BlueNPinkCastle

Building (mostly castles) with LEGO bricks

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Links, Resources, and History

As I get ready for the new year, I think it's a great idea for me to consolidate some LEGO knowledge, references, resources, links, and history. The Rambling Brick did a really good job of writing up an article in October 2022 concerning the history of LEGO Castle before minifigures called, "Classic Themes: Defining Classic Castle." The Rambling Brick then did a follow-up article in August 2023 covering LEGO Castle during the 1990s. The article is called, "Bringing Myth and Magic to LEGO Castle: the System Years 1992-1999."

Back in 2011, Steve's LEGO Blog did another piece on the History of LEGO Castle, which had a little bit about all the themes. Steve's LEGO Blog also compiled a number of the old Ideas books, which had a number of different things you could build if you had the parts, though the most recent post for this was updated in 2012. The Quest For Bricks wordpress did an interesting article concerning a little bit of Wall History for some of the castles back in 2012. BrickSet had this fantastic historical LEGO Castle post from 01 May 2021 by Huw called "Castle before Castle." This post mostly discusses the first LEGO castle designs with photographs, starting around 1959 and going through around 1975. A EuroBricks forum post by Jan Kusters on 06 August 2018 showed his building process for actually building "Old School LEGO Castle (Designed and MOC)". This forum post focuses on the LEGO Castle design photographs from the same LEGO Idea Books from 1959-1975, but Jan Kusters actually demonstrates building styles for these old designs and the further comments on the post have more examples of "simpler" designs. My "Go To" sites for LEGO inventory are: -BrickLink -BrickOwl -BrickSet -Rebrickable (some sets also have free instruction downloads) Where I find free downloads of LEGO instructions: -Back of the Box Builds -LEGO -Let's Build It Again -Peeron -Toysperiod Learn how to build / technical and parts information: -New Elementary -Tips & Bricks And interesting story about LEGO lost at sea. Arts and Bricks is a website that has a list of all the brick-and-mortar secondhand / used LEGO stores in North America.

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Bricks Cascade was in Portland, Oregon (USA) last weekend (30 April - 03 May 2026) and this was the continuation of the world I've been building for the last three years. The build is called "A Very Different World". The castle, large lake, and forest are all my areas. The airship, dragons, and all the air support were provided by Justin and his 12 year-old daughter. The stylist tower and the art studio (front left of the build), the giant bridge, and the inn and academy (front right of the build) were provided by Caleb. Jen is a newer member of the team and she provides crucial detailing and organization support, helping us repair all the things that may not have survived transit as well as we would have hoped.

One of the things that may not be obvious in this build is how the vast majority of people in this world are not yellow or light nougat. We used every disability piece Lego has made that we could find, including prosthetic limbs, wheelchairs, hearing aids, skin conditions, etc., and the world is almost completely accessible, with wheel chair ramps or elevators for the buildings and friendly dragons to assist with other mobility concerns.

Gender and societal constrictions are also not a thing in this world, as everyone is free to be whoever they choose to be. You can see bearded folk wearing dresses/robes, women knights, and any variation of people we could find parts for.

The Castle is also full of interior details no one is likely to be able to see, including the Pride library, complete with dragon librarian.

A Very Different World is exactly that; a place with blue mountains, dark pink castles, yellow waterfalls, and lavender forests, known throughout the known realms as "The Kingdom of Kindness", where knights help any who ask and everyone participates in community building. The only true enemy of the kingdom is the Skeleton Army, which was defeated several years ago, but at great cost. Working to rebuild after the Skeleton War, the queens and their dragon friends have been working to rebuild Dragon-Friend Castle, which still shows signs of battle damage. The main castle entrance goes directly into the stables, then up to the barracks, kitchen, great hall, and eventually to the roof-top dragon landing platforms. Crossing Friendship Bridge allows travellers access to the dragon caves and library, as well as additional landing platforms, especially for Her Majesty's Day Tripper Airship! Surrounding the Castle on the right is the Echoes of a Forest Moon Tree House forest, the Starlight Inn, and the Adventure Academy. Across the lake, some farmland, the Empower Tower and the Cottage of Canvas and Creativity, artist retreats for those who need to get away from the bustle of the castle for a bit. Part of A Very Different World is the lush Echoes of a Forest Moon Tree House forest, home to archers of the realm, magic snails, a mindfulness maze, a blacksmith, and forest folk who live in giant mushroom houses or tucked into the bases of the giant trees used for the tree houses. Smaller dragons often visit the forest for healing from the caretakers, as much of the forest is imbued with healing magic. The mindfulness maze is often attended by groups of traveling musicians, intent on providing balance or entertainment to those who seek enlightenment, purpose, joy, or distraction. The Cottage of Canvas and Creativity is a place of art, adventure, and imagination! Featuring scenic and inspirational view of the castle, this cozy and accessible retreat is every artist's haven.

