jmtd → log → LEGO Princess Castle-books

The set

My eldest daughter and I visited a LEGO shop recently and I wanted to buy her a gift. The catch was that we were going to be flying on an airplane the next day, so I wanted to find something with the lowest risk of losing parts on the plane.

We settled on Ariel, Belle, Cinderella and Tiana's Storybook Adventures which had a number of things going for it: It was reasonably priced at under £20, for the size of the set; it included four human minifigs (albeit in a sub-minifig size, some kind of munchkin size, but that did not seem to matter) and an assortment of animal accompaniments; but mostly, it folded up into a self-contained mock fairytail "book", and opened up into an enclosed "tray" play area, minimising the risk of losses on the flight.

The set in its resting state

Lego have done a few of these styles of sets, all Disney princess themed, and it looks like they have a few more on their product roadmap. The newer ones incorporate a locking mechanism with a cute Lego key. I love the concept and think it should be extended to other themes/properties. I can imagine a Lego Star Wars-themed version with a little Death Star trench in the middle, or even an original IP like Classic Space, or Medieval.

Exploring a DIY Lego book frame

I really liked the Book device which reminded me of hollow books as a child. The cover and spine pieces are bespoke Lego bricks made for purpose, but I thought you could create something similar with generic parts. Holly and I had a go at the concept with what bricks we had to hand. It's definitely viable (and you could do a lot better with a wider selection of bricks / more skilled builders) and it will be fun to pick something to try and build on the spine.