"Be a LEGO Designer" for ages 6-12

   The LEGO Friends Design team has launched a building contest to stir up some creativity in the fandom during the year of the 5th Birthday of LEGO Friends.  The chosen Heartlake City "place" creation will be released as an actual 2017 LEGO set and one of the mini-dolls will be of the winning builder!

   Kids aged 6-12 can design and build a creation with their bricks (or create using LDD) and submit it, along with their parent's consent.  There are prizes (such as 2017 sets) for semi-finalists, in addition to other "local" prizes tailored to and offered in various countries for this worldwide contest.
   A trip to Denmark for a week to spend time with the LEGO Friends Design team to perfect the winning creation is the culmination for the builder and family.  See the terms & condition for all details. (Please click through and then select your country to read the page for location-specific details, as there are variations in prizes and ways to enter.)

What will the new Heartlake City place be?

   The winning design will be released as a set sometime in August or September 2017, as an exclusive to Toys'R'Us stores.

It's exciting to think that LEGO Friends begins their 5th year in 2017!

Friends Bricks is proud to have one of our admins, Kristel, as a Judge.

2016 LEGO Friends Advent Calendar Reveal

LEGO Friends Advent Calendar
#41131
Piece Count: 218
Year: 2016

This set was provided by the AFOL Relations & Programs team (AR&P) of The LEGO Group for the purpose of sharing set details with fans.
Opinions provided here solely reflect those of our reviewer. 
Photographs are property of Friends Bricks and are not directed by TLG in any fashion.


It's December 1st, so the time is finally here to open the advent calendar!

Let's flip the box to see the back!

The box has the playmat and backdrop for the fun holiday scenes you create.


LEGO Friends started in 2012, so this is the 5th LEGO Friends Advent Calendar. 

I thought it might be fun to show you what we got in the advent calendars in the past. Do you remember these?


Now let's open this year's advent calendar!

Heartlake Holly Days Building Challenge

 