Seeking a new hairstyle that is just so YOU? ready for the glow-up of a lifetime? This one-stop shop is all about care and authenticity. Come celebrate who you truly are at the Empower Tower!

A favorite hangout for lovers, friends and travelers of all sorts, the Friendship Bridge facilitates commerce and convenient transportation for both visitors and residents of Dragon-Friend Castle!

Weary wanderers and mingling minstrels cross paths in this charming hostel with its renowned culinary eatery. Stop on by the Starlight Hostel and Suites and make some friends, or enjoy a relaxing retreat in a private suite.

Play and learning collide in a hands-on, joy-first educational institution. From experimental agriculture to animal care, learn something new while having fun at the Adventure Academy! Oh, and before you leave, take a trip on the swingset with Frelog!

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20220315: “Etu, Brute? Etu?” (even you, Brutus? even you?)

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20260114 LEGO Set Review: 43235 Ariel's Music Stage (2024, 60 pieces, 39 different parts) Ariel's Music Stage is based on Disney's live-action the Little Mermaid movie from 2023. The set makes two sections; the first is a small background built on a tan plate with a coral fence in front of a lime background, a medium azure plate on top holding a yellow pineapple print minifigure head next to a bright green sea grass piece on a coral leaf, with a trans light blue dome on top of a lavender 2x2 circle brick. The second section is the main stage built on a medium azure 8x8 plate with round end, yellow and bright yellow frames with a medium azure printed musical seascape and a bright yellow rotating stage for Ariel with a lavender lute and a microphone stand. The one minidoll in this set is Ariel with red floating hair and a metal blue seashell print, a medium brown minidoll head with black eyebrows, reddish brown eyes, dark red lips, bright pink dots and medium azure stars on her cheeks, a medium brown torso medium brown hands, arms, and shoulders, with dark purple sparkle dress and pearl necklace, and a medium azure fish or mermaid tail with silver decorations and a lavender tail. This set also includes a red Sebastian. The fifteen different colors in the set are: black, bright green, bright yellow, coral, lavender, lime, magenta, medium azure, trans clear opal, pearl gold, red, tan, trans light blue, white, and yellow. This set is part of LEGO's 4+ "Learn To Build" series which means the instructions are designed to be easy to follow, especially for young or new builders. I honestly picked up this set because I found it in a store and I have wanted the lavender lute ever since I realized the lute was a piece that existed. I don't remember seeing it on LEGO's online pick-a-brick wall and the set has not been easy to locate since it's not a new set. I also don't know how popular it's been. The set itself is a very simple build but the printed pieces are really beautiful and it's a fun little scene. There's also a lot of really good color, which I appreciate. The set was available for sale from 01 June 2024-31 December 2025. Parts inventory for this set can be found on BrickLink or Rebrickable and free instructions for the build are available on LEGO's website or Rebrickable.

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20260107 LEGO Set Review: 11508 Daisies (2026, 133 pieces, 22 different parts) Daisies is a new set within the Botanicals line for 2026. The first bag makes two budding daisies and three fully-bloomed daisies. All five stems are bright green 16L technic axles with green technic driving ring connectors on the bottom. The budding daisies use dark green plant stems with bright green inverted 1x1 cone with bottom bar and white sunflower blossoms with yellow 1x1 studs on top. The fully-bloomed daisies have additional green palm leafs on two of the stems and all three use stacked white 3x3 leafs with a yellow printed flower heart 2x2 circle tile on top. The second bag builds three identical stems with bright green bars, bars with stop rings, 3x3 leafs, and symmetric weapon hilts and blue violet, medium lavender, and lavender flower tops. The nine different colors in the set are: blue violet (new), bright green, dark green, green, lavender, medium lavender, red, white, and yellow. The build itself is fairly simple, with only 34 pages of instruction and several places where you build multiple of the same parts, like with the beginning budding daisies, the fully-bloomed daisy tops, and the stems with the new blue violet pieces. Parts inventory for this set can be found on BrickLink or Rebrickable and free instructions for the build are available on LEGO's website or Rebrickable. The set was reviewed by New Elementary, which also lists the unique pieces for this set.

