ResIpsaLoquitur

Back with Days 7 to 9. You'll note in the following photos that I made some more mods to the traffic light and postal box. I decided to add a stump to make the light higher, and I put them on separate gray 2 x 2 plates, as I thought the 6 x 6 wasn't consistent with what you'd get in an existing Advent Calendar. Anyway, Day 7 was the merry mailman with four packages (1-stud 2 x 1s with 1 x 1 tiles on top). I wish there were an actual CMF mailman, but maybe someday? (Maybe the new policeman figure in Series 9 could be a model, with the CMF Santa sack for a mailbag.) As it is, I tracked down a recent mailman on Bricklink. Days 8 an 9 was a two-day build of a little mail truck, in which the packages fit fine. Here's the little mailtruck from the back, so you can see how the packages fit inside. And that's the end of "Writing to Santa," and we're only on Day 9. Coming up for Days 10 through 16: "Shopping for presents!" Stay tuned....and input is appreciated!

Here's Days 5 and 6! We're now in the theme of "Writing to Santa." Day 5 was CMF Grandma Visitor, with the added bonus of an envelope. Including her was important to me. In building this calendar, I really needed a child figure to add the cute concept of someone delivering a letter. If you haven't noticed, child minifigs are hard to find outside of expensive sets like Advent Calendars and modular buildings. (Last year's AC had no kids.) So when GV was added to Series 7, I thought it was perfect. She's a child, she's in Christmas colors. She's in a German outfit, but we'll just pretend she's a foreign exchange student! Day 6 was a little street scene: a traffic light and a mailbox. Admittledly, I'd do a few things differently here if I had the right parts. One, I would have used a 4 x 4 grey base instead of a 6 x 6, as the "real" Advent calendars tend not to have large parts. For the traffic light, I'd have used 1 x 3 yellow plates instead of 1 x 4s. I don't have any 1 x 3s, so I'm stuck. For the mailbox, I would have used red or green pieces if I had any. The black looks fine, but not really holiday festive. Overall, I'm otherwise pleased with it: we generally have a little kid who's about to send off a letter to Santa. Here's where the AC is at with Days 1-6 all unleashed (plus the Black Friday exclusive, and my daughter threw in last year's Santa). Coming up for Days 8 to 10: Now that GV has her letter, who's going to get it to the North Pole? Stay tuned...

Yep! I got the $1.00 figure at Target since he was so cheap. He had to go somewhere in my City display, so the Police Station makes sense. (I have him riding the white snowmobile now.)

These seems as good a place as any to post this: I was at the Toys R' Us in Clinton, Maryland today. They're selling Lego Games for 25% off. For whatever reason, Magikus was already marked down substantially, so I got it for $2.98. I bought two--one for spare parts, and one for my daughter, who loves games. A few weeks ago, I found Lego Monster 4 for, believe it or not...$1.50. Again, I got two: it's got some awesome 2 x 2 grey tiles for sidewalks, and a load of minifigure heads (including skulls, werewolves, and pumpkins). And the game's not bad!

You know, after last year's Advent Calendar with the log cabin walls, I noticed a lot of pieces from that set showing up in PAB walls: namely, the 1 x 2 and 1 x 4 "log" walls and the 1 x 4 brown tiles. I'd hoped that the leftover AC pieces were recycled into PAB fodder...which gives me the vain hope that leftover AC pieces from this year will show up at PAB in a few months?

Sorry! Images have been reduced to the guideline size. Noted for the future.

I've got two in the area (Maryland) and haven't seen them. I lived in Louisiana earlier this year and saw Mia at both ends of the state--maybe it's a regional distribution?

Did anyone go to the Lego Shop this week to get a free Friends set? I'm annoyed--the online store says you'll get Mia, but my store gave out the "Stephanie and Mailbox" set that's been out since last February. I already have that one, and Mia is the last of the five Friends my daughter doesn't have.

And I'm back with Days 2-4 of the personalized calendar. I guess this wraps up the first mini-theme of the calendar: "shopping for a Christmas tree." Basically, Day 2 was the barriers--the idea being to make some gates to create the sense of a Christmas tree lot. Day 3 was the CMF lumberjack, who's out there selling trees to his Lego customers. Day 4 is my feeble effort at a slope-brick tree which Lego always sticks in their calendars. I had a bunch of green slopes available and figured I had to use them on something. I'm not super-pleased with the tree, but then, I'm never pleased with ANY of Lego's trees. They tend to look too artificial when made of blocks or plates. The "natural" trees are better, but of course, they're so "regular" looking that they also look fake, and of course, you can't decorate them shy of using a hot glue gun. Anyway, here's the scene altogether, with the lumberjack hauling a tree in a sled for a needy customer. Like I said, the tree holds onto the sled surprisngly well--it won't roll off without being forcefully pushed. I'm going to let my daughter open a few more days before posting again (especially since I go back to work tomorrow... :P) The next sub-theme will be "writing to Santa," so let's see what's coming.... Edit: Adjusted pictures to 800 x 600 ratio.

Thanks. I'll update tomorrow...today was a pair of barriers to close off the "tree lot." Kind of lame, so I'll update with the Lumberjack CMF tomorrow just so it doesn't look so dorky.

B-PV-06A I love that last year's Advent Calendar actually came with a building, but it's way too small! I decided the building needed a serious upgrade--as it is, the robbers could just walk out of there when nobody is looking. It was a simple matter of getting a lot more log pieces, blue bases, and white slopes to extend the walls. In this case, I specifically shaped it to sit on a 32 x 32 curved road. I also put some black tiles in front of the garage so the car doesn't need to drive over studs. The shape of the building also gave me room to add a few of the other advent items: the fire, the dog, and the tree. Viewed from the back: I was able to incorporate the fireplace and most of the presents onto the side of the building so our cop doesn't freeze. I've also incorporated the detective desk and added a chair. More black tiles on the left to give the cop car a driveway. I added a wall with a jail cell door to the right side so that the crooks are actually jailed. (The only problem is that white window--I don't have a glass pane, so the crooks could just jump right out!) And here's the side view, just so you can see how I extended out the side wall. Anyway, I hope you like it--comments are appreciated. Edit: Adjusted picture ratio to 800 x 600.

Hi there! I'm new to the forums. I've been lurking here for months, as I've enjoyed getting Lego news here (thanks for helping me find sets and sales). I haven't actually bothered to register and post here until today. I'm actually kicking myself because of the Winter Village contest--I've registered too late, so I can't enter it. But at least I can display what I could have made. Earlier this year, I decided to build my daughter her own Advent Calendar out of our spare bricks (plus some I tracked down on Bricklink) rather than spend the $40 for a new one. So I've made 24 little sets to make our own little Christmas village. I guess the general theme is "Collectable Minifigures"--I've included the Lumberjack, Grandma Visitor, Wind-Up Robot, Sleepyhead, and of course, the new Santa. There will be two buildings, a mailbox, a small mail truck, and I threw in Police Buggy 30013 to fill in two more days. The Christmas horse and sleigh is dressing only--it wasn't intended to go in the calendar, but I don't have a Winter village, so.... I'd show off the whole thing now, but most of the parts are in 23 little bags which my daughter will open daily. She opened one today, so I'll show that--along with the construction paper base I made. It's a sled and tree--the idea being it's from a Christmas tree lot, so someone can buy it and have it pushed to their car. The tree can actually sit in the sled pretty well and not fall out. I'll post more of these as my daughter opens them during Advent. Hope you like my idea! Edit: adjusted pictures to 800 x 600 ratio.