LEGO Christmas Tree at Federation Square

Thousands of Melburnians watched in awe last night when the Southern Hemisphere’s largest LEGO Christmas Tree lit up the heart and soul of Melbourne, Federation Square, kicking off the festive season in spectacular style.  

This year, the remarkable Christmas tree features a stunning new star built by LEGO Master Builder, Chris Steininger and his family who were special guests at the event. The spectacular star is made out of 13,195 LEGO bricks and twinkles with the power of 3,456 LED lights making it the ultimate tree-topper!

 Fed Square’s Christmas Programs runs from 27 November to 27 December.

Time Lapse Video.

Interestingly, from what I understand, this is the very same tree used in Sydney last year (albeit the star) that was built by Australia's own master builder Ryan Mcnaught.  Yet there is no mention of him or his team this year...

Full press release below... 

MELBOURNE SHINES AS AUSTRALIA’S LARGEST LEGO® CHRISTMAS TREE
LIGHTS UP FEDERATION SQUARE
LEGO Australia gives Melbourne the gift of Christmas with a magical new star

Saturday 28 November, 2015: Thousands of Melburnians watched in awe last night when the Southern Hemisphere’s largest LEGO® Christmas Tree came to life at the heart and soul of Melbourne, Federation Square, kicking off the festive season in spectacular style.
 

Putting the Christmas star on top of the tree officially signifies the beginning of festive season celebrations and this year LEGO Australia wanted to make it more spectacular than ever. The remarkable Christmas tree features a stunning new star designed and built just for Melbourne fans by LEGO Master Builder, Chris Steininger and his family.
 

Melbourne’s Christmas star is made out of 13,195 LEGO bricks and twinkles with the power of 3,456 LED lights making it the ultimate tree-topper. The spectacular new star sits proudly on top of the beloved LEGO Christmas Tree, which took more than 1,200 hours to make, is almost 10 metres tall and made from half a million LEGO bricks.
 

Chris Steininger said, “It was such an honour to be invited to Melbourne to unveil the newest addition to the LEGO Christmas Tree. Putting the star on top of the tree is a magical moment for families across the world, and everyone has their own unique one - for my family, it is made out of one of our favourite things, LEGO bricks!
 

“I hope we can inspire families across Australia to come together and make their own special Christmas memories this year by building their very own LEGO Christmas star. The beautiful thing is that you can’t go wrong! Stars made from LEGO bricks can be any colour, shape or size, the only limit is your imagination,” he said.
 

Chris and the LEGO team have also ‘Aussie-fied’ the tree with some fun new additions this year including cricket bat-wielding elves and mischief-making kookaburras.

Visitors can see the enchanting tree at Federation Square come to life with a daily light show set to much-loved Christmas carols until 27 December. It’s guaranteed to bring a touch of awesome to the city’s festive celebrations.
 

Director of Marketing for LEGO Australia, Troy Taylor said “We are extremely excited to bring the largest LEGO Christmas Tree in the Southern Hemisphere to Australia.
 

“We are proud to be partnering with the City of Melbourne and Federation Square to create this fun and memorable LEGO experience to the people of Melbourne. This event plays a key part in our Christmas campaign where we encourage Australian families to celebrate the fun traditions of Christmas through the creative use of LEGO bricks,” he said.
 

The LEGO Christmas is part of Federation Square and the City of Melbourne’s Christmas celebrations that includes a charming Christmas forest in Swanston Street Christmas Square, the Gingerbread Village at Melbourne Town Hall and a citywide festive decorations program.

LEGO Christmas Tree and star fun facts:

• The LEGO Christmas Tree is built from half a million LEGO bricks 
• The LEGO Christmas Tree weighs 3.5 tonnes
• It stands almost 10 metres tall – that’s taller than a two-storey house and wider than the average family car
• The LEGO Christmas star is made from more than 13,000 LEGO bricks and twinkles with the power of more than 3,000 LED lights
• It’s the biggest LEGO Christmas Tree in the Southern Hemisphere
• The LEGO Christmas tree took more than 1,200 hours to build 
• Features kookaburras, cricket bat-wielding elves and Santa in his sleigh, built from thousands of LEGO bricks 

Happy Force Friday!

Happy Force Friday everyone!

Today is Force Friday!  New Star Wars: The Force Awakens toys were launched in stores across the world from Midnight last night!







Big W have put together some fun videos focusing on the unboxing of some of the new Star Wars range

Here is their first video showing you a glimpse of the new 75102 Poe's X-Wing Fighter and 75101: First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter being constructed.

What sets are you most looking forward to? 

