How to Create Your Own LEGO® Based Event

(Post thumbnail from http://events.brickfestlive.com)

If you're a LEGO® fan, you're probably familiar with some of the people who have started businesses associated with their favorite brick based building materials.  A few weeks back I posted about Brik Book.  Where you can buy covers for your Mac Book laptops and build designs on them.  There are many others out there to include customized bricks and minifigures, renting sets, and then your standard sales of LEGO® items.  

Today I have another LEGO® based business to share.  The company is called Learn with Bricks LLC and its founder is Chad Collins.  I heard about this company from a podcast I listen to called Entrepreneur on Fire.  Chad was episode 783 and you can find the link to get more about him and his interview here.  

Chad started Brick Fest Live.  In short it is a weekend long event revolving around LEGO® geared towards younger fans.  They have a good intro video on You Tube that shows the highlights of the event.  The event features a derby race (kids build cars out of bricks and race them down a track), free build areas, a chance to build a piece of a LEGO® mosaic, a mini golf course made out of bricks, models on display, a chance to play LEGO® based video games, and more.  The site lists 8 upcoming events between August and December.  Most are in bigger cities, but they are fairly spread out with events in NY, CA, CO, FL, VA, and MD.  Looking through their social media it looks like they've had shows elsewhere to include PA and TX.

Until hearing this podcast, I had never heard of this event before.  I'm sure it's a lot of work to put on an event like this, but I'll bet the attendance is pretty good at these events.  The link for tickets on the website lists prices at between $22 to $27 depending on location.  It sounds like an interesting and fun event to attend.  If you've been to one of these events, let me know.  Either post in the comments or send an e-mail to let me know what you thought of it.  

Set Review - Fountain - #40221

The Fountain is was a free set with purchases of $75 or more from 1 to 15 June 2016.  It also goes great with the Fun in the Park - City People Pack #60134.  The set contains 105 pieces with 2 minifigs (one minifig is a statue).  If you want to get the set, you'll have to look on the secondary market.  As of late June 2016, the set is going for around $15.  Should you spend that money?  

Here's the set.  It's the standard box front with the graphically designed background.

The back the different elements of the set along with the alternative build of the statue with a female hair piece and a flag. 

The contents are simple to include 2 parts bags and an instruction book.

The build is pretty simple.  The female minifigure has a different torso and hair piece.  The basic head design with 2 dots for eyes and the smile could have been better, but we'll take it.  The statue is done well and it includes a second sword.  The wings match those of the Flying Warrior from Series 15 Collectible Minifigures.  The dog is a nice addition to the set.  The design of the fountain and the benches aren't anything too special, but I'm sure they would fit into a park MOC.  The bike doesn't include a reflective light or anything which I thought LEGO could have included.  The good part is that they give lots of extras in other sets so finding a piece is easier.  

If you're interested, here is the hair piece and flag that can be used on the statue.

Overall, it's a great free set.  Having planned to purchase items anyways, it's always great to get more LEGO sets at no additional charge.  Would I buy this one on the secondary market?  No thanks!  There isn't really anything that makes this set stand out as one worth investing in.  I'd recommend making up your own fountain MOC instead.  What are your thoughts?

Set Review - Fun in the Park - City People Pack - #60134

There was some media hype about this one well before it came out (but not before the LEGO Blogs caught it).  The main reason was the minifigure in a wheel chair.  I found a number of articles and friends sent me links to articles about this one.  There was a lot of anticipation about this set, but is it worth all the hype?

I'm going to switch things up this time and give the final recommendation first and then follow it with the review.  Should you buy this set?  If you are a LEGO CITY fan or a minifigure fan, YES!  Besides the wheel chair and the baby minifigure, there are some new hair styles, torsos, and pants.  It's a great addition to any City build that you're working on.  I highly recommend it.  Did I mention LEGO's first hot dog bun?   Let's get into the details...

This set was released in the US on 22 May 2016.  The cost is $39.99 for 157 pieces which works out to $0.255 per piece.  Is this high?  You betcha!  Compared to most sets definitely.  The key thing for this one, there are 15 minifigures.  That works out to $2.67 per minifigure.  Is that a good deal?  Yes!

So here's the box.  The front is similar to most showing all of the contents in a park with a Photoshopped scene.

The back shows the different minifigures in action and the different minifigure parts.

The contents are 3 bags with 3 instruction books.  

