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365 Things to Do with LEGO Bricks book

by Thita (admin) on May 25, 2017

The LEGO Ideas Book series by DK Publishing has been an excellent resource for LEGO fans with some really great quality custom creations. The first book in the series is the THE LEGO IDEAS BOOK, the second is the LEGO PLAY BOOK: IDEAS TO BRING YOUR BRICKS TO LIFE, the third is the LEGO AWESOME IDEAS book, and at the end of last year a fourth book was released, titled 365 THINGS TO DO WITH LEGO BRICKS. 🙂

We have talked about the previous three books before (see links at the end of this post), and today we will discuss the 365 THINGS TO DO WITH LEGO BRICKS. First of all, let’s start by saying that this book is a bit different from previous titles, as here the focus is not just on creative LEGO models, but also activities, games, challenges, and pranks that can be combined with LEGO building. It is basically a LEGO inspiration book and an activity book combined. Because of this, the book is organized differently, and it also comes with a build-in activity selector and timer gadget.

Here is the official description of the book: Featuring a built-in activity selector and timer, visual tips from LEGO fan builders, and more, this interactive book encourages creativity while teaching new building skills. 365 Things to Do with LEGO Bricks inspires you to look at your LEGO bricks in new and exciting ways. This book features imaginative play and building ideas, from LEGO projects that take just a few minutes and require a handful of bricks to inspirational build ideas and activities to keep you occupied for hours. Advice from LEGO fan builders will encourage you to get creative and have fun building your own LEGO pet, challenging your friends to make the tallest LEGO tower against the clock, creating a LEGO treasure hunt, and more. With a timer and random number generator for selecting activities, 365 Things to Do with LEGO Bricks is full of games and activities that will keep you busy every day of the year. 256 pages. Hardbound. Regular price: $24.99 – BUY HERE

The book is hard cover with bright and beautiful pictures at both the front and the back of the book, as well as the inside of the covers. The front cover of the book has a flap (also hard cover) with the activity selector and timer embedded. This small, battery-operated gadget (battery included) features an activity selector (press to get a random number between 1 and 365 to find a fun activity in the book), a countdown timer and a stopwatch (these are used for some of the games). While older LEGO fans probably won’t care for it, children will likely find this little electronic device fun.

As the title suggest, the book includes 365 LEGO ideas, activities, and games – one for each day of the year. The index at the front of the book is exceptionally well organized. You can pick an activity either by themes or activities: Themes include the following categories: Animals and Other Creatures, Tricks and Pranks, Creepy Things, For Sport Lovers, Multi-Player Games, One Player Games, Group Challenges, Solo Challenges, Stylish Storage, Festive Fun, Brighten Your Desk, Party Planning, Discover with LEGO Bricks, Give a Gift, How-Tos, Get Arty, Make a Display, Puzzles and Brainteasers, Put on a Show, Build in Micro-Scale, Be Organized, Fun Things to Do with Your Minifigures, Get Snap Happy, Make It All About You, and On the Move.

Activities are based on how much time do you have (under 15 minutes, under an hour, lots of time), what bricks do you have (only a few, lots of the same color, lots of the same type), if you would like to play a solo game or with friends, if you would prefer a timed challenge, what are you in the mood for, and who are you building for? You can use this index to quickly find what you would like to do.

The rest of the book are the activities, which includes everything from building creative LEGO models to playing games that you make with LEGO bricks. Each page is big, with large text that explains how to build something and/or play the game. There are no step-by-step instructions for any of the models, however the pictures are large and detailed enough to figure out how everything was built.

At the back of the book there are a couple of pages featuring all the LEGO fans who contributed to the book, including the two main authors, Rod Gillies and Alice Finch. Alice is well known for her very large minifigure-scale LEGO Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, and she is also a contributor to some of the other LEGO books by DK Publishing. She lives with her family in Seattle, Washington. Rod Gillies lives in Edinburgh in Scotland, and is best known in the LEGO world for his steampunk and microscale creations, and being a contributor to the BrothersBrick blog. He has built models for a number of the LEGO books by DK Publishing. When he’s not building, he writes, and is the author of a trilogy of adventure novels. In the real world, he works in innovation and marketing for one of the world’s biggest brewers.

The book is recommended for ages 6-9, and I would say that sounds just about right. While I heartily recommend the other books in the series to kids, teens and adults, this book is clearly more suitable for younger children, because the focus is on playing, rather than building intricate LEGO models. For the recommended age-range, this book is a treasure house of activities, games and LEGO builds. It can definitely engage one or more children as the work themselves through the 365 projects.

All in all, this is another excellent book in the series, and a great addition to your LEGO library. You can just get one of the books, two, or all four, and you will have plenty of ideas to work with. All four books are available on Amazon with discounted prices:

What do you think? Do you have any of the books in the series? Which one is your favorite 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:

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LEGO Palace Cinema custom movie posters

by Thita (admin) on May 24, 2017

in Useful Resources

Amongst all LEGO Creator Modular Buildings, the #10232 LEGO Creator Palace Cinema is the only one that includes stickers (in the other sets in the series the decorated pieces are all printed). LEGO most likely made the decision to use stickers because the decorations depict large movie posters and signs and would be expensive to print.

The sticker-sheet that comes with the LEGO Creator Palace Cinema includes ten stickers. Three full-color movie posters (two of each) that go on the front of the building, three black and white signs that go over the entrance, and a large black-and-white movie screen.

According to the stickers, the movie playing in the theatre is titled “Three Clicks & A Snap”, and tickets are 30 cents (I wish that would be true in real life!). The color stickers representing movie posters feature three fictional movies: “Forever Sorting”, “Mystery on the Monorail”, and “The Brick Separator” – all humorous references to LEGO fan culture.

The movie poster stickers attach to both sides of 4×6 stud clear LEGO windowpanes, so they can be viewed both from inside the lobby and from outside. They are colorful with very nice designs, and thus quite effective.

Because the windowpanes snap into regular 4×6 stud window-frames, they can be taken out and rearranged any way you like without having to take apart the building. And the fact that the windowpanes can be snapped in and out easily, also means that you could use other stickers to represent movie posters, as long as you have a few extra 4×6 windowpanes to stick them to.

If you have a good quality printer and some sticker-paper, you can make your own posters, and keep your Palace Cinema up to date with current movies. You can pretty much shrink down any real-life movie poster and print them out on either clear or white sticker-paper. However, the ones that fit with the theatre the best are the posters that are already LEGO-ized. Either LEGO themselves or LEGO fans make LEGO versions of movie posters, so you can just search at Google images for LEGO Star Wars movie poster, LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy Movie poster, LEGO Batman Movie poster, or whatever else you like.

If you don’t have a good quality printer, or just don’t want to fiddle with designing stickers, you can also purchase custom stickers specifically made for the LEGO Creator Palace Cinema from various eBay sellers. They even include updated movie-screens and signs for the front of the cinema, so you can swap out those as well. Here are some of the current results: LEGO PALACE CINEMA STICKERS ON EBAY

Having some extra windowpanes with movie poster stickers is a fun way to keep your LEGO Creator Palace Cinema fresh and up to date. People are always amazed when they see the Palace Cinema featuring LEGO-ized stickers of current movies! They can’t imagine how that’s possible!

What do you think? Do you have the LEGO Creator Palace Cinema? Are you keeping the original stickers, or do you swap them out occasionally? Do you make you make your own stickers, or purchase them from other LEGO fans? Feel free to share in the comment section below! 😉

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

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