Personally we would like to get our hands on the "new" 75105: Millennium Falcon and the 75102 Poe's X-Wing Fighter. 

Australia's first BrickPak "Loot Box" Review.

Well Here it is! For over a month, we have been waiting in anticipation to finally see what we will get in Australia's very first BrickPak Box! Monday (02/03/2015) afternoon it arrived on our door step.

This is March's BrickPak and it was limited to only 100 subscribers. The plan is for it to be a month by month subscription where the subscriber will get a box sent with LEGO/Brick related products, over $50 in value.

Depending on what subscription plan you choose the more savings you potentially get. You have 3 options; 1 Month ($29.95 plus $7.95 shipping per month), 3 Months ($27.95 plus $7.95 shipping per month) or 6 Months ($25.95 plus $7.95 shipping per month).

The Brickpak team have kindly donated March's "Brickpak Box" for review.



 Here is the front of the Aqua coloured box. The packaging folds open much like a LEGO Ideas or Architecture box would. If you have a YouTube channel they encourage you to do an "unboxing" video using the hashtag #Brickpak and by doing so have a chance at winning prizes. The prize is revealed at the very end of this review.

Once we open the box this is whats revealed to us. As we pull away the layers... the more we find.

From Infomation provided by the BrickPak team, they stated that at least 6 items will be included in every month's box.  Being it's very first outing they have packed in 9 items. Below we will take a closer look at each of the items that were included.

First up is this cool stress brick with the BrickPak Logo on it. It hasn't come up very well in the photo but the printing is a metallic silver, which has a really great look and effect when it's bounced off of a light source. Plus you can stand on this and it will never ever hurt like the real bricks do.

This months apparel inclusion is a custom printed truckers cap featuring "Mr Smith's Ice Creamery"  logo on the front, designed by the BrickPak team. I must admit I was totally surprised by it because I was actually expecting a T-shirt, given as it asks you for your size when subscribing. Sneaky! lol

Keeping with the Green theme we also get the newly reissued Classic Space Man Minifigure in Green. It is the very same one we reviewed some months back.

The minifigure has the standard smile we have grown up with over the years. (If you're an 80's child that is...) The back of the card gives a bit of information about Minifigures.com.au who supplied him or her for this months BrickPak.

We also get some stationary, a 4 pack of LEGO MOVIE erasers. Some BrickPak subscribers either got this style or the normal yellow LEGO packet version.

When both my wife and I first saw this guy we both thought it was white chocolate... lol. (It's Google redoing the contrast AGAIN!!) But in real life the colour of him is like the old white chocolate buddies you use to get at your local Milk Bar for 0.02 cents each... (Another 80's reference).
Buuuut I digress... Because it's NOT chocolate, in actual fact its a soap bar shaped as a Minifigure. (Gasp! He's naked!) The soap is Mandarin scented and is made from essential oils. Apparently friendly on the skin too. Just because of the novelty factor, we all know it will never get used.  ;-) Who wants to get rubbed up by a minifigure anyway? and a naked one at that... Don't answer that! :-P

Not only do you get a Mr Smith's Ice Creamery hat (seen above) you also get a couple of "custom sticker sheets" that you can cut out and use on future MOCs. The print quality is outstanding on these, they are very sharp and have crisp printing on a glossy paper finish. The BrickPak team would love to see them used and for you to upload any of your creations by using the Hashtag #brickpak or you can email your photos to info@brickpak.com.au.

We also get a Polybag set! Certainly a hot item in this house as the wife instantly tried to swipe it out of my hands before I could look at it. It's a City set 30013 Quad Bike from way back in 2010. It consists of 34 pieces. We don't get to many Polybags sets in Oz so it was a nice surprise to see it in the box.

One thing I was excited to look inside of was this resealable ziplock bag! High quality I might add! Inside we get...

• 1 x Black lamp post (compete) 4 base flutes (Only available in 4 sets)
• 1 x Large Leafed Plant in Bright Green (I totally love this piece! I was going to go with Large Leafed Plant as my name but went with Tan Tile instead. It rolls of the tongue easier Haha)
• 4 x flower stems in Green
• 3 x flower - Sprue of Four (Yellow, White and Bright Pink)

A neat parts pack! Our LEGO City's need more of this stuff! What I think would be a great idea, is if this turns out to become a little vignette that you build up month by month.

And finally a look at the brochure that is included in the box detailing what is inside your BrickPak box. A checklist if you will.

You Tube your "unboxing" the the Hashtag #brickpak for your shance to with the awesome Monster Fighters Vampyre Castle!

