Biggest Give yet from Bricks for Bricks!

We were able to give $928 to Creations for Charity through our giving campaign that started in August and ended in November. Thanks to everyone who made purchases from our store so we could be so generous to a great cause!

According to the Creations for Charity site, this year they raised over $35,000! This is awesome! Thank you to everyone who donated whether it was through buying from the site, supporting the Beyond the Brick 24-Hour live stream, or making a purchase from Bricks for Bricks at our Bricklink.com store.

We will announce our next campaign soon. In the meantime, happy building!

Black Friday to Cyber Monday Sale

From Friday 26 November 2021 to Monday 29 November 2021, everything in the Bricks for Bricks Bricklink.com store is priced as follows:

5% off orders over $80

7% off orders over $110

Hopefully the Bricklink interface took my sale. If you don’t see the discount prices, let me know at store@bricksforbricks.com.

And as a reminder, 15% off the profits go to the 2021 Creations for Charity drive on 29 November. It’s looking like this will be our largest amount we have given yet so we’re excited.

Happy building!

Set Review - #30392-1: Hermione's Study Desk - Harry Potter

Yet another Harry Potter set to review and still more to come so get ready!

This one is a polybag. It’s’ #30392-1: Hermione’s Study Desk. It contains 31 pieces and was released 1 August 2021. I believe LEGO Brand Stores gave them away at one point as a gift with purchase. I got mine from Target for $4.99 which works out to a whopping $0.16 per piece.

Not super exciting, but here’s the packaging.

Here are your contents. You get a tiny instruction page folded up and then the parts. I like how the minifigure head is placed in the picture. It doesn’t look so good.

There isn’t much to this build, but it’s a 31 piece polybag so what were you expecting? There is a small desk with a quill and ink as well as a tile for paper. It also has a book with a printed tile inside. You get two 1x2 tiles printed as letters with wax marks on them. One is white and the other is tan. Then there is a small stand for the owl to perch on. Lastly, you get the Hermione minifigure. She has a wand and two facial expressions.

Oh, and don’t forget your collectible 2x2 tile.

Overall, a little pricy for what you are getting, but not a bad set. You get a few printed tiles, an owl figure, and a minifigure. I can’t complain. It’s a must for the Harry Potter LEGO fan completionists. Or just pick it up as a stocking stuffer/small Christmas gift.

Happy building!

Set Review: #40452-1: Hogwarts Gryffindor Dorms - Harry Potter

Continuing with the Harry Potter theme, LEGO recently had a gift with purchase promotion for #40452-1: Hogwarts Gryffindor Dorms. The promotion started in in the US on 25 October 2021. It was scheduled to end after about two weeks, but it appears to have lasted slightly longer. I’m not sure what day it stopped. This set was thrown in when you bought $100 or more of Harry Potter sets. Of course they are all priced so you can’t buy exactly $100 so you had to shell out $110 or more. Also everyone was buying and inventory dried up fast. The set contains 148 pieces, two minifigures, and four of the collectible tiles.

The box is similar to others in the 2021 Harry Potter theme. Full set build on the front, minifigures, and similar logos. The back shows a few features to includes the 8x8 plate that you can slide in/out to display your collectible tiles.

The set comes with two parts bags, an instruction booklet, an 8x8 plate, an 8x16 plate, and two 1x16 bricks.

For being a smaller set with not a lot of pieces, there are some decent builds in this set. The back wall uses some SNOT to achieve the rail for the 8x8 plate to slide into. I’m not sure why they chose black rails versus the tan color, but it works. Using the small fence pieces also makes for an interesting looking window. The beds are also decently designed and I like how they used jumper plates so you can angle the beds.

There are some decent pieces in the set too. I’m a fan of the chest, but mainly from its use back in the pirate days. The gold colored pieces are always fun and the rug tiles are good colors.

The plate on the back wall is an interesting way to display your purple 2x2 tiles. If you don’t like it there, you can always pull it out.

The build itself goes with the rest of the 2021 Harry Potter sets in that it can be connected with Technic pins to the other sets or stacked on top.

Overall, I can’t complain about this set. For a gift with purchase, it is a decent set.