The first bag includes the much talked about wheel chair with minifigure.  The chair rolls quite well which surprised me.  It's also done to scale quite well in my opinion.  Not a lot special about the hot dog cart other than it includes a bun that a hot dog actually fits into.  The hot dog has been in the inventory for a while, but this is the first bun.  The bicycle isn't new, but the biker suit is new to the inventory. They've done a smaller version of the merry-go-round before.  The kid minifigure has some new parts to include the blond short hair.  Also there haven't been too many businesswomen types in minifigure land either.   The bus stop sign and tree are nice additions too.

Bag 2 is also full of some new figures as well.  The 2 children playing soccer are new.  I wouldn't mind a LEGO SPACE shirt like that!  There's an older couple and a park bench for them to sit on.  The woman's hair is new and I don't recall seeing sweaters like that before.  The woman painting is new too.  There's been a few painters in the inventory, but I think this is the first female one.

Bag 3 has the family having a picnic or maybe based on the amount of food they have (a hot dog and a biscuit) they are just having a snack.  It includes a mother (the picture shows her with shades, but the head is dual sided), a father figure, a girl figure, and then the baby in the stroller.  The stroller is very simple, but definitely works for the new baby minifigure.  The baby bottle is also a new and interesting design.  I'm curious to see if they will add more in the future or not.  The set also includes a dog and a female minifigure mowing the lawn.  The lawn mower has appeared in other sets.  I'm not sure if it's the same design or not, but it's pretty similar.  It also includes a small tree and a picnic table.

I haven't been able to put a town scene together in a while, but am hoping to do so soon.  These will definitely be a great addition.  The last city minifigure set that I'm aware of was 9348 - Community Minifigures.  While it was another great addition to the collection, the diversity of figures and parts was pretty basic.  It included fire, police, and some other basics, but not the creative figures in this set.  At LEGO Shop at Home it's currently listed as out of stock with an expected ship date of 3 July.  The good part is that it's not going away anytime soon as it's brand new so be patient and place your order when it's back.

How to Brick Up Your Mac

I was supposed to be doing more set reviews right now, but sadly everyone else ordered the same sets and they are back-ordered at LEGO.  Fun in the Park - City People Pack (#60134) and Fountain (#40221) are currently on their way after being ordered a week ago.  Vacation Getaways (#31052) is still back ordered.  Sad...

I did stumble across something that I haven't seen before on any of the other LEGO fan blogs and sites that I regularly look at.  The back story is that I listen to a number of podcasts and one of them is Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income blog and podcast.  The podcast released on 8 June 2016 was an interview with Brett Miller.   Brett is one of the founders of Brik Book "THE LEGO™ COMPATIBLE MACBOOK CASE."  The podcast interview with Brett by Pat Flynn goes through Brett's journey to bring his idea to reality.  So what was Brett's idea?  Here's a screen shot from the company's web site:

www.brikbook.com

The product is a LEGO compatible case that clips onto the back of MacBooks.  You can then use LEGO elements to build designs onto the case.  As you can see by the screen shot I took at the website, the cost is $49 for the case.  They come in grey, blue, and clear and you can pick the size of the MacBook as well.  As you can see, the case comes with enough bricks to build the Apple design as shown.  Similar to LEGO, you can also purchase pre-made designs with the corresponding bricks and instructions.  They can be found here.   They also sell 1x1 plates to help you make different designs on your own.

As a PC owner (go ahead and sneer and jeer at me now if you are a Mac fan) it looks like Brik Books does not sell PC compatible products yet.  The site does say they are working on it so we'll see what happens.

So what do you think?  Is this a cool idea?  Do you have one already and I'm just late to the game in hearing about this product?  Let me know when you think in the comments.  

If you'd like a 20% discount, listen to the podcast for how to get the deal.  

www.brikbook.com

Set Review - #21023 - Flatrion Building, New York

While I enjoy the LEGO Architecture series and I think some of the buildings they recreate are great, I don't often purchase the sets.  This one is a bit different.  The Flatiron Building is regularly $39.99 in the US.  With 471 pieces, that's $0.085 per piece.  This set has been discounted on Amazon.com in the US for a while, but I recently caught it at $25.60 or $0.054 per piece or roughly 36% off.  I'll take it!  This set was released on 2 May 2015 and can still be purchased at LEGO Shop at Home for full price.

To the build... First off, the box looks like most LEGO Architecture set boxes  Here are pictures of the front and back.

The contents include a detailed instruction book with information about the actual building as well as the LEGO instructions.  It also contains 5 bags of bricks and a brick separator.

The build starts with the standard base for the LEGO Architecture series with the name of the set on a tile.

Next up in the internal structure of the building.  It's nothing too special and you can tell that the detail comes from the SNOT (Studs Not On Top) build to come.

