect together beautifully. I have collected a pretty good stash of pieces already this summer for when Sammy gets bigger...both in Duplos and regular legos.

These Legos will outlive any video game system by decades, and will foster the kind of creativity I want to pass on to my son! In the meantime, I think I'll go build a house while he's still napping...