Carry on caravanning

It's been the most pleasant and consistent summer in England that I can recall since I arrived here two decades ago, but now October is here it feels like the sun may finally be gone. So it's a great time to hang on to a little sunshine by breaking out a Friends set, 41034 Summer Caravan, which is full of my favourite Friends hue, Medium Azure.

Rich 'n' juicy

Although there are so many new summer releases from The LEGO® Group (TLG) to talk about at the moment, I didn't want to let this Friends set from last winter pass by. 41035 Heartlake Juice Bar has 277 pieces and retails for US$29.99 / GB£24.99 / €32.99, joining Heartlake City's four other retail establishments that fall into the US$25-35 price range: the bakery, pet salon, cafe and beauty shop.

You're lucky, he's lucky, I'm lucky, we're all lucky!

The largest set in Friends' winter 2014 range with over 700 pieces, 41039 Sunshine Ranch has some exciting basic new parts, plus some useful new elements (by which I mean existing parts in new colours). I settled down this Easter to build it and play with the new parts.

When tigers chillax

The Friends 'Collectables' range launched one year ago and since then nine cute, small and affordable bagged sets have been released featuring animals in little environments. I've mentioned them once or twice in the past thanks to the appearance of unique elements, and indeed the new one that I am discussing today - Tiger’s Beautiful Temple - got a mention in a recent post (so I'll try not to repeat myself).

Curls and swirls for little girls

The 2014 excitement keeps rolling in, thanks to Walmart in Canada who have naughtily posted a lot of 2014 LEGO® box pictures in the last few days. You can catch up with them all on Brickset and I'll be pointing out some of the interesting new elements over the next few weeks. Today I've chosen three decorative elements that are appearing in several of the new Disney Princess sets as well as in Friends. It's a great time to be a LEGO Girl.

The first is a new plant! It can be seen clearly here on 41050 Ariel's Amazing Treasures. It reminds me of an unraveling fern, yet also works well in this underwater scene. There's something a little odd and creepy to me about the way it curls like that. It feels a little alien... and in fact, I've literally just spotted an Olive Green one in 75037 Battle on Saleucami (yes, there are Star Wars set leaks too). This plant seems to fit any scenario... in this forthcoming Friends set, 41026 Sunshine Harvest, it makes me think of a young corn plant.

Back to basics

When I started this blog I was fearful there wouldn't be enough in the way of new elements to keep it going. Quite the reverse is true... I still have elements I obtained in June waiting for their moment of glory! This really comes down to the time involved in each post - researching, playing with the new parts and making some tablescraps from them, photography, Photoshopping (I don't like dust)... oh yeah, and writing.

So today I figured I would play a little catch-up, by listing a few of the new elements released recently that frankly don't need any tablescrapping from me... you know what they do already, 'cos they're plates and bricks. This is not a complete listing, I just wanted to bring some of the cool stuff on my "to-do" list to your attention, in the hope you have need of some of these.

Hidden treasure in North America? [Nope.]

[edit 1st Aug: Spoiler; it is Dark Pink and NOT Medium Lavender! Feel free to read on nevertheless.]

If you live near a LEGO® Brand Store in the USA or Canada and have nothing to do at 5pm tomorrow the 1st of August 2013 and have a daughter aged 6 to 14 (or a son to be applauded), keep reading.

That's most of the caveats out the way; now look at this picture and tell me what you can spot? I think I know what I see. New element. Oooooo. I'd love to know if I'm right.

The box is mostly made of what I think is Medium Lavender, and I'm pretty certain those are some 1X4 Bricks in there - which are not listed anywhere as yet appearing in sets. It feels odd for an element to appear in promotional builds before actual sets. TLG don't just make new elements willy-nilly, certainly not just for a polybag that is available for a couple of hours on one continent. I would make a guess that this new element was included in a set 'first' in terms of TLG's development timelines, and the shorter development time required to make a wee model like this means that in the end it got released earlier than the set.

Cool for school

Stand by, fellow colour geeks, as a previously rare hue is back in basic bricks; Bright Light Yellow as it is named on BrickLink, but I personally prefer TLG's official name Cool Yellow. That sounds way cooooooler. Once again we have the Friends range to thank, and the great news is that you’ll get a lot of Cool Yellow basic bricks by buying just one set; 41005 Heartlake High, which went on sale today in the UK, and the US is this Thursday 1 August.

Bow Selector

LEGO®'s summer release sets are beginning to appear and I've been inspecting what new elements will be amongst them. What first struck me is the number of curved slopes or bows as LEGO call them. So to begin my first ever proper post, we have an amazing new element! I get pretty darned excited when there is a new part that could really add something different to your MOCs.

Brick 1x4x1 Inverted Bow

Element ID 6034043 | Design ID 13547
Colour Olive Green

This completely new part is essentially the reflection of an existing part. Previously AFOLs have had to use SNOT techniques to create the effects that inverted parts like this offer with ease. (Now of course, we can use this new element with SNOT for even more crazy effects!)