Set Review - #10314-1: Dried Flowers Centerpiece - Icons - Botanicals

The Botanicals line has continued strong with set #10314-1: Dried Flower Centerpiece which was released 1 February 2023. This one was priced at $49.99, but with all the sales can be found for around $38 right now. It’s going to be retiring soon so look for it to fall even lower as retailers look to get rid of inventory. The set contains 812 pieces which works out to $0.062 per piece. This isn’t bad although most of the pieces are rather small. If you really like the set, you can get more than one to make a larger display as shown on the back of the box. I just purchased one to build so onto the review…

The set contains seven parts bags and two instruction booklets. It’s possible to split the set up between two people so you could have one person build bags one through three and another builds bags four through seven.

Bag one assembles the base of the first half of the arrangement. Nothing overly extraordinary to report here.

The second bag adds in some of the plants around the edges of the base. The use of pieces is great with pumpkin pieces, crowns, whips, and Technic gears along with some of the usual plant pieces. Even if you don’t like botanical sets, you get some great colored foliage pieces for MOCs or forest scenes so it’s a good parts pack.

The third bag finishes up this half of the arrangement. The standout is the flower with the oar pieces connected to orange wrenches around a steering wheel type piece. The Ninjago hat as the center is great too. You also add in some other flowers to include some made with orange epaulets.

Bag four starts the other half of the arrangement. It looks very similar to bag one.

Bag five is similar to bag two. The build isn’t exactly the same, but there is some repetition between the two. It’s a smaller build so not too painful here.

Bag six finishes up most of this arrangement with the highlight being the rose. It’s impressive how the designers figured out how to overlap the wheel well pieces to create a flower like shape.

The last bag connects the two halves and also gives you the option to build a separate connecter piece. Buying two sets would allow you to connect the four halves and make a fun arrangement. You could put a real candle in the center or some other fun brick designed item to have a cool table decoration.

Here are a few shots of the final build. It’s not very large, but my NLS found a way to display it in our house for the fall and it looks great. If you’re a fan of the Botanicals line, I recommend picking this one up before it is gone if you haven’t already. If you are looking for a good parts pack with some foliage pieces, this is one to look for some sales on Black Friday to grab it at a discount for parts.

Happy building!

Set Review - #10280-1: Flower Bouquet - Botanical Collection - 18+

Set #10280-1: Flower Bouquet is the first in the Botanical Collection from the 18+ line. It’s been a hit since it was released in the US on 2 January 2021 and was out of stock for quite a while. If you aren’t familiar with this set, you should start with the designer video here. The set contains 756 pieces and retails in the US for $49.99. That works out to $0.066 per piece which isn’t too bad. Recently Amazon.com and Walmart had the set on sale for 20% off so I reached in and bought one on sale.

Onto the review… The box is a reasonable size, but isn’t super huge like a Modular Building. It is black and has sand green branding for 18+. The front shows the full set while the back breaks out the set a bit so you can see the details. It also shows the height of the flowers and what it looks like in a vase. Note that the set does not come with a buildable vase so you either need to provide your own or build one.

The set contains six parts bags and an instruction booklet which is sealed in a bag. Five of the bags are numbered with one through three. One is made up of some of the stems and larger leaves.

The instruction booklet does have some information on the set designers as well as details throughout about parts used and other details. Most of these details weren’t useful to me as a regular builder, but I could see them being fun for new builders.

The first two bags labeled number one build two daisies and three roses. The daisies are the smallest of the flowers in the build, but they still get a point across that they are daisies. Besides the stem, they are probably the easiest to duplicate and get pieces for.

The roses are some of my favorites in this set. There are three and I like the color. I’m glad they didn’t just go with a standard red rose. The roses can also be posed so that they are either more or less open as the petals are on hinges. One of the roses is straight up while two are built with an angled stem at the top. Each rose has a leaf which looks like it was a wing from a dinosaur on one of the Jurassic Park sets.

The second set of bags builds three more flowers and some greenery. First up is a California Poppy. The orange color on this one really pops out which is cool. Other than the stem, the flower parts are fairly common so you could probably build this one in other colors as it is a pretty simple build.

Next up are two green plants. I don’t know my way around a florist other than I have frequented numerous florists to purchase the real things for my NLS. And no, those purchases weren’t meant to appease any of my LEGO purchases. This one is pretty simple to put together and it uses two green bush like pieces that I haven’t seen since… maybe a Pirates set back in the day? It’s been a while, but cool to see them back in use. The green plants help to mix up the bouquet so it’s not just flowers.

Lastly, you build two snap dragon flowers. These are cool in real life and I enjoyed the brick built versions. One is pointed straight up and the other has an angle at the top of the stem. Both of these have two leaves which also appear to be from some dinosaur part (maybe). The color choice on the snap dragons is great and I like how the top is pink and then it gets darker at the bottom.

Bag three finishes up the set with lavender, three pieces of greenery, and an aster flower. The lavender is built first. I’ve had a lavender plant in the past at a house I once lived at and I’m not sure this flower matches the plant I had. Maybe it’s a different kind? The one we had didn’t have the brown on the flowers. It was mostly green with the small purple flowers. Not a big deal… I like the use of the crown and a golden leaf by each flower. I’m sure they’ll be used in future MOCs coming soon by various builders.

Next up are three more types of greenery. These are just giant leaves which have a pivot point so you can bend them as desired. The very tip is a sand green surf board which is a pretty cool piece. Not much to these when you build them, but it helps to mix up the bouquet.

Last is the aster flower. The color on this one is great, but the build was a bit of a challenge. It was hard to tell which way you attached the clips and how you lined them all up. In the end, I don’t think it matters too much and our aster flower looks great.

Here’s the final set. No, it does not come with a vase. My NLS went through multiple vases before picking the one we did. Then we had to adjust them so they were just so. Thankfully, you can adjust the height of each plant by adding or removing Technic pieces. This allows you to position the flowers so they meet your own intent which is a cool feature.

My NLS thought this set was great. Not only did she help build it, but it now has a prominent place in our house unlike the rest of the sets I build that are either tucked away (or displayed too high up for her to reach). I’ll take it as a win! She’s excited that she doesn’t have to water them and won’t kill them. Just need to get some canned air to dust them off every now and then.

Overall, I really liked this one. It was good to see LEGO break away from some of the traditional builds and do something like flowers. Haven’t decided whether we’ll get into any of the other plants or not. The price on this one is decent and the 20% off sale definitely helped entice me to purchase. Well done LEGO!

Happy building!