"He travels like a lightning streak and he strikes from town to town. Then he gets you when you're weak and tares your playhouse down."

Day 53:

As an enthusiast of all things LEGO I love a good challenge and being able to only build in one colour has always been something that I have enjoyed doing. With todays #creativelockdownproject word being 'Monochrome' it gave me the chance to get in to a mini LEGO project. For some reason the first thing that came to mind was the devil minifigure so I chose to stick with red and create the build around that little guy. To see more of satan's thrown room check out our Instagram page HERE.

"Don't limit your challenges, Challenge your limits"

I love those occasional emails that we get where we are asked to show our creative side. If you are a regular GFTP reader then you will be fully aware that we are big crafters and love to show a bit of creative flair when we can. We have only ever been asked once before to come up with something creative using those amazing bricks that we love though. When one of our readers came up with an idea for an interesting build. That was until I opened a recent email titled 'The Debenhams Big LEGO Challenge'. These are the sort of emails I love to open and when I explained the rules of the challenge to the boys, like me, they couldn't wait to get stuck in.

The Rules:

After being sent a LEGO kit from Debenhams awesome LEGO Range, along with a Mechanical timer we had 15 minutes to come up with 'the most adventurous creation' using the bricks inside. I know what you LEGO enthusiasts are thinking "I could build something cool in 15 minutes" and I thought exactly the same thing but when you get into it, 15 minutes really isn't that long at all.

So... We had to be strategic.

We couldn't start as soon as we received the kit so the boys and I spent a little time assessing the kit on the front of the box trying to decide what we were going to build. It didn't take long for Seth to come up with an amazing idea, so we sat and worked out what parts were going to go where.

On the day we got the all clear to start, we didn't dive right in and start building, as I said 15 minutes really isn't that long. So we opened the bags and separated the parts clearly so we knew exactly where the parts we needed were. I'm used to building under pressure because Opeie is always coming up with ideas for things he wants building and he is really impatient, but I've always had a lot longer that 15 minutes to play with. This was going to be tough.

After discussing what each of us was going to be doing, Seth wound up the timer and we started building, completely focused on what we were trying to create.

I know it probably sounds like we had our plan well mapped out but when it came to the execution it started falling apart pretty quick and those minutes kept ticking by at what seemed like a crazy speed. We lost Opeie in the first two minutes when he decided he was going to go rogue and build the Minifigures and freestyle his own creation which he named the 'Ultra Jestro Super Suit'.

As for me and Seth, we stuck to our plans and attempted to create a mask that you could wear like a pair of glasses that resembled Jestro, the Nexo knights antagonist. While Seth worked on the glasses section using those awesome translucent wheels as eyes, I worked on the nose and mouth section making the most of all those teeth included in the kit. Had we have had a little longer we could have used a lot more of the parts included in the kit but we stuck to the timer and here is our creation...

Attaching both Seth's part and mine together was really tricky and to finish it off Seth did an awesome job of making curved arms that sat behind the ears. I don't think it came out as either of us had planned but it was a really fun and exciting build and as always the perfect father/son bonding time together.

Seth said it would be really cool if we were set a challenge to create something using every piece of a lego kit, which I thought was really interesting So the offer is there if anyone wants to take us up on that haha. LEGO kits are amazing but it's sometimes easy to forget that they are a creative building toy too. I think Debenhams has done a great job of reminding us that.

You can find their full LEGO range HERE.

Now get building!

"Friendship is a sheltering tree."

A few days back me and Opeie were sitting on the sofa ploughing through a pile of books and we started to read a book about plants that were found during the jurassic time period that were eaten by Herbivores. We soon came to the Araucaria, a tree that still grows today and can be found in South America, Which got us talking about our awesome friends Sam and Jamie who are backpacking in South America at the moment. Opeie asked me if I thought they could get a picture of them standing next to one while they were there and as we had been chatting to them on and off while away we set them a challenge. 7 hours later we received "Challenge accepted....and done... We can see one from our window", which they sent us a picture of.

But by Opeie's challenge rules we needed to see them standing next to one. We had told them about why we wanted a picture and how the challenge had come about and being the amazing friends that they are they fully embraced our request and we received a few more pictures which Opeie loved.

 I cant even begin to tell you how awesome these guys are, I feel really lucky to have them as friends. Being able to chat to them and exchange photos and videos while they are away is going to be a great bit of home education for Opeie (and Seth), learning about different cultures from books we're going looking for in the library and being able to see things from them as well as setting them more challenges. Seth has sent the next challenge, to come up with a food that we don't have in this country, should be interesting.

Seth's challenge got me thinking about a game we could play while they away which I'm going to mention to them when we talk next.

 The South American fun didn't end there though and we were soon sent another fun dinosaur related picture, Amazing! I know which direction I would be going after seeing this sign!!!

I know you will be reading this soon so thank you guys, the pictures have really been entertaining us over the last few months, enjoy your trip x

Building a Robot for the TTPlusPlus challenge

Seth wanted to get involved with The Toadstool's Plus Plus challenge this week which is 'Robots' so when he got home from school today we sat down and the three of us built a robot. Seth's specifications being that it had to have red lips like mommy and Spiders legs so we got to it. I like the way the sun shines through the eyes like lazers.

PlusPlus can be purchased over at thetoadstool.co.uk