Obviously, I purchased this set for the new blue violet flower elements. I want to see where this new color will work with the existing colors and maybe try and figure out if it matches any of the previous lilac-family colors. The new blue violet color is an almost exact match to BrickLink and LEGO's "lilac" color, which is Rebrickable's "medium violet". The new blue violet is just a tiny, TINY shade lighter than the lilac/medium violet but probably only people like me could see that. The good news is everyone appears to be on the same page and BrickLink, LEGO, and Rebrickable have all named this new color "blue violet", which will help all of us immensely. The really good news is those lilac/medium violet and medium bluish violet/medium violet colors are exceptionally rare, which means most people won't need to decide if they've got one of those or the new blue violet :)

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I am extremely torn about buying the Enterprise this weekend. On the one hand, I generally have an anti-captialistic rule that says I'm not allowed to buy anything after Halloween, but ESPECIALLY not Thanksgiving weekend. On the other hand, that shuttle gwp is likely to become one of the most expensive after market gwps ever :/ I have so many conflicted thoughts about LEGO right now in general and this just maybe clarifies some of it? Like. I love LEGO. I really, really, really do. It's been a part of my life for my ENTIRE life. But. I also get really frustrated that ... it's just a way for so many people to make money. And the more people who use it just to make money, the less available it is for those of us who really just ... want to play. It's financially restrictive. It always has been. But I feel a lot like LEGO is now seen as financially lucrative, which means people will buy things just to sell them. I think the Lion Knights' Castle was on sale this past weekend? And I guess it sold out incredibly quickly? But I wonder how many of those sales were stores buying them to sell them at full cost or to just sit on them so they can sell them for a bigger profit later? And all those people who did that literally robbed families of the ability to buy just that ONE thing for their young human who might be absolutely obsessed with Lego castles, as I was (and still am!).

But I'm in multiple LEGO groups across the various social medias and I see so many posts where people talk about their hauls or immediately turn around and sell things for individual profit. I guess it really does just make me a little disappointed.

I keenly remember my entire family pooling resources to get me that one King's Castle from 1984. I love that castle so much that I've built it, built other things with it, stored it, and rebuilt it so, so many times throughout my entire life. Even right now, that original castle is sitting on a shelf and is still pulled down repeatedly for adult me to play with. I am hopeful that there are many families out there who were able to finally pick up that castle for their young daughters to enjoy for the rest of their lives, too!

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20251005: And so it begins! I've started working on the next part of "A Very Different World" so that the display for Bricks Cascade in Portland, Oregon (USA) 2-3 May 2026 will be even MORE amazing than our display from BrickCon last month in Bellevue, Washington (USA)!

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20251005: More progress!

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20251116: updates! :)

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20251005: And so it begins! I've started working on the next part of "A Very Different World" so that the display for Bricks Cascade in Portland, Oregon (USA) 2-3 May 2026 will be even MORE amazing than our display from BrickCon last month in Bellevue, Washington (USA)!

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20251005: More progress!

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20251005: And so it begins! I've started working on the next part of "A Very Different World" so that the display for Bricks Cascade in Portland, Oregon (USA) 2-3 May 2026 will be even MORE amazing than our display from BrickCon last month in Bellevue, Washington (USA)!

