≡ Menu

LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground

by on August 21, 2017
in LEGO Mini-Doll Sets

A very interesting set is going to be released next month, called the #41325 LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground. According to the LEGO Friends website, this set is the result of a LEGO Friends competition that took place earlier this year. The winner had their submission turned into an official LEGO set, which even includes a mini-doll designed and named after the winner! Details below. 🙂

The LEGO Friends Designer Contest was held between the end of December last year and the end of February this year, with the winner announced in mid-March. There was a huge number of entries to the contest, which you can see at the contest page, and there is an excellent interview with one of the judges that you can read here. After narrowing down the entries, the judges made their final decision based on ten attributes, covering everything from the appeal of the model, originality and aesthetics of the design, playability, and more. (Below is a picture of the ten finalists.)

The winner of the contest was 8-year-old Sienna from the UK, with her LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground submission (see below). Sienna had a chance to travel to Billund, Denmark with her family to work with LEGO designers to finalize her model to become an official LEGO set, and even had a mini-doll designed and named after her! At the LEGO Friends contest page there are some fun facts about Sienna and her model, which I have copied below.

➡ Sienna has been turned into a mini-doll to be available in the winning product. How cool is that?

➡ Name: Sienna

➡ Age: 8

➡ Lives in: London, UK with mom, dad and little brother, Austen

➡ Favorites:

  • Sport: gymnastics, rock climbing
  • Hobbies: LEGO bricks, art, music, piano
  • After-school activity: ballet, Brownies (the Girl Guides – not the cakes!)
  • Food: chocolate
  • Color: turquoise
  • LEGO Friend: Mia

➡ Five Fun Facts:

  1. Sienna found ideas for the Heartlake City Playground from the playground near her house and other fun playgrounds and parks she has been to.
  2. Heartlake City Playground has Sienna’s absolute favorite playground activity: a climbing wall! And another favorite: monkey bars!
  3. Sienna’s brother brought a teddy bear everywhere when the family came to the LEGO headquarters in Billund. It was his school class teddy bear and it ended up as a model sticker!
  4. Sienna’s mini-doll character has a brown pet dog named Pippa. It’s named after her grandmother’s new pet that she got for her birthday!
  5. Sienna is always busy with school, after-school clubs, and spending time with her friends and family. To find time to build the playground, she used every minute of spare time she could find. She even shut herself in her bedroom for a full Saturday to build the playground and only came out for lunch and dinner!

What a great opportunity for young LEGO fans to participate in such a great contest! And the winner can always proudly remember that she won a LEGO contest at only eight years old, that she directly worked with LEGO designers to make her model into an official LEGO set, and there is a LEGO mini-doll designed and named after her! Go, girl! Keep being awesome! 😀

Here is the official description of the set: LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground is the perfect place to have a blast with your besties. Centered around a tree house, it includes a climbing wall with colored holds and a twister slide. Push the functioning swings to make them go back and forth, spin the merry-go-round and make the 2 mini-doll figures go up and down on the seesaw. Help them take a seat on the benches as they watch Pippa the dog stretch her legs, then use the walkie-talkies to invite more friends to come out and play! Includes two mini-dolls: Mia and Sienna. 326 pieces. Price: $39.99 – AVAILABLE IN SEPTEMBER

I absolutely love this set! The LEGO Friends colors work great for this model, and it’s really nice to see how closely the final set resembles Sienna’s original submission. Lovely in every way! It is interesting to note that while there are some playground sets in the LEGO Friends line already, they are all small sets for pets (#41018 LEGO Friends Cat’s Playground, #41043 LEGO Friends Penguin’s Playground, and #41303 LEGO Friends Puppy’s Playground). There is also the #41011 LEGO Friends Stephanie’s Soccer Practice, which is sort of a playground, and the LEGO Friends Jungle sets and LEGO Friends Adventure Camp sets have some slides, tree houses, and rock climbing walls, however this is the first time LEGO is releasing a traditional playground in the LEGO Friends line, thanks to Sienna!

As I mentioned above, the #41325 LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground is going to be available in September. In the meantime, you can also check out the newly released LEGO Friends Ski Resort sets, which are also very awesome. See the full selection at the LEGO Friends section of the Online LEGO Shop.

