Check out this adorable and very lifelike sewing machine designed by Niklas Rosén.
Bill Ward
Happy New Year 2018
I came up with this little sign to commemorate the new year, and made instructions for it.
Advent 2017 MOC Instructions
For the first 24 days of this month, I posted my Advent 2017 posts with images of the three Advent Calendar models as well as that day’s Christmas Build-Up model. Also each day I built a MOC (My Own Creation) using the remaining parts from the Christmas Build-Up set. I made directions for each of these models and posted them in each day’s post, but in case you want to see them all in one place, there’s a gallery at the end.
Advent 2017
The time has come once more for the annual LEGO Advent calendars! This year we have once more the same three themes – City, Friends, and Star Wars – and like last year there is a 24-in-1 “Christmas Build-Up” set 40253. The latter was a freebie that you got in November for making a $100 purchase from LEGO – it’s no longer available from them, but you may find them on Amazon. (The Advent calendars may be sold out at your LEGO store as well, but using the Amazon links above helps support this blog and is most appreciated.) Once again I designed a MOC from the leftover Build-Up parts each day – you can find instructions for all of those in a separate post. As usual, each post was originally a separate blog entry, starting with Day 1, and continuing with a daily post about that day’s advent models. However, to clean up the site, I’ve condensed all those daily posts to a single post per year. Here’s the 2017 edition.
Flat Rudolph
Last year I built a Christmas ornament Flat Santa inspired by the amazing platecraft ornaments designed by Chris McVeigh. This year I’m following that up with another platecraft ornament, Flat Rudolph:
BayLUG Show in Palo Alto Open Until January 14
BayLUG‘s annual holiday show at the Museum of American Heritage opens next Friday, and will be operating every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through January 14th, 2018 (closed on Christmas Eve). Come check it out! On Sunday December 3rd, we set up the exhibits and had a VIP reception for the museum’s top donors.
East Bay Mini Maker Faire 2017
On October 22, BayLUG (Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group) put on a display at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire in Oakland, CA. We had nearly 20 members participating and occupied a whole room at the Park Day School where the event was held.
California Republic Flag
For this year’s Bricks by the Bay LEGO convention, which had the theme “California Dreamin’,” I built a model of the California state flag.
BayLUG October 2017 Meeting
Every year, BayLUG (Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group) celebrates its anniversary in October. This was the 19th anniversary. The meeting was held at the Museum of American Heritage (MoAH) in Palo Alto on October 8th.
BayLUG September 2017 Meeting
Our local LEGO club, BayLUG (Bay Area LEGO Users Group), had a meeting on September 16th. I recently started going to meetings again after taking some time off from the club, and it’s good to be back. Sorry for the lag in posting about it though. The meeting was held at a church in San Leandro.
New Elementary Parts Festival
The New Elementary blog is featuring a handful of parts that have been release by LEGO in 2017 in a “parts festival” and one of my creations is featured in today’s article (Day 3).
New Article: Sorting Time
I’m catching up on my backlog of unsorted elements that have been building up over the past few years, and wrote an article about the process.
The $800 LEGO Set
Today LEGO announced their largest and most expensive set to date, the new 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon.
Galo de Barcelos
This little relief mosaic was made in honor of my trip to Portugal this past June, where I attended the Paredes de Coura Fan Weekend.
Bricks by the Bay 2017
I attended the Bricks by the Bay convention on August 3-6, 2017, for my first time as an ordinary attendee. It was a great exhibit of LEGO talent from near and far, but the show-stealer was this amazing “California Dreamin'” theme park model from Flynn and Richard which won several trophies including both Best In Show and Public Choice:
Paredes de Coura 2017 Fan Weekend
This year I made another international trip for a LEGO event – this time to Portugal. The Portuguese LEGO Fan Weekend in the town of Paredes de Coura is a unique event and this is the second year they’ve held it. I was so impressed when I read an article on Brickset about last year’s event that I just had to go!
Bricks Cascade 2017
This spring, I went up to Portland and attended the Bricks Cascade LEGO convention. I posted my photos online shortly afterward, but neglected to post on my blog about it for some reason! So in the spirit of “better late than never” I bring you the Bricks Cascade 2017 MOCs (My Own Creations).
King Philbert’s LEGO Fidget Spinner
Fidget spinners are all the rage these days for kids. Now you can make your own from LEGO! King Philbert, a.k.a. Philip D. Barket, has come up with this simple but clever LEGO design for one.
Tony Sava: Keynote at Bricks Cascade 2017
I just got back from Portland, Oregon, where I attended the Bricks Cascade 2017 LEGO convention. I’ll be posting my photos and my story soon, but to tide you over here’s a video of the keynote speech by renowned LEGO train builder Tony Sava.
Happy Pi Day 2017
Happy Pi Day! March 14, or 3/14 as Americans write it, is a day to celebrate all things mathematical. For Pi Day this year I designed a LEGO clock face using the first 12 digits of pi instead of 1-12.
LEGO Ideas honors Women of NASA
The LEGO Ideas team has announced the results from the second 2016 review and Women of NASA project by Maia Weinstock has been selected as the next LEGO Ideas set!
Brickvention 2017
After the flurry of activity on my blog in December for the Advent Calendars you may have wondered why I disappeared… well the reason was I took a vacation to Australia right after Christmas!
I spent New Year’s in Sydney, did lots of sightseeing, and ended up at Brickvention in Melbourne. I’ll be posting the travel photos soon on a new travel blog I’m going to be starting, and will post a link to it here when it is live so you can check those out if you want. But the photos from Brickvention are now available online, and here they are! (Click images for a bigger one, or see links at the bottom to Flickr albums.)