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BrickCon 2025 at Bellevue’s Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington (USA) was 4-7 September 2025! This year, I had several people participate in building "my" world, including Caleb Inman who built "Friendship Bridge" as well as most of the village including the "Empower Tower", "Cottage of Canvas and Creativity", "Discovery Academy", and the "Starlight Inn"; Justin and River Belk who provided our air support with Team Jragon dragons and "Her Majesty's Airship: Daytripper"; and Hannah Raper who built the "Gentlemen's Knitting Club". My own contributions to this include "Dragon-Friend Castle", "Blacklight Falls", the "Blacksmith", and the "Magic Snails of the Mushroom Village". We listed the entire collaboration under DEIBricks and called it "A Very Different World", which it definitely is! The next exhibition will be at Bricks Cascade in Portland, Oregon (USA) 30 April - 03 May 2026 and then BrickCon 2026 (the 25th anniversary of BrickCon!) 10-13 September 2026!

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This isn't my video but the dark pink castle is mine and the bright pink castle is my friend Phoebe's! We didn't know each other before BrickCan 2024 but when we both saw we had pink castles, we decided to display next to each other!

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For those of us in North America who order from LEGO's online Pick-A-Brick selection, the current political situation in the United States has made our LEGO lives that much more complicated. The text from the screenshot is transcribed below and several of the facebook comments had people just saying they would switch to BrickLink, but I don't think that will solve the issue for several reasons. Firstly, BrickLink's website is about to be completely switched over to LEGO, with LEGO and BrickLink accounts merging in September. None of us really know what that's going to look like or what that's going to mean. Secondly, with all postal carriers including the United States Postal Service (USPS), DHL, the Royal Mail, and the French and Spanish national post offices stopping international shipping into the United States, it's possible all LEGO products will become more expensive and more difficult to acquire in the United States. Sources: https://www.newelementary.com/2025/08/pick-brick-standard-bricks-service.html https://www.npr.org/2025/08/23/nx-s1-5513936/dhl-parcel-tariffs The transcript for this screenshot from New Elementary's facebook post dated 25 August 2025 reads:

Today, thousands of Standard elements have been removed from sale on PaB in the US and Canada, and it seems the root cause might be the changes to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

On both the North American PaB stores, "Standard" elements are those stored in and shipped from the European warehouse, while "Bestseller" elements are in the USA. (For the rest of the world, there is no such distinction – everything comes from Europe.)

The Trump government have suspended something called the De Minimis exemption, where packages with a value less than US$800 can enter without paying customs, duties or taxes. Tariffs have to be paid prior to arrival, and it's up to the postage carriers to ensure this happens. As a result, postage carriers in Denmark and other countries are suspending all deliveries there, because of the short window given to them by the US to alter their business practices before this comes into effect on 29 August 2025.

We have not had any official statement from The LEGO Group as yet about how this affects customers, however thousands of Standard elements have been removed from the US & CA PaB services today and we suspect they'll all be gone in the next few hours. New Elementary do NOT recommend you try purchasing before they disappear, given the unpredictability of the situation.

Regrettably the same applies in Canada: obviously this is not a case of Canadian tariffs however. Presumably the whole PaB stock management system is geared towards treating North America as a single entity? After all, who could have predicted they'd need to treat one country so differently, at such short notice!

The rest of the world is not affected by this issue. About 350 elements have been removed from PaB sites in the rest of the world today, but apparently these are simply out of stock rather than due to any unusual problem.

We will bring you information from The LEGO Group if it comes. At this stage we don't know the situation with those who recently placed North American Standard orders... I doubt ANYONE knows yet.

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2024 WBI Community Research Survey

The Women+s Brick Initiative (WBI) research contributor team is excited to share some fascinating research results! From March through Novem

Caleb and I are very excited to publish the results of the 2024 WBI Community Research Survey! We have been tirelessly working up data from the many wonderful responses we received last year. These surveys were disseminated at several in-person conventions and shared by the community online. We hope you enjoy reading and looking at this data as much as we did collecting and summarizing it! We have also created the article in PDF format, because we know large webpages with lots of images can sometimes be difficult to load depending on internet speed. If you would prefer to enjoy reading the research summary offline, it is available via a Google Drive portal here. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17ux3n3zKVoSnFQWOhnuXu0pf4RwrPKCI?usp=sharing