The details of the building are formed by putting the various pieces on mostly 4 x 8 plates.  Some translucent tiles are used as windows and then some grill pieces are used to capture the small windows on the actual building.  The pictures below are the one side and then the back of the building.  As you can see at the corners, the connections aren't exactly smooth.  There are definitely some gaps, but I can't complain based on the size and scale of the model.

The SNOT designs continue around the building to complete the details of the building.  Then some plates and bricks are placed together to capture the top of the building.  The top leaves a bit to be desired in my opinion, but when I look at pictures of the building I don't tend to focus on that area so maybe that's why they didn't put a lot of detail there.

It's not a hard build.  The SNOT techniques aren't too challenging, but it's just a lot of 1x1 tiles and plates to put on along with a bunch of 1x2s.  From a design standpoint, I think LEGO did a good job at capturing the essence of the building.  The corners are not smooth, but I think that's a challenge given the scale of this building and the curves that they are trying to replicate.  In terms of price, it's not too bad in terms of price per piece, but the pieces are rather small.  I don't think I would have purchased it if I didn't get it for 36% off.  The build wasn't super exciting and the pieces aren't really anything out of the ordinary.  Would I recommend this set to someone at the full retail price? Unless they are really into NY City or Architecture or this building, I would not.  If it interests you check Amazon.com or elsewhere for discounts.

Bricks for Bricks Update for June 2016

In the last month of our campaign, we're at $107.43 to donate to Pencils of Promise.  Thanks for those of you who have supported the campaign and bought some good LEGO items in the process.

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We've added a few sets to Brick Classifieds.  

70816: Benny's Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! - The LEGO Movie - $105 - Free Shipping
     (3 available)

70809: Lord Business' Evil Lair - The LEGO Movie - $69 and $12 shipping
     (2 available)

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Lots of discounts available in the US via Amazon.  As of the evening of 31 May, there are over 200 sets priced at 20% off or more.  Check out the Brickset Amazon List for details.

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Finally, the summer 2016 LEGO Catalog arrived at my home today.  While there are some amazing looking sets, I was initially shocked about how much of the catalog was filled with Licensed sets.  The first few pages were Star Wars sets.  Then there were Minecraft, Super Heroes, Ghost Busters, Speed Champions, Angry Birds, and Disney Princess.  Yikes!  That's a lot.  The breakdown of what's available (in the US only):

-Star Wars has a number of Rebels sets and a few new Force Awakens sets.  I'm not a huge fan of the Rebels sets.  There's an X-Wing fighter and a set from Jakku.  Both have BB-8 and a few other good minifigs though.  
-I'm not a Minecraft fan and I don't follow or sell any of the sets.  You tell me what you think.
-A few Super Heroes sets are listed.  Nothing new that I wasn't already aware of.  
-A page on the MINDSTORMS EV3 and a page on City Skylines from the Architecture line (nothing new)
-The current LEGO Ideas sets.  The Big Bang Theory (#21302) was recently discounted at Amazon for 34% off so I get the feeling it's not selling really well.
-Ghostbusters
-Modular Buildings and some of the Creator Experts buildings, but not including the new Big Ben set (and YouTube video), some of the fairground sets, and some of the vehicles.  
-Speed Champions
-The amazing looking Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS.  The You Tube Designer video is here.  It looks pretty awesome... although it's $299 so... yikes!  A few other Technic sets are listed as well.
-LEGO Simpsons & Classic are next
-Some new LEGO Creator Sets are next.  The buildings aren't as impressive as some of the older Creator houses that existed, but the Vacation Getaways brings a new style to some of the CITY Campers of the past.  The details look pretty good too.  
-NEXO Knights are next, followed by Ninjago, and Angry Birds
-As a Train fan (no new trains... come on LEGO!!!), I look at the city sets to see what might go good with future train displays.  There are some new aircraft.  Nothing drastically new, but they might be worth waiting for discounts on Amazon in a few months.  The Fun in the park - City People Pack  is a great edition to any LEGO City.  It includes a LEGO baby minifigure, the first LEGO figure in a wheel chair, and a bunch of other great minifigs to add to a CITY scene.
-The rest of the catalog hits on Disney Princess, Friends, Elves, and then the Minecraft Village on the back.

A few notes:
-Yes, I'm biased and I only spent time mentioning the themes I enjoy.  
-LEGO VIP members get free shipping on orders over $35 in June.
-Purchases over $75 get an exclusive Fountain (#40221) set which goes well with the Fun in the Park set.

Happy Building!

