If you live near a LEGO store, or you visit a LEGO store regularly, you probably have quite a few Pick-A-Brick cups from shopping for bulk LEGO pieces at the LEGO Pick-A-Brick Wall. PAB cups are very sturdy, slightly frosted clear plastic cups in two sizes, with a lid that securely snaps on. The lid of the cup has a stud with the LEGO logo, and the bottom of the cup has a hole, so the cups are stackable. Because of the high quality, PAB cups are not just convenient for shopping at the LEGO store, but they can also be reused as storage containers for loose LEGO elements. The only question is how to store the cups themselves? 🙂
I recently ran across a simple, but classy solution by LEGO fan Spencer Hubert, who built shelves for his PAB cups that are both functional and look very nice. The shelves are 5-inch wide with 3 1/4-inch holes, which allows the cups to sit securely, and also makes them easily removable. If you are interested to make your own Pick-A-Brick cup shelves, Spencer will show you all the details about how they were built in the video below.
Spencer’s Pick-A-Brick cup shelving system holds 64 cups (eight shelves, each holding eight cups), but if your wall-space and needs are different, you can easily adjust the design to hold more or less cups. Making these shelves does require some woodworking skills, however if you give yourself some time to do them slowly and carefully, you should be able to copy Spencer’s design by following the steps in the video.
You can also make the shelves simpler, without beveled and rounded edges, which will save some time. And you may use premade shelving support to mount the shelves to the wall instead of making your own. All in all, this is a great DIY project, if you would like to make your own Pick-A-Brick cup shelves for sorting and storing LEGO.
If you do have some PAB cups, but would like to get more, you can get empty cups at either eBay or BrickLink. Here are the listings on BrickLink: large PAB cups, small PAB cups, PAB cup lids. And here are the listings on eBay: EMPTY PAB CUPS ON EBAY
What do you think? Do you use PAB cups for sorting and storing your loose LEGO pieces? How do you like these PAB cup shelves? Are you planning to make your own? Or what other ways did you find useful for storing your PAB cups? Feel free to share in the comment section below! 😉
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Oh, I like this! We do have lots of cups because we live near a lego store. This would work well with kids, separating out the colors and shapes. Nice weekend project!
Glad you like it! If you give it a try, let us know how it goes! 🙂
Very cool for small parts. I love the rainbow effect!
But do your readers also know Lego stores will give you a small rebate if you bring your own cups back in to reuse? I think it’s just a quarter but it’s something and, more importantly, it’s conserving all that plastic for bricks.
I believe the current rebate if you bring your cup in is 50 cents. LEGO pieces will have to be stored somewhere, so this is an inexpensive and convenient option. And you can always take a couple of cups back to the store for refill. 🙂
Rainey and Admin are both right. It’s 25 cents for the small cups and 50 cents for the large cups.
Oh, thanks for the clarification! I always get the large cup, so I guess that stuck in my mind. 😀
Yeah, I figured that, as well. It’s better for the environment and (slightly) for the economy. So I only own one large cup and two small cups myself. (One small cup was a gift from a friend, and the other I bought from a thrift store filled with Lego trans parts.)
I store a lot of my Lego in dishwashed ice cream boxes, myself… Except for minifigs kept separately, it’s pretty much a mish-mosh… I guess I need to go through it and sort it sometime…
Ice cream and LEGO? You must live in heaven! 😀
Well, for the boxes to be useful as storage containers, means the ice cream is usually already eaten…
Yeah, that’s a great sacrifice to be made! 😀
In Sweden, it seems the rebate is 5 SEK (≈ 0.60$) for a small cup and 8 SEK (≈ 1.00$) for a big cup.
So, although the cups themselves might be more expensive in Scandinavia, it seems the rebate is notably larger.
That’s interesting. I guess they are trying to make the cup prices less painful. 😀
This is a very impressive project. Looks like the young man got some help from his dad, but he is very skilled himself.
Yeah, it appears from the video that this was a nice father-son project. 🙂