The set has two minifigures. Ron comes with a wand and chocolate frog. He has two facial expressions. Harry just has a wand and also has a happy and scared/surprised face. While it would be great to have other characters, I can see why they chose these two based on the scenes in the dorm rooms.

What were your thoughts on this one? Worth the spend or not so much?

Happy building!

Set Review - #76395-1: Hogwarts: First Flying Lesson - Harry Potter

I should try and get through the 2021 Harry Potter sets before 2022… Here is #76395-1: Hogwarts” First Flying Lesson. It attempts to re-create the scene from the first book/movie where the students get their first flying lesson on brooms. This set was released in the US on 2 August 2021. It contains 264 pieces and retails for $29.99. This works out to $0.114 per piece which is a bit steep in my opinion.

The front of the box shows the full set. It also shows the minifigures included along with the Harry Potter logo and pictures of the movie characters. It also has the 20th anniversary LEGO Harry Potter logo on it. The back shows some of the play features and lets you know that you get to mystery tiles.

The box contains two numbered parts bags, an instruction booklet, and a sticker sheet with 5 stickers.

The first build creates the left and right sides of the modular building structure included with this set. Unlike the previous sets, this year the sets can be attached together with Technic pins. The two structures you build are fairly similar and don’t have a lot of special building techniques. On the outside are shields with logos from each house (stickers, not printed). Inside one is a trunk with some quidditch supplies. The other has a trophy case with some actual trophies inside. I like how they built this so there is a clear front and it looks like a case. There is a small detail that you may not catch which is that Harry’s Dad is listed on the one sticker that goes on the plaque inside the one case.

The second bag builds a connecting hallway with a door and an upper level/roof for the build. Not a whole lot to this part. The most in depth part here is connecting the clear rods so you can pretend the minifigs are flying. There is also a gray minifig statue with swords so you can have Neville get caught on the statue like in the movie.

With the build not being super exciting, you hope the minifigures included in the set make up for it. This set includes five. Except for the statue, each have two printed faces. The statue is all gray and comes with two swords plus and extra one in the parts bag (win!). Not much to it, but you could add it to #40516-2: Everyone is Awesome just to mix things up.

Draco Malfoy is the only minifigure not unique to the set. The same minifigure appeared in #75978-1: Diagon Alley only this one comes with a broom.

Professor Quirinus is the 20th Anniversary gold minifigure. I’m not sure why they selected him versus one of the more main characters, but okay. He did show up in the first book/movie so that might be why. The figure has the Professor Quirinus face on one side and then Voldemort face on the other side.

Madame Hooch is unique to this set as the instructor. She has two faces to include my favorite, the flying goggles.

Neville Longbottom is last in my picture. He comes with a straight face and then a scared face. He has a broom and his remembrall (had to look that one up).

Lastly, here are the 2 tiles I got. Not really a big fan of these nor do I intend to make sure I get them all.

Overall, this set is nothing really exciting. The minifigures are okay and the set itself isn’t that great. The pieces are alright, but nothing too special. Unless you are a huge Potter fan, I wouldn’t rush out to grab this one. What are your thoughts?

Happy building!

Set Review - #75252-1: Imperial Star Destroyer - UCS - Star Wars

Just in time for the next giant Star Wars UCS set to be announced, I’m releasing my set review of the previous one. #75252-1: Imperial Star Destroyer was released back on 1 October 2019 in the US. It retails for $699.99 and contains 4,784 pieces. This makes it $0.146 per piece this is quite high in my opinion. Usually, with such a large set containing so many pieces, they can get it lower, but part of it has to do with the number of large plates in this set. There’s a lot of plastic in there despite the smaller piece count as compared to #75192-1: Millennium Falcon.

I’m finally getting to the review on this one. I actually purchased it back in April 2021. Then I moved and it moved with me still in the box. I finally opened it in late September 2021 and finally got to finish building it during the beginning of November 2021. Most of the time I spent building it was bringing the instructions and a small table outside to watch my kiddos play with their neighbor friends. Lots of questions about what I was building and if they could help. “No thanks. I got it!”

