In our second part of set reviews from the LEGO® Friends January 2025 wave we visit several locations in Heartlake City that offer food in various forms, starting with a small ice cream truck and ending in an idyllic cottage a beekeeper calls home. While enjoying the sustenance we'll explore the new elements these sets provide.
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The first individual January 2025 set from LEGO® DREAMZzz™that we will take a closer look at is 71491 Mateo with the Z-Blob Action Race Car. Those eye-catching new tyres were calling to us, but anyone with arachnophobia should tread onwards with care.
I have already compiled a comprehensive list of all the new and interesting elements in the LEGO® Chinese Traditional Festival sets which were released on 1 January 2025, but today I'm looking specifically at the construction of 80117 Good Fortune.
LEGO® Lunar New Year (aka Chinese Traditional Festival) sets have become increasingly popular since their introduction in 2019. As well as two new releases this year – 80116 Trotting Lantern and 80117 Good Fortune, which I recently looked at the new parts of and shall be reviewing in full very soon – we also get a Gift with Purchase (GwP) in this theme, 40756 Lucky Knots. Now I'm going to take a closer look at the set itself.
Between 1 and 7 January 2025, all purchases of the LEGO® Icons 10350 Tudor Corner set will receive 40757 Corner Kiosk as a free gift with purchase (GwP), while stocks last – and it already appears to be sold out in some countries.
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There has never been a LEGO® Botanicals polybag; but in 2025 there will be a LEGO Botanicals paper-based bag! It seems that polybags are so 2024 and next year's small impulse sets will be stored in something else. I like this change – the grainy print of the paper section feels more appropriate to this set. It's a bit like the seed bags sold to gardeners.
We start off the reviews for the LEGO® Friends January 2025 wave with the biggest set in the line-up. Together, let's hop on our bike and inline skates to potter some clay and wash out any resulting stains in the laundromat, before enjoying a cup of tea with locally sourced honey while watching the cats play with yarn. Oh, and look at the new baby!
In July, I reviewed LEGO® Botanicals sets 10368 Chrysanthemum & 10369 Plum Blossom. They were pronounced to be two of the Four Gentlemen: a set of traditional plants in East Asian culture. The remaining two are bamboo and orchid. Those flowers are less straightforward to make into LEGO sets: orchid because it already appeared in sets 10311 Orchid and 43237 Isabela's Flowerpot (review of 43237 by me, again), and bamboo because it's basically some sticks, and thus not interesting… or so we thought.
On 1 January 2025, sets 10343 Mini Orchid and 10344 Lucky Bamboo will be available, and today I am going to see if they are worthy successors to the first pair – both of which got good marks from me.
August 2023 saw the introduction of LEGO® Icons 10315 Tranquil Garden, a Japanese-inspired model which is a little bit larger than minifigure scale and features modular components to vary the garden layout. At the time, we assumed that this was a one-off.
However, set 10359 Fountain Garden, led by senior designer Henrik Saaby, will be released on 1 January 2025 under the new LEGO Icons sub-theme "Gardens of the World". Let's take a look at the parts and construction of the Fountain Garden to see what delights await.
The last 2024 LEGO® DREAMZzz™ set we're reviewing is another great example of the quirky set design of this original theme: a witch's hut nested atop a gigantic raven. So far, I've been critical towards many sets of this wave due to unfocused and messy set design. I've associated this with the alternative builds. I like how these sets offer different designs using the same parts, emphasising the nature of this medium – but so far, it has deemed sacrifices on the design coherence.
Still doing your Christmas shopping – or just starting? After midnight Friday 13 December 2024, the 40701 Ballerina & Nutcracker Scene is gone from LEGO.com, but a new Gift with Purchase (GwP) becomes available that isn't limited to LEGO® Insiders and has a lower threshold. Let's pull out those holiday snaps in readiness for 40702 Christmas Picture Frame.
2025 is not here yet, but we're having an early start with the new element mega-party pack, LEGO® Botanicals 10342 Pretty Pink Flower Bouquet. The "Botanical Collection" no longer sits under the LEGO® Icons branding and instead becomes its own theme, so are these plant sets still worthy of adult hobbyists?
Starting midnight Friday December 6 2024, a new Gift with Purchase (GwP) becomes available to LEGO® Insiders... plus, LEGO® Insiders 2x Points are back too!
The latest set in the LEGO® Modular Buildings Collection was announced yesterday as 10350 Tudor Corner. The set is a corner building which houses a restaurant, a haberdashery, a clockmaker’s workshop and an attic apartment.
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Let's take a look at the new elements and the eight minifigures first, before groundwork starts on the pub.
Humankind has been dreaming of taking to the skies ever since we saw birds and insects soaring. Many flying machines have been designed in the past, usually unsuccessful, and one of the most famous was sketched in the 15th century by all-round Renaissance genius Leonardo Da Vinci. Today, we’ll build a LEGO interpretation of his designs with LEGO® Icons set 10363 Leonardo Da Vinci’s Flying Machine.
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LEGO® BrickHeadz™ 40668 Super Heroes Captain America & Red Hulk are tie-ins with the new Captain America: Brave New World movie due for release in February 2025.
These LEGO Brickheadz characters represent the Sam Wilson version of Captain America, portrayed by Anthony Mackie in the movies, and U.S. President Thaddeus Ross in his Red Hulk form, to be portrayed by Harrison Ford.
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After I examined what the LEGO Endurance is made of last week, let us now look at how she is built. In addition to that, I have a short historical overview about Ernest Shackleton and the real Endurance.