How to Move Your LEGO Business and Collection

Here's the part where I'm supposed to write a great blog post on the best ways to pack your LEGO collection and business up to move.  Sadly, I don't have that post in me, but perhaps I will soon.  As it's time for Bricks for Bricks to depart New Mexico.  While I wish I did this full time, I do not.  I have another job and they are moving me to Florida.  I'm excited for the move to Florida, but it does bring challenges for an AFOL.  I will lose Amazon's tax free sales to New Mexico and Albuquerque's Bricks and Minifigs store.  There is a LEGO brand store in Florida, but it will be around 7 hours away from me so that's not fun.

As for moving my collection and the store, that's another story.  These are just some of the boxes.  I have a few other staging areas in my home and it drives my NLS (Non-Lego Spouse) nuts to see the pile getting bigger.  If anyone has advice on how to do this, let me know.  My current plan is to have a good inventory of what is in each box and to take pictures of the more expensive and harder to replace items.  Beyond that, I'm just hoping for the best.

The site will remain up during the move, but I'm not sure how often I'll be able to post to the blog.  The store on this site and the Brick Classifieds store will close on 26 June 2016.  For minifig purchases from my store, I'm offering free shipping on orders over $30 of minifigs.  Just enter "MIFGSHIP" at your time of purchase.  For the Brick Classifieds store I went through and lowered some of the prices.  I'm also willing to come up with deals for purchasing more than one set.  Take a look and contact me via email with what you have in mind.  Thanks for helping me to have less stuff to move.  I hope to have the store back up and operating in Florida by the end of the summer.

In the meantime, if you have any suggestions on how to move my collection or tips on what not to do, please let me know in the comments or email me at store@bricksforbricks.com.

Set Review - Disney Minifigures - #71012

Update - 19 May - The first of a few Disney Minifigures have been added to the store.  I don't have the full range for sale yet, but more will be added soon.  You can find them all here.

They have been out since 1 May so I'm a little late to the review, but it took a while for my orders to arrive.  The price in the US has remained the same at $3.99 per minifigures, but there have been a few changes.  For starters the set now includes 18 versus the standard 16 minifigures per set.  While it's great to have more figures out there, it means you need to spend more of your money if you want to complete the whole set ($71.82 vs $63.84 before taxes).  Another change, if you buy your figures from LEGO Shop at Home, they now only let you buy up to 18 versus the 32 that you used to be able to buy.  What does that mean?  You can't just order collectible minifigures and get the free shipping over $75.  Now you have to buy another set to go with them to get free shipping.  

Another area which I'm sure has been debated elsewhere is the use of Licensed material versus original LEGO designed content.  It seems that LEGO is producing more and more licensed products.  Is that a bad thing?  I'm sure people are buying them so they keep making them, but having the imaginative sets is also good too.  Does LEGO have the right mix of both between themes like CITY and NEXO KNIGHTS and others versus STAR WARS and THE SIMPSONS and others?  I'm not sure I know the answer there either.

So onto the figures...

First off we have Stitch from "Lilo & Stitch."  I think they did a good job with this figure.  It's pretty accurate and using the shorter minifig legs helps.  Next is Peter Pan.  The face and printed torso and legs do a good job at capturing him, but I wonder if they should have used the shorter legs as well since Peter is a kid.  Finally Alice from Alice in Wonderland.  I like the plastic dress much better than some of the cloth dresses that have been used on past figures.  It limits the movement of the arms, but that's okay by me.

I'm not sure how they decided which figures to do, but it's good that they did Peter Pan and Captain Hook.  Hook is pretty tall, but I think they did a good job capturing his look.  The hat is a nice touch.  Maleficient is next.  I'll be honest and say that I had no idea who that was until I got this minifigure.  Based on a Google search, I think this one was done pretty accurately.  The final one in this row is Ursula from "The Little Mermaid."  I think they did a good job capturing her look and the tentacles were done well.

Syndrome is from Disney Pixar's "The Incredibles."  It's an interesting selection as they chose him and Mr. Incredible.  Why not Mrs. Incredible?  Minnie Mouse is next.  It looks like Minnie, but it's pretty big in terms of height.  I guess it's tough if you want to get the head to look right, you have to get the rest of the body to match the size.  Next up, the Genie from "Aladdin."  I don't have much to say about this one other than I think it matches well with the character from the movie.

I think it's interesting to see Toy Story minifigures again.  They just did a line of Toy Story sets with minifigures so why do more?  The Pizza Planet Alien looks the same although it has some slight color changes from the last minifigures released.  Next up is Buzz Lightyear and This one looks almost exactly the same except for one major change... instead of the actual shaped head, it's a minifigure head.  I'm not sure why they chose a minifigure head versus the shape.  There are some slight color variations too.  You can see the original figure here.  Last in this row is Ariel... "The Little Mermaid."  While I think it's a good figure, LEGO definitely modeled it off of Marsha Queen of the Mermaids from "the LEGO Movie.."  They even matched the shell and jewel.  