Onto the review…

So it comes in a sturdy box made great to fit the next box. The box with the set box inside is similar to other large sets I have purchased in the past with the LEGO branding. The set box is well protected inside which is as it should be considering the price of this set. From the label, my set was made in Mexico in April 2021. Not bad considering I also purchased it in April.

Here’s the set box with some of the art work. It has some great artwork of the set with different backgrounds. You can see just about every side of the set and the minifigures. You also get a computer generated outline of the ship (on one of the box flaps) which shows the dimensions of the set (43 inches long, 17 inches tall, 26 inches wide). You also get them in metric for those of you not familiar with inches.

Inside the box are four parts boxes and a box with the instructions. Each box has some artwork of the set. I like how the instructions come in a box versus a bag. I didn’t like that the boxes weren’t numbered. You have to sort through the boxes to put the parts bags in order and then if you don’t have the space like me, you have to sort them back into boxes. There are 19 numbered parts bags and then a few bags with larger plates. There are also a few plates not in any bags. Sorry, I didn’t count the total number of bags. You’ll have to zoom in on my picture to try and count them all.

The instructions come in a large, heavy book bound with wire. Inside are some details on the set, designers, and LEGO Star Wars.

Only one sticker on this set. It’s the large label for the description plate. I don’t like these large stickers, but I can’t complain since it is the only one.

The build for this set starts off with a pretty sturdy Technic structure. If you’re not a Technic fan, then this part will not be enjoyable, but I’m always amazed how people can use Technic pieces to put things together and then how they can connect them to System parts.

You’ll also notice the stand below the structure, the description plate, and the two minifigures. Building the stand first definitely helps make the build go easier as you have something to hold it up as you go versus building it later.

As for the minifigures, there were a lot of complaints when this set came out about just having two and how they were just crew members and nothing special. I don’t buy giant sets like this to get minifigures. I do it because I want to assemble a large set. So no real complaints here.

The second set of bags continues the internal structure and you can see the form of the ship start to take place.

The third set of bags builds the side of the ship in the form of a long running plate with a lot of greebling on it. Each side is mostly the same, but just flipped upside down. It clips on pretty easily to the substructure.

The bags labeled four and five build the underside skin in the back on the left and right. Lots of stacking plates together. This is where the build can get somewhat uninteresting as you are just connecting lots of plates together. Then you duplicate it only in a mirror image on the other side. The good part is on the inside of the ship, there are some different colors to mix things up a big.

The sixth bag adds some of the various bays underneath the ship and then a… um… I’m not an expert so I’m not sure what my last picture is… The middle one contains a small Tie Fighter. It also has a hook up where you can connect the Tantive IV as was done in “A New Hope.”

The seventh set of bags starts to build the back of the ship where the engines are located. This part was a bit more exciting to build as it wasn’t just stacking plates on top of each other.

Side note… this build is so big that I couldn’t use my normal low-grade picture taking method of just using the box as a background on a flat surface. So I found a low-tech program to crop out some of the background. It’s not the greatest, but it gets rid of a lot of the clutter in my building area that distracts from the set itself.

The eighth set of bags finishes up the back with the engines and adds a small amount of color in. If I wanted to dump more money in, I could get LED lights to light them up which I think would look cool. For now, I’ll stick with it as is.

Bags nine and ten finish up the front of the ship on the bottom. You build both sides. It is more stacking plates next to each other.

Then when you are done with that, you can move onto bags 11 and 12 with the top front.

Bags 13 and 14 build the left and right sides of the back of the shop on the top. This part was a little more involved as there is some minor greebling and there are some of the gun ports. Each gun is on a swivel and you can angle the turrets on each one. This is a nice touch to a ship devoid of many play type features.

Bag 15 builds the sub structure of what will become the bridge. You get to build with some color other than gray which is nice and it is more than just stacking plates.

Bag 16 finishes up the bridge portion. I failed to take a picture of it alone, but you can see part of it in these pictures and then more in the final versions. I like the large balls on either side which I assume are some sort of radar or sensor. There is some good detailing in my opinion as compared to the ships you see in the movie.

