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Make your own LEGO holiday greeting card!

by Thita (admin) on December 13, 2014

in Community News

LEGO started a new tradition last year with an online application that allows you to make your own customized holiday greeting cards by creating a minifigure version of your family. Once you are done, you can share your greeting card on various social networks, send it by email to family and friends, or download it and print it out to make a real greeting card. 🙂

I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t like to see a minifig version of themselves, so this is a fun way to share your hobby, and also give something unique and interesting to others. By the way, this greeting card doesn’t have to be only for family, nor does it have to be only for Christmas. As the card is fully customizable, you can also make a minifig version of your friends, co-workers, or class-mates and set them in different scenes.

If you would like to make your own LEGO holiday greeting card, first go to LEGO.com/MinifigureFamily. Once you are there, you will go through three simple steps to set up your greeting card.

In step one you will set the scene. Here you can select a message from the dropdown menu on the left. You can choose anything from “Merry Christmas” to “Happy New Year”, a simple “Thinking of You”, and many more. If you choose to, you can also opt out of displaying any message at all. In this step you can also select the background for your card by clicking on the arrow at the right of the card. There are many designs to choose from including holiday settings, winter scenes, and even the beach!

Once you have set the scene and added your message, you will go to step two to add members of your family. You can choose an adult (regular size minifig) a child (short legs minifig), a baby in a stroller, and various pets. You will be walked through the steps to select faces, skin color, shirts and pants to fully customize each person. Note that this year you can select a wheelchair for any member of the family, which I thought was a nice touch. For pets you can choose dogs, cats, snakes, chickens, and other LEGO animals. In this step you can also add the name of each member of the family (including pets), which will be displayed on your greeting card, or you could just leave the name fields blank.

In step three you have a chance to take a final review of your greeting card. If you are not happy with something, you can go back to any of the previous steps to make changes and corrections. When you feel that everything is right, you can either download the finalized greeting card to your computer to print it out or send it by email, or you can also share it on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

See? That was easy! And if you would like to make more LEGO holiday greeting cards you can start again and make a completely different one! The app allows you to make as many cards as you like. So go ahead and visit LEGO.com/MinifigureFamily to create your own greeting card. If you do print out the cards you can also use them as a fun way to decorate Christmas presents, and of course you can also mail them in the traditional way.

So what do you think? How do you like these LEGO Christmas greeting cards? Did you make your own yet? Who are you planning to send them to? Feel free to share in the comment section below! Happy holidays! 😉

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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Brick Breakdown: Minecraft Ender Dragon

by Thita (admin) on December 12, 2014

in Other LEGO Sets & Themes

(Written by William)

In this Brick Breakdown series I review official LEGO sets, from the perspective of looking at interesting building techniques we can all learn from. Today we will be looking at the #21117 LEGO Minecraft The Ender Dragon. You can also check out the previously discussed LEGO techniques found in official LEGO sets at the end of this article. 🙂

Having played the addictive game of Minecraft, I was excited when the LEGO Minecraft Microworld sets were released. However the original LEGO Minecraft sets are only miniature versions of the Minecraft landscape, and I always felt it was a shame not to have LEGO sets in regular minifigure scale. Thankfully, LEGO realized the potential and we now have a full-sized line of our hero Steve and the hazards he must face.

We have talked about the new line of minifig-size LEGO Minecraft sets in previous previews and reviews (see: Minifig-Scale LEGO Minecraft Sets Review, and New LEGO Minecraft Sets Now Available!), but I also wanted to do a Brick Breakdown on them. From the six new sets the one that caught my attention the most was the #21117 LEGO Minecraft The Ender Dragon, so this is what I decided to assemble first. Boy, were there a lot of basic bricks in this set! But it makes perfect sense when you consider what the game looks like. The real question though was, “Are there any cool techniques to learn from the set?” Well, let’s find out…

➡ LEGO GRAVITY MECHANISM

It’s a well-known fact that gravity works, but sometimes we try to build a LEGO creation that defies it to make something impressive. However most of the time gravity actually helps to create something cool. For example, in some of my own builds I’ve used gravity to make sure something hangs correctly and can swing freely. In the LEGO Minecraft The Ender Dragon set this idea is taken one step further by adding in a seesaw device right in the middle of the dragon’s body.

#21117 LEGO Minecraft Ender Dragon Details

It’s obvious that if you hang a large wing on one side of the seesaw and nothing on the other, the wing will be heavier. Now place this empty side in the middle of a closed area and build a small box that can push it down. The end result is a slick push-button mechanism that gives the wings a flapping action (see video below). It is kind of hard to reconcile how cool this mechanism works with how simple it is to make. With just a little creativity, this concept can be applied to a wide range of LEGO creations. However, you have to remember how gravity works; turn the dragon upside down and the whole process is ruined.

➡ CONNECTIONLESS LEGO DESIGN

The button in the above mentioned gravity mechanism is amazing, so I wasn’t expecting to see another connectionless design in the same set. Nevertheless, the crystals at the top of each pillar are not fastened to anything. The idea is that the crystal will glow when the dragon is near, however light-up bricks can get pricey. So LEGO gives you only one pillar that can light up, but this makes the other pillars rather dull. However if you don’t connect any of them, then it becomes a simple task to swap them around.

The key to this design is the ability to create a shaft system. Essentially instead of using a stud and tube system to securely connect things, you are enlarging the entire process and treating the elements like a peg and hole system. This is of course not the only way to have a connectionless design; just look at the button on the dragon’s back we talked about before. In that design it is about filling up the space and adding something like the modified plate with hook to prevent the free-floating element from falling out. Whereas here we have a locked version of the connectionless design, which works great for elements that may not have the luxury of always being upright – like a sliding door/rail or something that hangs.

➡ APPLYING WHAT YOU LEARN

If you do plan to experiment with a gravity mechanism, it is important to know where to make certain elements of the mechanism to stop. Generally the goal is to control the movement to create a specific outcome. If you fail to limit some of the movement, it may cause problems in the design later. A good example of this is the wings on the dragon – they do not have full range of movement. As for a connectionless design, it often depends on what you want that design to accomplish. If you are looking for something that swaps out easy and your creation is always upright, then creating a shaft system may work best. However if you are planning something really involved, you will likely need more planning; understand how much space is used and how to use this knowledge to lock your elements in a certain configuration.

While the #21117 LEGO Minecraft Ender Dragon looks a little plain compared to the other new LEGO Minecraft sets, you can see that it in fact has some really cool and quite advanced features. If you are interested in any of the LEGO Minecraft sets they are available at the Online LEGO Shop.

So what do you think? How do you like the new LEGO Minecraft sets? Have you had a chance to build any of them? Did you learn from the interesting building techniques used in the LEGO Minecraft Ended Dragon set? Feel free to share your own experiences and tips, or ask questions in the comment section below! 😉

And you might also like to check out the other reviews in this series:

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Make your own LEGO holiday greeting card!

Brick Breakdown: Minecraft Ender Dragon

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