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20250524: Some of the fun details we included: -The knight escorting the wagon out of the castle. -The royal guard and two rulers (both women) on the bridge. -The dragon rider saying hi to their dragon -The musicians at the end of the bridge, playing for the dragons. Which also includes the world's most emo lute player, sitting on the railing of the bridge. -Chorlog (the troll/orc/whatever) is sweeping the bridge and also enjoying the music. -Several dragons at the base of the cliff on the left side, while someone on the bridge throws fish to the dragons below. -The bridge has several disabled people, as the Skeleton War was within the last several years and not everyone came out okay. But in this fantasy world, disabled people are accomodated and never left behind! The castle wasn't even remotely complete by the time Bricks Cascade 2025 came around but we still made it work! The darker picture is from my camera, the royal procession on the bridge is courtesy of my amazing build partner Caleb, and the brighter picture is courtesy of one of my fellow SPSLUG friends, Michelle. We had a LOT of neat details in our build but many of them were understandably difficult to see. Caleb built the entire bridge and the two support sections holding the bridge up while I built the stable, the castle, and the entire river / waterfall section. Expect to see more of this world at BrickCon in September in Bellevue, Washington (USA)!

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20240413: BrickCan 2025 ran from 11-13 April 2025 and this was my final haul of all my parts from the provided swag bag, the two draft sets (76780 Wednesday Addams Figure and 71489 Cooper's Gaming Controller Jet), and some prizes! I definitely did a lot of trading to get such a fantastic number of blue large leaves, medium lavender foliage, and all the trans parts. This is one of the many reasons I made the decision to attend BrickCan this year and it was absolutely worth it!

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https://thedeepdive.ca/weight-loss-and-lego-denmarks-surprising-chips-on-us-trade-as-trump-still-eyes-greenland/

For those of us who are in the United States and watching everything go directly into the flaming dumpster fire, this article is maybe a little bit of an eye-opener in regards to what our future might look like as countries around the world do everything they can to protect themselves from the madness of the United States dictator. LEGO is owned and headquartered in Denmark. The same Denmark that the United States dictator is threatening to take because of the rich mineral resources and the potential military strategic value. Going forward, it's important to not take out future frustrations on the LEGO employees. As much as I am truly dedicated to LEGO and building, I also understand that things are going to get worse for everyone and we all need to stand up however we can. But make absolutely certain your grievances are against the dictator, not on the LEGO employees who also love LEGO and are in the same situation as all of us. Be kind to each other. And if it comes to pass that LEGO is that much harder and more expensive to get in the United States, direct all anger where it rightly belongs, towards the dictator and his cronies.

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The History of LEGO Elves day 21

20250123: The History of LEGO Elves day 21 241602 Jynx the Witch's Cat (2016, 26 pieces, 14 different parts) Jynx the Witch's Cat is a seated black cat with lime eyes, eye shadow, chest diamond, and tail tip. Jynx has a white face with white inner ears and a white heart with black bat wings attached to the lime chest diamond. Jynx wears a pearl gold five point tiara and has flat silver claws on the front paws. The set itself is two sections. The first section is a dark puple 2x2 plate table held up by four magenta 1x1 cones with a trans neon green 1x1 cone on top holding a trans clear jewel. The other section is a magenta 2x2 jumper plate on top of four magenta 1x1 cones, placed on the end of a lime 2x3 plate, where Jynx sits. The back of the lime plate has two dark purple 75 degree 2x1x3 slopes with the tops of the slopes pointing to the left and right. A lime 1x2 plate joins them with pearl gold 1x1 plates with vertical teeth on each side. Two dark purple 1x2 curved slopes slope inward on top of black 1x1 vertical plates holding 1x1 black teeth. Jynx the Witch's Cat is found in two sets, 41180 Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle and 241602 Jynx the Witch's Cat foil pack. The Elvendale Fandom wiki also has a page for Jynx :) The Elves theme included two magazines per year with foil character bags from 2015-2017, for a total of six foil packages. Jynx the Witch's Cat magazine foil package was available with the Elves Magazine 2016 Issue 2 in German and Polish, which was the fourth Elves Magazine. Parts inventory for this small foil bag can be found on BrickLink or Rebrickable and the set was designed by Sebastian Platzer. The set is small enough where a builder might be able to create the set with only pictures, so I hope my pictures help, since I couldn't find instructions anywhere online :)