So from what I understand (and you may correct me, especially if you are British :)) the term 'Chocolate Box Cottage' refers to a picturesque, sentimentally appealing countryside cottage. I first heard the term while me and my wife were watching the awesome BBC TV-show 'Escape to the Country' - a show where prospective buyers get help to find a home in the countryside. An overwhelming majority of the people on the show seemed to look for a home that is 'Chocolate Box', which usually meant a thatched, half-timbered cottage with beams, low ceiling, inglenook (which seems to be some kind of walk-in fireplace) and a pretty little garden.

The show was essentially the inspiration for this build, and hopefully it has done the term 'Chocolate Box' justice :)

I actually built most of the cottage almost 2 years ago, but couldn't manage to build a nice roof for it. So since then it has been sitting on a shelf at home and from time to time I've been thinking of building a proper roof for it. Then about 2 months ago I found tan 1x1 clips on the Copenhagen Pick-a-Brick wall, and got the idea for this roof technique. It's quite intricate and uses more than its fair share of clips and bars, but I think it looks quite realistic :)

Technically, the roof is probably the only novel element of this build. The nature is pretty similar to many of my other builds, and the cottage is honestly quite dated. The composition is ok, but I had a few measurement constraints which made the area in front of the house slightly smaller than I would have liked and also ruled out the use of any taller trees.

This build will also be part of my return to Guilds of Historica over at Eurobricks, where I got started with lego building a few years ago :) Just have to write a good story for it first, but I'm quite excited to build some medieval themed builds again :D

Hope you enjoyed the build! I certainly enjoyed building it, except perhaps attaching all the bars to clips ;)

instagram
fullplatebuilds.com

Tags:   LEGO MOC Chocolate Box Cottage Tree Garden House Thatched EscapeToTheCountry

© All Rights Reserved

'What goes up, must come down' as the old saying goes. Unfortunately, the opposite does not seem to be true, and what goes down into the deep is likely to stay there for a long time.

Although this is quite a tongue-in-cheek build, it touches on a subject that is quite serious - us dumping our garbage into the oceans. Retrieving trash from the oceans is expensive, time-consuming and dangerous, and most of the trash on the ocean floors is unfortunately already out of our reach - either economically or technologically.

The positive news is that garbage is much easier to deal with before it is tossed into the sea. So let's do what we can to keep it where it belongs, and save ourselves the time and money that we will undoubtedly have to spend cleaning it up later.

Or better yet - recycle!

This was my entry into the Swebrick AFOL vs AFOL contest which had the topic 'Under the Surface'.

You can read more about the build at Full Plate Builds :)

Tags:   LEGO MOC Garbage Paradise Beach Ocean Palm Tree Sandcastle Trash Pollution Swebrick Contest

© All Rights Reserved

As day turns to night all colors fade to grey.

This is my entry for Swebrick's single color competition.

You can read more about the build at Full Plate Builds :)

Tags:   LEGO MOC Twilight Cemetery Church Tree Grey Swebrick Contest

© All Rights Reserved

'This roadtrip is going to be great!', they had said.
Well, here I was, driving down a seemingly endless road in Kansas, and had been doing so for over two hours. I could hardly remember the last time I touched the wheel - this road just kept going straight ahead with not even the slightest hint of a curve. The scenery was no better and could be summed up in one word: plains. Green, flat, never-ending plains. Sure, ahead you had the majestic outline of the Rockies, and yes, it seemed to be pretty close. But it had already seemed close two hours ago. Like a mirage, taunting you with the promise of something better just to remain out of reach, and at this point I had stopped hoping.
Behind me, eight of my travel companions were all snoozing. Odd, since it was only mid-afternoon, but it seemed this environment had a sedative effect on everyone, not just me. Next to me sat my designated map reader who was the only reason I had not yet gone crazy. There was obviously no map reading to be done. Here there was only one direction: straight ahead. To his credit, he had instead taken it upon himself to keep me occupied and we had had some pretty interesting conversations. Ultimately though, even he had been reduced to just sitting there staring blindly into the distance. We were two friends suffering together in this seemingly static nightmare.
But wait! Surely the mountians were closer now? And we could even spot some of the hills coming up. This was it! It had to be! Yes, the road started to bend, and soon we found ourselves cruising through the foothills! The road flowing with the terrain around it - something new to see around every corner. And trees! Glorious trees!
I looked over at my fellow companion with a smile and he was smiling too. Finally we had some enjoyable driving ahead of us! Our perserverence had paid off!
- 'Good job Emil' I heard a voice from the back. 'Pull over as soon as you can and we'll switch drivers'.
It seemed I was destined to enjoy the foothills through a heavily tinted window in the back of an overcrowded van instead of having the pleasure of driving through this wonderful landscape.

This was from a road trip I took in university with some friends, and although perhaps a bit exaggerated here, the road through Kansas into Colorado is certainly not the most exciting driving to be had ;) Boring driving aside, the trip was loads of fun and I would love to go back with the family some time. But yeah, I'm a trees and mountains kinda guy, and open landscapes, though pretty in its own way, is not where I feel at home. Trees please!

Tags:   LEGO MOC Foothills Microscale Tree Road Mountain Hill

© All Rights Reserved

Coral bleaching is an effect of our seas heating up. As temperatures rise, corals expel the algae living inside them, leaving them completely white. Though this does not actually kill the corals, it weakens them and many of the corals never recover.

This build was my entry to LEGO IDEAS contest 'HELP DECORATE THE LEGO HOUSE!' and managed to secure one of the winning spots :) So come autumn it should be on exhibit in LEGO House, as long as it survives the transport there that is ;)

instagram
fullplatebuilds.com

Tags:   LEGO MOC Contest Coral Bleaching Environment

© All Rights Reserved