CUTE LITTLE COTTAGES

Above: A row of cottages designed and built by Brick Trick artist PHILIP BUCHAN. Each tiny house has a different holiday tree inside.

Below: The row of cottages shown with the rooftops removed, so the interiors can be more easily viewed.

CUTE LITTLE COTTAGES

Greetings BRICK TRICK BLOG Friends!

This posting features images of a series of Holiday Cottages built by PHILIP BUCHAN for the 2009 Brick Trick display. Each tiny building sits on a 16x16 peg base plate and no two homes are exactly alike.

Below: The LIME COTTAGE has a bright yellow roof. Through the large "living room" window you can see the white holiday tree decorated with black ornaments.

Above: A closer view of the tree in the LIME COTTAGE.

Below: Another view of the LIME COTTAGE. On the right side is a dark red cottage built entirely of plates. On the left is an 8x16 peg base plate with a tree and flowers used to create landscaping as well as space between the buildings.

Above: The interior of the LIME COTTAGE is visible with the yellow roof lifted off. Each building was designed to have a removable roof.

Below: A building made of dark green bricks with a red roof has a tree inside constructed with two shades of purple plates and decorated with white 1x1 caps.

Above: A closer view of the purple holiday tree inside the DARK GREEN COTTAGE.

Below: The PINK COTTAGE has a red tree with lime decorations.

VALENTINE MIX & LOVE MOSAIC

Above: The Valentine "Love" mosaic designed by Brick Trick artist Trick Richey.

VALENTINE MIX & LOVE MOSAIC

Greetings BrickTrick BLOG Friends!

Despite all the many kits and other things we've built, we'd never really experimented with brick mosaics. So Trick set out to create a brick Valentine using bold colors including red and two shades of pink. The result is a free standing mosaic built on two 8x16 peg base plates which can be placed side-by-side as shown. The design also works when the base plates are arranged on top of each other in a square layout, though the mosaic panels cannot stand up in this position and have to be laid flat for display. The LOVE mosaic incorporates several cool bright pink, dark pink, red transparent and white bricks and plates, as well as lots of red transparent 1x1 smooth tiles which cover the entire background of the base plates between each of the letters and the heart motif.

More details about this project and building instructions using new software we're experimenting with will be available in a future posting.

Enjoy and happy building!

Below: Image shows a Valentine color-themed mix of bricks and other parts being offered by BRICK TRICK DUDE on Ebay, (sold as a bagged mix with 202 pieces; click the pic to view sales listing).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Above: A street scene featuring the three buildings currently available from the manufacturer in large kits. Pictured are, (from left), the FIRE BRIGADE, GREEN GROCER and the CAFE CORNER brick models. Note that some customization has taken place, such as replacing the tiny mug on the cafe signage with a big, red "Scala" coffee pot and the minifigs putting up, (or maybe taking down), a string of Christmas lights above the grocery store.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We hope you had a safe and happy holiday season and that you got all the cool Lego® products you wanted from Santa! As you can see from the photo above we've been busy building the new kits we got for Christmas. While we often feature kits we create ourselves here in the BRICK TRICK BLOG, we love to build sets from the manufacturer, too. In addition to these sets having awesome results, they also include cool pieces and colors not always so easy to find. We also enjoy learning new building techniques and these kits often have ideas we'd never thought of. While the image above shows three kits built by Philip, we also built several other projects including the new tan-colored FAMILY HOME (Model #6754) and the very delightful CARGO TRAIN. Thanks to Santa for all of the extra train track sets, too! More images of our projects will follow in future postings, right now we're getting back to more building!

Enjoy!

REMINDER: Click on the picture to view an enlarged image.

Street of Larger Buildings

Above: Pictured are several architectural creations from the BRICK TRICK studio. These structures, which include a cinema, hotel, hair salon and pizza parlor among others, were designed and built to accompany the GREEN GROCER kit from the manufacturer. Future postings will feature images of each building, as many of the projects have fully furnished interiors and the floors and rooftops lift off for easy viewing and play!

Happy Holidays!

PINK & MAGENTA CONVERTIBLE CAR KIT with GAL PAL HANNAH

Above: The PINK & MAGENTA CAR KIT shown assembled with a new female minifigure we named HANNAH. After receiving numerous requests for car kits with "blonde" figures, we're offering this popular pink vehicle building kit with GAL PAL HANNAH wearing a white floral print blouse and blue pants. This kit is available until sold out from BRICK TRICK DUDE on Ebay, CLICK HERE.

RED SNOWMOBILE with GUY PAL CHARLES

Above: After receiving numerous requests, we created a male minifigure version of this popular holiday building kit. The RED SNOWMOBILE & CHRISTMAS TREE kit is now available with guy pal CHARLES. Review the directions to build this kit, CLICK HERE.

Check out all the BRICK TRICK DUDE custom building kits available on Ebay, CLICK HERE.

ELECTRIC PIANO & PINK FLOWERS • BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS

Above: The ELECTRIC PIANO & PINK FLOWERS KIT shown assmbled with a female minifigure we named Alicia.

ELECTRIC PIANO & PINK FLOWERS • BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS

This posting features images and instructions to build this BRICK TRICK DUDE custom kit sold exclusively on Ebay.

Below: Parts included in the BRICK TRICK DUDE custom kit.

PARTS LIST
2 sprues of 4 dark pink flowers
2 green stalks w/3 stems each
1 neon green trans. 1x1 cone
1 black 1x2 grill
1 black 1x2 tile w/single peg
4 black 1x1 plates w/grabber
2 black 1x4 plates
1 black 2x2 plate
1 black 2x4 plate
2 black 1x2 bricks
4 white 1x2 smooth tiles
10 red trans. 1x2 caps
2 black 1x3 curved bows

Minifigure Musician “Alicia” is assembled and includes:
1 dark tan “bob cut” wig
1 female head with red lipstick and alternate face on back of head
1 solid red torso
1 white hips/legs

Step 1: Remove flowers from sprues and place on stems. Create 2 stacks of 4 red trans. 1x1 caps. Connect black 2x2 and 2x4 plates using 1 black 1x4 plate and add 2 remaining red transparent caps as shown.

Step 2: Place the remaining black 1x4 plate centered at the front of the keyboard assembly and attach using the 4 white 1x2 smooth tiles, which indicate the “ivory keys”.

Step 3: Attach the 4 black 1x1 plates with grabbers to the top pegs of the upper black 1x4 plate. “Grabbers” will overlap the white 1x2 smooth tiles to serve as the “ebony keys”.

Step 4: Place the black 1x2 tile w/single peg on top of the black 1x2 plates w/grabbers at the left side. Place the black 1x2 grill on the remaining two pegs to serve as the “speakers”. Stack flower stems and place on cone.

Step 5: Attach the black 1x2 bricks and the stacks of red transparent caps to form the keyboard base. Add the vase of flowers to the peg on the top of your new electric piano.