Bags 17 and 18 build up the layer on the top of the ship and surrounding the bridge area. I’m sure someone can tell me what they are meant for, but this section was a change of pace. There were some plates to connect, but a lot of details, some use of SNOT techniques, and lots of greebling to add in detail. Each one just snaps/slides into place like much of the rest of the build for easy assembly/disassembly.

Bag 19 wraps everything up with two attachments that clip onto the previous build to wrap up the top of the ship. The attachments are with Technic pins so you can easily unclip to get to the substructure inside the ship. The nice part about this build is that you can move the set by holding onto the structure inside. It makes it easier to move as compared to the Falcon. I assembled it in one place and then moved it to take pictures and then moved it to a shelf for display. I was a little nervous it would break, but it held up okay.

So here’s the final build from a few angles. Sorry for my crappy graphics editing program to cut out some of the clutter in the background. Maybe I just need to stick to reviews of smaller sets to avoid this problem in the future.

Bag 19 also builds a small version of the Tantive IV so you can re-create the scene from “A New Hope.” The small model is pretty accurate considering the scale and you can attach it with either the clear pole and clip as shown or it also clips into the bay on the bottom of the Star Destroyer. This is a cool feature in my opinion.

Overall, I thought the build was okay. The use of the Technic core was great, but there’s only so much excitement you can get from connecting plates into bigger plates. I think the end set captures the ship quite accurately and I like the shear size of this monster. There were some complaints about the line up the center between the two sides of the ship. I can see why people would complain, but I understand it is LEGO and there is only so much you can do.

The price is pretty steep considering the number of pieces, but you do get a pretty large beast of a set. If I can remember back that far, I think I purchased it during a double VIP point period. Hopefully you can find a deal or some way to cut back on the price to swallow the cost. Has anyone been able to get it at a discount?

Lastly, here’s where I’m displaying it for now. My NLS got some shelves and let me put sets on the tops. I’ve got #75308-1: R2-D2 and then #75192-1: Millennium Falcon. The two big builds look good together I think. Not sure if I will add an AT-AT in there or not. We’ll have to see.

Happy building!

Walking on LEGO Bricks and Giving Sets Away

How many people can say they have three Guinness World Book of Records for walking on LEGO Bricks? Well Russell Cassevah can and that’s not all he’s done. Mr. Cassevah has set up a charity called Little Bricks Charity. He uses his popularity of TikTok to raise funds to buy LEGO sets and give them to kids in hospitals. In 2021 he did a nationwide tour to deliver all of the sets.

I found a few local news articles on him here and here.

I didn’t see anything with the final amount he raised, but just looking at the videos, it looks like he’s done well. Awesome job Russell! If you are interested in supporting his cause, you can donate here. They will take LEGO sets or cash donations.

Happy building!

Set Review - #71031 - Marvel Studios - Collectible Minifigres

There was a lot of excitement in the LEGO fan media for this release, but as a non-Marvel fan, I’m not super excited. I just happen to be sucked into collecting each Collectible Minifigure series. Thanks a lot LEGO! #71031: Marvel Studios was released on 1 September 2021 in the US and should be done in at the end of December. LEGO Shop @ Home shows out of stock, but you can still find them at other retailers like Walmart and Target. The price is $4.99 per bag and there are 12 minifigures total if you get a chance to do the feel test. My local Walmart never seemed to have them so I purchased them online. It stinks not being able to do the feel test and having to buy more, but thankfully, I can put extras in my store. Also, Walmart had them listed for $4.97 so you save two pennies on each.

My review won’t be super detailed as I don’t really know the characters, but I will assess them from a LEGO fan standpoint. Some overall comments, they all come with a jumper plate and the new-ish poseable piece (if that’s what you call it). They all mostly have pretty detailed parts with printed legs, torsos, and most have dual printed faces.

Overall, don’t get these unless you are a Marvel Studios fan or you are addicted to collecting minifigures. Otherwise, I still think $4.99 is too much for what you get and you probably won’t appreciate all of the details from the various movies/comics.

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The Scarlet Witch has a lot of details and comes with a cape. There are also two of the flickable fireball things. I’ve never tried to send them for distance, but the instructions have a warning not to hit people in the face with them.

The Vision comes with a supped up laptop with a clear-blue screen. He also has a white cape which I don’t think we have seen often.