What do you think? How do you like the LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground? And what do you think of the contest, the submissions, and the finalists? Did you participate in the contest? Or do you know someone who did? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉

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

{ 11 comments }

LEGO Minecraft 2017 summer sets review

by on August 19, 2017
in Other LEGO Sets & Themes

There are a couple of new LEGO Minecraft sets we haven’t talked about yet; the #21135 LEGO Minecraft The Crafting Box 2.0, and the #21136 LEGO Minecraft The Ocean Monument. While all the LEGO Minecraft sets offer alternate instructions and suggestions for customization, I particularly like the #21116 LEGO Minecraft Crafting Box that was released back in 2014. The set is all about customization and boosting creativity, so I was very excited to see another LEGO Minecraft Crafting Box getting released. Below, we will look at both new sets in more detail. 🙂

➡ #21135 LEGO MINECRAFT THE CRAFTING BOX 2.0: This set is all about free building! You get five bags, with a separate instruction booklet for each bag, and each instruction booklet includes three different models that you can build with the pieces. I also like how each of the bags has a distinct color-scheme. The first bag includes tan, nougat, brown and azure pieces, while the second bag is mostly tan, brown, and green (plus a still very rare Minecraft horse, and in a new color!). The third bag comes with shades of gray, the fourth bag is mostly brown with some nougat and green, and the fifth bag is a mix of earth colors, plus blue. It’s also great to see that the new Crafting Box has 200 pieces more than the previous one! If you like LEGO sets with lots of alternate instructions, prefer to free-build Minecraft style, or just want a big box of basic LEGO pieces in earth-tone colors, this kit is an excellent option.

Here is the official description of the set: Create your own customized Minecraft landscapes in endless combinations with The Crafting Box 2.0. Build, rebuild, combine and enjoy hands-on Minecraft adventures featuring your favorite characters and objects. This easy-to-reconfigure, modular LEGO Minecraft set, designed for young fans of the highly successful sandbox video game, includes 5 brick bags, each containing one set of bricks with 3 alternative model configurations. Also includes a Steve minifigure plus horse, cow, slime and Creeper figures. Set your imagination free—rebuild the set for more LEGO Minecraft creations! 717 pieces. Price: $59.99 – BUY HERE

➡ #21136 LEGO MINECRAFT THE OCEAN MONUMENT: I have to say that this is probably one of the weakest sets I have seen in the LEGO Minecraft collection as far as design. It looks boring, dull, and way to small for what it supposed to represent. It also doesn’t have a whole lot of play-features, and the ones it does, are not very interesting. However, the set has one redeeming quality; it’s a goldmine for sand-green and dark-green pieces! To give you an idea, in sand-green you get 26 1×1 bricks, 55 1×2 bricks, 26 1×4 bricks, 61 1×6 bricks and 54 2×2 bricks, and 32 2×2 jumper-plates (plus some other sand-green pieces in smaller quantities). In dark-green you get 16 1×1 bricks, 15 1×2 bricks, 51 1×2 plates, 17 2×2 tiles, 30 2×3 plates, 20 1×4 plates, 12 2×4 plates, 21 2×2 bricks, 16 1×6 plates, 2 large 6×6 panels, 38 2×8 plates, and 15 6×6 plates (plus some other dark-green pieces in smaller quantities). That’s a lot of two of the most desirable green-shades in one set! And there are other colors included as well; mostly grays, blues and black. You may or may not like this set for how it looks, but is definitely a respectable source of rare colors in large quantities.

Here is the official description of the set: Head for the depths of the Minecraft sea to discover the Ocean Monument. Battle the elder guardian with spring-loaded shooter, activate the dry sponge function to enter the monument and locate the lever to open the treasure chamber full of golden blocks. Enjoy hands-on Minecraft adventures featuring your favorite characters and objects with this easy-to-reconfigure LEGO Minecraft set—designed for young fans of the highly successful sandbox video game. Includes Steve and Alex minifigures, plus squid, guardian and elder guardian figures. Measures over 5” (15cm) high, 9” (24cm) wide and 9” (24cm) deep. 1,122 pieces. Price: $119.99 – BUY HERE

From the two sets, I would definitely recommend the #21135 LEGO Minecraft The Crafting Box 2.0. It has everything going for it; lots of creativity, nice colors, endless building opportunities, and a great price. Unless you really like the look of the set, I would only recommend the #21136 LEGO Minecraft The Ocean Monument if you need a lot of sand-green and dark-green pieces. In the video-player above, JANGBRiCKS will show you both sets in more detail to help you decide if you would like to get them. Also, don’t forget about the massive #21137 LEGO Minecraft The Mountain Cave, which we talked about recently (see links at the end of this post). You can find the new sets under the LEGO Minecraft section of the Online LEGO Shop.

What do you think? How do you like these two new LEGO Minecraft sets? Do you have either of them already? Or are you planning to get them? Which is your favorite LEGO Minecraft set so far? Feel free to share your thoughts and own review in the comment section below! 😉

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

{ 6 comments }
Next Posts Previous Posts

Get in touch by email or social, or subscribe below!

SALES & OFFERS

LEGO SHOPS

When you make a purchase through our links, we may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support!

LEGO EXCLUSIVES

POPULAR SETS

Free counters!

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site. Copyright of theBrickBlogger.com. All Rights Reserved. Read our Terms of Service & Privacy Policy & Affiliate Disclosure.