Donald and Daisy look okay and the heads were done well.  I do think they are a little tall though.  Aladdin matches well although I'm not sure why they give Aladdin and the Genie a lamp.  Where's Abu?

Last up is Mickey.  He looks good to me!

As mentioned there are 18 figures total.  I'm missing the Cheshire Cat and Mr. Incredible.  I will add them to this post once I get them.  

Should you run out and pick some of these up?  That's your call.  Are you a big Disney fan?  I think some of the newer characters are nice to see like Captain Hook, Stitch, Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, and Donald.  I'm not sure why they re-did Toy Story again... the character selection could have been a little better.  I also find it interesting that there are 2 Ariel figures with one in the Disney Princess type and the other more like a standard minifigure.   Either way, I'm sure we can expect more Disney minifigures to come.

LEGO Shipping Damage

I've ordered LEGO sets from Amazon before and they often show up trashed.  For whatever reason UPS tends to kick them around the warehouse and truck before they deliver.  Also I'm not sure what Amazon's packing plan is, but I got one small set once wrapped in a bag.  It looked like the workers at the Amazon warehouse had stepped on the bag a few times before shipping.  Luckily for me, the plan for that set was to open it and add the minifigs to the store so it wasn't a big issue.

LEGO Shop at Home tends to use FedEx for larger items and then smaller items arrive USPS or FedEx SmartPost (FedEx hauls the long distance and then delivers to the local USPS for final delivery).  The LEGO distribution point is in Southhaven, MS which is just across the state line from Tennessee.  More importantly it is right near Memphis, TN where FedEx's major hub is.  So if you select the faster shipping methods, LEGO is right there to give it to FedEx so they can fly it to you.  I would assume FedEx Ground is right there as well.

I'm not sure what the community's opinion is, but overall I've had good luck with LEGO Shop at Home in terms of damage.  Everything is usually well packed and arrives via FedEx or USPS with minimal damage.  It all changed yesterday when one of my May the 4th orders arrived.  

I ordered #75142 - Homing Spider Droid as it was on sale for $23.99 vs. the regular $29.99.  I'm not sure how well the picture captures it, but it looks like someone punched it before putting it into the box.  The set was well packed with protection and there was little space for it to get jostled around during shipping.  The other set in the box was not damaged either.  

LEGO has a returns program and I could easily do that, but I wonder if it's worth it.  I'm 99% sure that the contents in the set are not damaged.  In the end I will either build the set or break it apart and sell the minifigs so does it really matter that the box is damaged?  

I'm curious as to what your thoughts on damage to sets are?  Does it matter if your set shows up with a damaged box as long as the contents are okay?  Would it matter more if it was a larger, more expensive set?  What do you think?  Thanks for sharing!

LEGO Shop at Home May the Fourth Sale - Is/Was it Worth it?

If you live in the UK, Australia, or New Zealand, you got 10% off all LEGO Star Wars sets.  How awesome is that?  Granted if you do a currency conversion, more often than not the price is lower in the states, but still it would have been great to have 10% off all Star Wars sets in the USA too.  Sadly we did not.  If you looked at the sales, the majority of the items up for sale are already discounted on Amazon and have been for quite some time.  Many of the buildable figures have been discounted for a few months on Amazon in the US now.  The set discounts for LEGO Shop at Home in the US weren't much different from what Amazon has been offering either.  The Battle on Takodana (#75139) has been around 15% off on Amazon and Amazon increased it to 20% off to match LEGO's sale.  The Resistance Troop Transporter (#75140) has been 20% off at Amazon for a while too and LEGO matched this for their sale.  The 3 "deals" I saw through LEGO Shop at Home (in the US) were the Imperial Shuttle Tydirium (#75094) at 20% off (vs. 18% off on Amazon), the Homing Spider Droid (#75142) at 20% off, and the Sith Infiltrator (#75096) at 20% off.  Sadly, none of the Ultimate Collector Series Star Wars builds or larger Star Wars sets like the Millennium Falcon (#75105) were discounted.  

While it sounds like I'm complaining, the free shipping, double VIP points, First Order Stormtrooper minifig, and LEGO Force Awakens movie poster definitely help some.  You won't get any of that from Amazon.  

If you've been saving up for some Star Wars sets, you still have time as the sale ends on 4 May.  I bought a few items for the store to include sets and minifigs.  Let me know if you have purchased anything through the sale and your thoughts on LEGO's discounts.  You can post in the comments or email me at store@bricksforbricks.com.