Heartlake Holly Days Building Challenge

Challenge yourself to build your favorite Holiday activity ~ maybe it's decorating your house, wrapping gifts, or cooking tasty treats ~ imagine you are doing it in Heartlake City!
- Use only authentic LEGO pieces
- Mini-dolls encouraged, yet optional
- No digital builds or photoshop backgrounds
- Post images of your creation on Flickr
- Add your photographs from now until January 25th, 2017
- Create what you plan to do this season, or build what you did using sets you get as gifts over the Holidays
 Be festive and share your annual traditions through Friends bricks!
~~~

2017 LEGO Elves

The first of the 2017 LEGO Elves set images have been found ... 

and it looks like evil is continuing to challenge our friendly Elves!

Take a look at them if you dare!

2017 LEGO Friends sets

Olivia's Creator Lab

Stephanie's House

Andrea's Musical Duet

Emma's Photo Studio

Heartlake Gift delivery

Heartlake Pizzeria

Heartlake Sports Center

Heartlake Summer Pool

Puppy Championship

Puppy Parade

Puppy Playground

Puppy Salon

Puppy Tricks and Treats

Stephanie's Friendship Cakes

Mia's Beach Scooter

Hedgehog Storage 40171

-----

January 2017 release
~~~~~ See full set descriptions and additional images on Friends Bricks 
and check out the *special* Friendship designated sets! ~~~~~
~~~

LEGO Friends 2017

LEGO Friends will celebrate their 5th Birthday coming in January 2017 See all new sets on Friends Bricks here's an early list of some of the sets to be released then >> click "Read more" if you don't mind a bit of a spoiler :-)

LEGO Friends Advent Calendar 2016

Winter is coming!

Although it may still be hot in many parts of the world, we now get to look forward to counting down until the holidays and cozy winter activities with Friends.  This year it's Emma and Naomi enjoying a cuppa cocoa near a small bonfire.

LEGO Friends Advent Calendar (41131) 2016: The box front shows indoor activities for this year, including Emma getting creative with making holiday ornaments, while Naomi wraps gifts.

Back of the box shows how we open the flap to reveal more of the inside details, allowing for a build/play mat too.
   The daily "surprise" builds mostly feature indoor fun, with a few classic outdoor winter activities.  It looks to be a nice balance of crafts, music, gifts, food, pets, and typical holiday fun -- such as mailing gifts!
   Spoiler alert >> If you don't want to see the daily small builds, then don't click the "Read more" link below that leads to the rest of this post ... if you can resist :-)

Design nuance

Design nuance is the capture of the slightest details in color or form to connect the visuals of an object to the mind's cognitive awareness of a specific category.  Let's take the watermelon, for example.

We can see Mini-doll clothing, especially tops, as a blank canvas for the Design team to blend colors, shapes, activities, seasons, themes, and correlate to a set's aesthetic appeal.  Watermelon is a favorite hot weather fruit for sure.  Although it first appeared this January in the Heartlake Supermarket, the slices came with the Amusement Park sets a few months later.  Fairground food often offers watermelon for a quenching snack.
Having Mia & Olivia's tops be a graphic representation (motif) of a watermelon not only ties the look to the sets' activities (fun in the sun), it crosses the realm of play into real-life.  Lots of kids, especially girls, wear shirts with some graphic variation of the watermelon's curve, seeds, and colors.
The designers used the darker green rind color, layered with the paler green inner-rind, then an exploding array of watermelons seeds.  Considering most are "spit out" during consumption, it's fitting!  The lime-green color of the torso section "eludes" to watermelon, without having to be red or pink.  That would be too obvious.
Although many fans gush over new pieces offered by the Friends theme -- of which there are many lovely colors and elemental uses for 3D expression -- some of these more subtle cues go un-hyped.

You can see the various bricks, pieces, elements, and design styles in the Amusement Park sets.  In case these are just now appearing in your local stores, our detailed reviews (linked from the page this graphic above ^ opens to) can give you insight into which aspects will help make your choice for collecting and building.  Whether it's a building technique, a hue array, a specific brick, or for the "action" functions of a set, browsing through a review can always give more information than just a product listing.  This wave of sets certainly does have surprising moving parts.
The Heartlake Riding Club set review is also linked, under the Heartlake City sets.  It also contains the watermelon slice, as well as the lattice-top cherry pie quarter-tiles.  The traditional sets stay close to Friends love of animals -- notably, the horse!
We'll be horsing around more later on ...

Review: 10252 Volkswagen Beetle

SURF’s UP DUDE!

Load up the cooler and get your best board ready!  It’s time to drive down to the beach and catch some waves!

This new Lego Creator set represents the good times, when surfing was cool, the beach party lifestyle was hip, and rolling around in your bug was all the freedom you needed.



This is not a FRIENDS SET, but just look at all those Dark Azure bricks!!!!  Its so pretty...  so we just had to review it!


This set was provided by the AFOL Relations & Programs team (AR&P) of The LEGO Group for the purpose of sharing set details with fans.
Opinions provided here solely reflect those of our reviewer.
Photographs are property of Friends Bricks and are not directed by TLG in any fashion.




Front of the Box

The box art on the front of this new Creator set shows the Volkswagen Beetle cruising down a sandy road towards the ocean.  The car has a roof rack sporting a cooler and surf board.  There is also top view of the car showing the roof rack detail and the models' real dimensions.



Back of the Box

The back of the box continues the theme from the front, showing the Volkswagen Beetle parked at the beach with the blanket, cooler, and surf board ready for use.  The inset photos show many details highlighting important play features and the high level of detail provided throughout.



Long Side of Box

I very much appreciate that the Creator series Lego sets all include a parts list right on the box! Seeing what parts are in the box is useful information that I wish Lego would include on the boxes of all Lego Sets.

Review: 41134 Heartlake Performance School

Heartlake Performance School is where future star performers take lessons in singing, dancing and acting, and of course, Andrea is a dedicated student there! 
Are you interested in their ballet class or voice lesson? Then why don’t you take a tour of the new school! 

This set was provided by the AFOL Relations & Programs team (AR&P) of The LEGO Group for the purpose of sharing set details with fans.
Opinions provided here solely reflect those of our reviewer. 
Photographs are property of Friends Bricks and are not directed by TLG in any fashion.


Box Front

The school building looks enormous! The familiar purple background on the box art is not fully shown because the upper part of the building is partially blocking it! 


Box Back


Box Top

Review: 41130 Amusement Park Roller Coaster

Ladies and gentlemen, children big and small, please join me for an afternoon of fun in the new spacey blue roller coaster and the park's other attractions!



This set was provided by the AFOL Relations & Programs team (AR&P) of The LEGO Group for the purpose of sharing set details with fans.
Opinions provided here solely reflect those of our reviewer.
Photographs are property of Friends Bricks and are not directed by TLG in any fashion.



Wow! Not that I didn't know it already before, but this is a big set. I believe it is the main attraction at the amusement park this summer. I will do my best in showing you all it has to offer, but as you can see from the box, there is a lot going on!!



Let's open up the box and find no less than eight numbered bags plus two other bags! The instructions are also in a bag and there are two swirly yellow bars as well. Somehow I have a feeling there will be a lot of technic pins! Notice how bags numbered 7 and 8 are the old fashioned ones. Well, they are not that old, but I guess TLG must still have some unused leftovers in their factory stock.



For once, and surprisingly for such a set, there is only one booklet, a nice sturdy heavy one. And as good as new since it was protected by the plastic bag along with a single sheet of stickers.

Review: 41133 Amusement Park Bumper Cars

It's time for some summer thrills! With this Lego set Olivia and Ben can buy tickets for the park, challenge each other in the bumper cars, eat some cotton candy, and then try to keep it all in while spinning around on the swing ride!



This set was provided by the AFOL Relations & Programs team (AR&P) of The LEGO Group for the purpose of sharing set details with fans.
Opinions provided here solely reflect those of our reviewer.
Photographs are property of Friends Bricks and are not directed by TLG in any fashion.


Front of the Box

The box art of this set has all the usual Friends Amusement Park elements including beveled sides, bright purplish colors, and sparkly lights in the ribbon banner. The background art faintly shows the Space Ride, which would be great addition to this set.

The box also shows that this set comes with Olivia and Ben, and that they both like cotton candy!


Back of the Box

The back has illustrations showing how to use the swing ride and suggests some ways kids can play with the bumper cars and ticket booth. I find it quite interesting that this set is called Bumper Cars, but the main element described on the back is the swing ride.  Olivia and her BFF’s are also shown at the bottom left wearing their Amusement Park themed outfits. Olivia appears to have borrowed Mia’s tank top for this trip to the amusement park!

It’s time to see what’s inside the box!

Review: 41126 Heartlake Riding Club

The Heartlake Riding Club is a new place where horse lovers gather! 
Meet the two new horses, Ninja and Spice! 
Not into horses? You should still stop by and try their famous homemade cherry pie! 

This set was provided by the AFOL Relations & Programs team (AR&P) of The LEGO Group for the purpose of sharing set details with fans.
Opinions provided here solely reflect those of our reviewer. 
Photographs are property of Friends Bricks and are not directed by TLG in any fashion.


Box Front

The background scenery is simply perfect. The lovely wisteria flowers go so well with the purple accents used here and there in this set. 


Box Back

Interestingly, the featured Friend of the set is Stephanie! Although Mia was originally the animal lover and the skilled horseback rider of the group, Stephanie has been included in a horse-themed set just as often as Mia.


Box Top