All in all this was a great first outing! I certainly wasn't disappointed with any of this months contents! It's fantastic to see that we finally have the chance to get something like this out here in Australia!

Too often I see videos on You Tube and wonder why we cant get them over here. Now we don't have to... And the best part?! No third party brick pieces like the others have! Any parts so far are have been genuine LEGO pieces and reading from the site it will stay that way too.

I believe these will be great for adults and kids alike. If you have a child, they will get a real kick out of getting a parcel delivered in their name each month! If you are an adult you may not get the same kick out of it as a child would but I'm a big kid and I loved it!

I look forward to April's BrickPak!

I hope you enjoyed this review

Tan Tile signing out!

P.S - A Huge Thank You to BrickPak for allowing us to be one of the first to review this new Subscription service!

Another Very Merry LEGO Christmas!

From everyone here at Oz Brick Nation we would like to wish you all a Very Merry LEGO Christmas and a Safe and Happy New Year!

Thank you to each and every one of you again for the fantastic support you've given us so far especially to our Awesome OBN Facebook followers and the brilliant OZLUG Members!

A special thank you to the Minifigures Team for their continuing support, and to everyone of you fine Nerds folks over at the Whirlpool "The Lego Thread"

See you all in 2015!

Tan Tile, OBN team and Families. Signing out!  .....2014.....

LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Twenty Four Review.

We made it! We made it to Day 24! Woo hoo!

It went so quick! Why doesn't it go that fast when I'm waiting for a Lego Shop @ Home Order? lol

I hope you have enjoyed this years Advent Calender reviews. We have had a blast building every day.

We have had some wonderful builds while other days we were really left "scratching our heads" but when you look at them as a whole they really did came together in the end.

I'm really going miss the excitement that came from the kids every morning as we opened up our Advent Calendar doors. Bring on next year! Who knows I might change it up and let Chloe have the Star Wars one, I'll get the Friends set and Jaspa would get the City one. We'll see.

Guess what? It's Christmas tomorrow! Woot!

Lets see what we got on our final day and crack open door number 24!


On the final morning Chloe got a Lime Green and White Gift box with a removable lid to store 2 pairs of Ice skates in it. Santa is Most certainly real in Heartlake city. Who else would put put 2 gifts in the one package?
She also got a DSLR camera. I let you know Chloe's feelings at the end of the review.

Spares

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Just like last year I got this brilliant Santa! The only difference is that he has the standard open grin face print rather then the older man looking one...  He also comes a sack like last year and new this year is the cookie printed round tile. A nice strong finish for the lead up to Christmas! 

A couple of spares!

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On Jaspa's last day he got this awesome, awesome (so awesome I had to say it 3 times in the end) Darth Vader dressed in a Christmas cloak and carrying a sack. He also has a red cape and the print on the torso has little presents on his belt! Vader also has such lovely printed legs, as his "cloak" runs down over the legs. "Darth Santa" as Jaspa is calling him, is an absolute hit in the house this morning! You should of seen Jaspa's face! He knew he was getting him all month waiting patiently, (The box gives it away!!) and to finally have him in hand he couldn't contain himself!

I have noticed a few photos on the net today that show people getting a White grill piece on their fireplace, but we got a Black grill piece. A very kind reader pointed out that the grills were swapped, My son swapped it around... said it looked better.

Chloe was a little bit disappointed yet again that her Advent Calendar lacked a Santa...  Again her Advent finished on a present just like last years, she liked it... but I couldn't miss the disappointment on her face as we both got our Santa's this morning. Why couldn't TLG add an extra Minidoll to the set and have either a mum dressed as Mrs Santa Clause or have a dad (like Darth Vader) dressed up in a Santa suit. Finish it off strong like the City and Star Wars versions.


Make sure you pop back in tomorrow to see a little greeting from us!

That's it...  Day 24... The final day of the Advent Calendar reviews is in the bag!

In the last 24 days (up to now.. now) we have had our biggest page views count to date since starting our blog. We have racked up just over 15,000 views for this month alone and we still have 7 days left.
Our previous record was for the same time last year when we got 13,000 views when we did the Advent Calendar Reviews.
It's incredible to see those number really, because we didn't think anyone would be interested in anything we had to say and then stay, considering in our first month of going live we only had 744 views.

Thank you for dropping by every day this month and joined us on this journey. We appreciate everyone who reads our little blog and we enjoy reading comments when we get them, either here or mostly on Facebook and sometimes on the Whirlpool forum. Each one of those comments drive us to create new content. 

A HUGE Thank You for sticking with us!

Tan Tile, Tash, Chloe and Jaspa signing out! 

LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Twenty Three Review.

Welcome back for Day 23!

Only one more day to go and we are done for the calendar reviews!

Hopefully by now you are all set for the big day and you have all your Christmas Shopping done. Lets face it, the shopping centers will be jam packed!

Lego aisles will be low on stock and all those sets that were sold will be ready and waiting under millions of Trees. All for that moment when the boys and girls (young, middle aged and old) from around the world wake up on Christmas morning, eager to rip apart the wrapping and start building and having fun!

I simply can not wait! Can you imagine how excited our kids are too? Lol

So what awesome gifts did we get today?


This morning it was Chloe's turn to get a Christmas Tree. And such a lovely tree it is! When I woke up this morning, the first thing Chloe did was come racing up to me, extremely happy to have gotten this Christmas tree. I was surprised to find out through Bricklink that the Green Slope 75 2 x 2 x 2 Quadruple Convex has only been in 7 sets in the past 12 years ( and 2 came in this years Advent set alone) so its a very uncommon piece. I should have realised it back on Day 4 when we first saw the piece that came with the Deer (better late then never). The tree topper is a 1 x 1 Jewel Heart Rock in Trans Pink and it was a new piece for 2014 and only seen in the Disney Princess Theme.

Just the one spare.

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This morning I got the groovy trike bike/tricycle ! Its a simple build using very few parts. The front wheel holder is normally only seen on flying vehicles like planes or helicopters so it's cool to see it on a ground vehicle. The tricycle zooms around pretty smoothly too. It's a great gift and it soooo reminds my of my sons "Radio Flyer" he got 2 years ago... I really like today's gift! 

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Jaspa got something a little more seasonal then Star Warsie < is that even a word?... Anyway what he built was a fireplace. On each side of the fireplace was a Lightsaber (a Blue one and a Red one) and sitting on the top of the mantle is what I believe to be a Jedi Holocron, just like the one seen in 75018: JEK-14's Stealth Starfighter.
All Jaspa cared about were the Lightsabers. He was happy to know Luke got his Lightsaber and Jaspa knows that tomorrow is the last day to open a door, so the Red Lightsaber will be for... you will have to wait and see ;-P

Spares...

Only 2 more sleeps to go!!

Well, that's it for Day 23 of the Advent Calendar reviews. Thank you for dropping by and please check in again with us tomorrow to see what little goodies we get to build. :-)

Tan Tile signing out! See you all again tomorrow.

LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Twenty Two Review.

Welcome to Day 22. We only have 2 days left  of the Advents and we are done for another year.

Each day the kids are getting more excited, I miss that feeling that they now have at this moment. The mystery; the wonderment; sneaking for a peek at  the presents under the tree every chance you had, and shaking it for clues... ahh those were the days.

The kiddies were up much earlier then me today and they had already cracked opened their calendars doors and built them before I even thought about getting out of bed.

Lets scroll down to see what goodies they god behind door number 22...



Well... in typical fashion the Friends calendar likes to do it slow... (not in a bad way I might add) It just likes to build up a scene rather then give the kids an "instant" play thing. Today Chloe got a box with a bow in it. What I liked about today's interesting gift is that the lid is used with the studs down. It's something you don't see every day or at all really. Chloe seems to think the bow is a gift for her "cute wittle kitty cat".

Spares.

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Today's gift is one that we get every year. But each year it is always slightly different, and it seems to get smaller and smaller as the years pass... Today I got our more then expected Christmas tree. It's nicely decorated with "lights" and has a Trans Yellow jewel as it's tree topper. The one thing that I would have preferred with this years tree is, using 2x2 round plates instead of the square ones. I will most likely use the parts from this tree and about 10 others we have to hopefully make one grand Christmas tree one day. It's always fun to build a tree.

Plenty of spare Trans studs.

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According to this whole family, Jaspa's gift for today was the coolest!  What he got was an Exclusive "Festive Astromech", with print details of Red Ornaments on it's cone head to make it look like a Christmas tree. The droid only has printing on the front, nothing at the back. The cone is such a fun and unique piece and its set off with a sparkly tree topper! Jaspa is over the moon about it, he has somewhat an affinity to Astromech Droids.

A couple of Spares.

We could have had a Hat-Trick of Christmas trees today but no, Friends had to give us a bow. Maybe Chloe gets hers tomorrow?

3 sleeps till Santa! Wooo!

Well, that's it for Day 22 of the Advent Calendar reviews. Thank you for dropping by and please check in again with us tomorrow to see what little goodies we get to build. :-)

Tan Tile signing out! See you all again tomorrow.