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Monica Rambeau has a cool hairpiece. I’m not sure if we’ve seen it before or not, but I like it. There is also a small unmanned aerial system type build to go along with her.

Winter Soldier comes with a shield and knife/sword. The set actually has two of these blades together so you get an extra. He doesn’t have enough facial hair to warrant a beard piece, but just enough for printing of some scruff on his face.

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Captain America has an interesting glider get up along with a 2x2 tile triangle (probably not the official name). This one was one of the easier ones to feel in the package before taking it out.

Loki has a coffee mug with a logo printed on it and the same logo is on his belt (again, not a Marvel fan, sorry). The little green guy he comes with is fun and he sits on a stud which works out well.

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Sylvie has a mini alligator. which I think is cool. The minifigure comes with two manchettes. I posed her with both, but the instructions only show one..

Zombie Hunter Spidey might be the first I’ve seen that comes with two heads. I like that you can have the Spidey face or the non-masked face. As a bonus, you get a “string of web”

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Zombie Captain America was the one I got the most of when opening up these packs. I’m not sure why as I wouldn’t think it would be the most popular, but apparently LEGO thought so.

Captain Carter was the hardest to find for me. LEGO limited orders to 16 (total) and Walmart let you place multiple orders, but only of 12 at a time. With my multiple orders, this minifigure only showed up once.

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T’Challa Star-Lord comes with a hairpiece, mask, and two weapons. I like the purple shirt/jacket.

Gamora with Blade of Thanos. The green face is cool and the black hair with purple streak is interesting. The blade is pretty giant.

Creations for Charity has Begun for 2021

Creations for Charity - 2021

15 October to 30 November 2021

I’m slightly late to the game, but the 2021 Creations for Charity drive started back on 15 October and runs through 30 November. You can read more about the drive this year and what Creations for Charity is by going to their website here.

15% of the profit from sales at the Bricks for Bricks (on BrickLink.com) store will get donated to Creations for Charity on 29 November. So if you don’t see anything you like at Creations for Charity’s site, but you do at the Bricks for Bricks store, you can still support.

Thanks for your willingness to give! Happy building!

Set Review - #40421-1: Belle Bottom, Kevin and Bob - Brickheadz - Minions

I recently reviewed #40420-1: Stuart, Gru, and Otto. This one is the second of two Minions related Brickheadz for 2021. It’s #40421-1: Belle Bottom, Kevin, and Bob. This set was released on 26 April 2021 in the US for $19.99. It contains 309 pieces which works out to $0.065 per piece. This is slightly better than the other set which only has 244 pieces, but is sold for the same amount. Like #40420-1, this set contains a standard size Brickheadz figure and two Minions. I have not seen the movie this is from so I do not know who Belle Bottom is or why the Minions are in orange, but at some point I’m sure my kids will push to see this movie.

The box shows the three figures on the front and which number they are in the Brickheadz series. The larger person figure is in the center, but out of numerical order in the series. Why they didn’t just change the numbering, I don’t know. The back shows that the Brickheadz go on a stand and then advertises for #40420-1 in case you weren’t aware of it yet.

The set contains three parts bags. Two are numbered one and then a number two bag. It also has two instruction booklets to go along with each numbered set of bags.

The first set of bags builds Belle Bottom. Her hairdo is done quite well and I like how the designers used levels of plates and studs to achieve the effect. They also used the LEGO gold ring as earrings which is the first time I’ve seen this done. I like the parts usage. Other than that, it’s your standard Brickheadz build of a character that is only in one of the Minions movies.

Next up in bag two is Kevin. He’s a very simple build with not much detail. He is slightly taller than most Minions, but not as tall as Belle Bottom. Kevin is holding a nunchuck for a reason that I am sure is apparent in the movie. His front has a printed orange tile and then along his arms are printed stripes. That’s about it for him.

Last up is Bob. He’s Kevin, only shorter, no hair, and no nunchucks.

So there you go… If you are a Brickheadz fan or Minions fan, scoop up this set. If not, it’s not really worth it in my opinion. The price per piece is slightly better than #40421-1, but we haven’t seen it go on sale. Maybe it will for Black Friday?

Happy Building!