Category Archives: Tools, Tips & Testing

The Brick is Afoot

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Leave it to LEGO to bring the iconic Baker Street right to your bookshelf! With all your favorite characters, nods to the books, and even some hidden surprises, it’s the perfect set for fans of history’s most famous consulting detective. In collaboration with the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate and exclusive to Barnes & Noble, it also doubles as a book nook! LOVE.

The set retails for $130, and clocks in at 1359 pieces. While it is slated for 18+ builders, I definitely think kids can put it together with some assistance. Mostly, it’s the amount of pieces and some semi-tricky moving elements that caused me to goof up during the various stages of my LEGO journey. Otherwise, it was a very straightforward build experience (which is always top notch when it comes to LEGO).

The instruction booklet has an absolutely wonderful preface that touches on the history of the Holmes books, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the various characters. There’s even a little mystery right off the bat as you tuck a significant object into Watson’s tiny briefcase! And speaking of Minifigures:

Look at Irene Adler! She’s wearing proper little white gloves! But I really started to nerd out when I got to the section that included Holmes’ study:

Recognize the painting over the mantle? It’s Sidney Paget’s illustration of Reichenbach Falls from The Final Problem! There’s also the Dancing Man code, and “RACHE” from A Study in Scarlet. The folks at LEGO really did their homework, and very thoughtfully scattered interesting facts and book connections into the build instructions.

I was also absolutely delighted at one of the final details of the set. A silhouette of Holmes, which mimics the classic book cover.

There are a couple little surprises in this set, but I’m not going to reveal them here. This would be the perfect gift for a current Holmes fan, or pair it with a set of books to inspire the next generation of readers! Five out of five stars!

Tiny Potter

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In addition to being super into show jumping story times, freaked out by clowns, and unusually influenced by a cookbook, I really really REALLY love miniatures (ask my daughter about my obsession with dollhouse cakes). So when MGA’S Mini Verse released a “Wizarding World: Harry Potter Make it Mini Potions Class” set, I was beyond thrilled to enter the miniature world of Hogwart’s.

The set, which is intended for ages 8+ and contains over 100+ pieces, retails for around $30. I’ll say it from the jump…the quality of the materials in this set was outstanding. The pieces were good quality plastic, felt substantial, had a lot of details, and were really pleasing to work with. Everything was packed extraordinarily well, with easy instructions printed on the outside of each of the parts containers.

However, there was one set of instructions floating free inside the box. While it did say “Read Me First!” in big letters, I honestly almost missed the piece of paper as I unpacked everything. Good thing I did spot it because it had all the information about resin, glue, and potions. I’m not sure why these instructions weren’t incorporated with the others. It would have been much easier to construct everything that way.

I must also say…this set puts you to WORK! One of the first steps is to lay each individual classroom floor tile using a pot of glue (cleverly disguised as a wooden bucket) and a mini float (which yes, know I am technically holding the wrong way in the photo).

I also had to lay each brick on the walls, using more glue and a mini trowel. Like the floor tiles, the spaces for the bricks were individually numbered, so matching each to its assigned space was easy.

At this point, I was honestly looking for Dobby the house elf to help me out. But I forged on, snapping together the pieces for the two bookcases, work table, and arranging all the little bottles and jars.

When the classroom was finished, it was time for the main event: concocting the mini potion! You had a choice of two: purple or teal. Following the instructions, I gathered all the equipment and ingredient bottles.

To make a potion, you have to pour the powder into the resin inside the cauldron, stir it, use tongs to add some color beads to an empty bottle, funnel the purple resin into said bottle which you then seal and tie a label on. What could possibly go wrong? Ummmmmmm…

Oh, I made a mess. The purple powder went everywhere, I dropped the funnel, everything got all over my fingers, my shirt, my desk. Snape would have absolutely deducted 50 points from Ravenclaw for my potions ineptitude. But when it was finally complete, it was a very pretty potion. I’m not sure if the resin was ultimately supposed to harden, but weeks later, the potion is still sloshing around in the bottle. So caretakers with curious children who like to unbottle things be warned. You may want to keep this particular potion far out of reach.

The amount of labor, glue, resin, and general potential for messiness leads me to suggest that this set for kids ages 10+ (but ok for 8 year-olds with adult assistance). As I mentioned before, the details on the set are exquisite and it’s fun to arrange and re-arrange the miniatures. This would be fantastic for a Harry Potter fan, and a great art kit to boot. 4.75 out of 5!

Alice’s Adventures on the Bookshelf

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We swore it would never happen again. Never EVER would we put together another miniature library kit. Gentle people of the jury, I present exhibits A, B, and C as evidence. But then Katie found the most adorable Alice in Wonderland miniature puzzle kit at our local toy store, and she went right back down that rabbit hole. Was it an adventure in wonderland for Katie? Read on to find out!

Here we go again! Leave it to our friends at Princeton’s fabulous toy store, Jazams, to convince us to break the promise we made ourselves to NOT build another miniature library kit. To be fair, this Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland inspired diorama bookend is so cool, it was basically a forgone conclusion we would change our minds.

The Tonecheer Alice’s Adventure 3D Puzzle (HTQ128) is quite similar to the Sunshine Town book nook I tackled in 2023, though there are some differences that make this kit both faster and easier to build. It is available for purchase on Amazon for $42.99, the difficulty rating is 4.5 out of 5 stars and, like our other three kits, the age suggestion is 14+.

Upon opening the box, I found multiple precut wood plates with various sized pieces and parts that needed to be carefully popped out. There was an 11 x17 inch folded instruction sheet, the electronic lighting kit, and construction items to assist with the build (batteries not included).

The most important tool was the “Three-in-one Tool” wood piece, which was critical in saving my fingertips and, in some instances, my sanity as I was trying to push smaller pieces out of the plates as well as connecting bits and parts together.

One extremely nice touch to this kit is all of the pieces are ready to go right out of the box. Zero paint required. There are parts that need to be glued together, but even those are few and far between. Assisted by the handy “Three-in-one Tool,” I quickly put together the two levels of Alice’s adventure. The instructions were clear and very easy to understand. All told, it took about three hours to finish.

During the build, I had one struggle and made one mistake. The struggle was building the stump that surrounds the infamous rabbit hole where Alice falls. It took nearly ten attempts to connect the smallish pieces in a circle and then push the tabs of the round stump into the wood base. My once nimble fingers are clearly not as nimble.

My mistake was forgetting to tuck the light power cord behind two bars that connect the ceiling of Wonderland to the grassy ground. I completely missed the arrows and typed message alerting me to route the wires in a certain direction. Thankfully it was relatively easy to work backward, take sections apart and correct the error, but it was still a “duh!” moment.

There’s a lot to look at in the 3D Puzzle book nook! Alice herself is floating inside, along with the White Rabbit and Cheshire Cat. The mirrors at the back of the nook offer a deeper look to see all of the charming details.

As I mentioned, this kit is wired for lights, and it has a motion sensor to wow your friends as they walk by. The motion light illuminates for one minute before turning off, but the sensor is sensitive enough to quickly turn the light back on with gentle movement.

Has Alice surpassed the other builds as my favorite miniature library? No, I’m still enamored with the Sunshine Town cats! I will say Alice’s Adventure 3D Puzzle was the least tedious mini library build. It would also be much better for our younger crafters, though they may need an adult to help with installing the electronics. Another 4.5 out of 5 stars rating from me!