#mini bricks

Panda Blocks Model

When I took Dad to the Dublin/Pleasanton BART on Wednesday, I went to check out Savers (since we don't have them in the Valley) and dropped in at the Daiso next door. We do have Daiso, but stores vary in what they stock. The one off Dublin Blvd was loaded with these little block kits, which are not blind boxes. You can imagine my shock at seeing something cute in a non-blind-box format!

So when I went back on Friday to retrieve Dad, I stopped at Daiso again and bought the gachapon because (a) it's a symbol of today's society and (b) it seemed the most likely to fit the scale of at least one of my dollhouse communities. There are obviously at least 7 more options, which include video arcade machines (but no pinball or slot machines).

The dark tone of the pic with the pieces and instructions is because I went to assemble it Friday night, looked at all that, and decided to do it later. Sunday afternoon was 'later."

Here we are. This set over-relies on stacking flat slabs.

Here's are two points at which I considered giving up and calling it a waste of $6. Brick tolerance is not nearly as precise as with real Lego. Parts of this ought to be assembled with tweezers, but too much pressure is needed to do it that way. Even with lots of pressure, the structural stability is wanting, especially around the clear front. The instructions are okay but not brilliant -- a lot of pieces look similar.

It's cute. It's clever in having moving parts, so you can put the balls in and get them out. The completed version looks better in the photos than it does to me in person. The top part clear part opens, which is neat-o, but it doesn't stay together well in the process, which is why no pics.

My mini garden

Loz flowers and Mekansm Pet day American Shorthair micro blocks

wild animals (safari) (2) lion (4) flamingo

wild animals (jungle) (2) panda

friends of dogs and cats (9) american shorthair

friends of the sea (1) whale (2) dolphin (5) baby penguin (6) great white shark (7) saltwater crocodile (8) orca (9) manta ray

friends of the deep sea (2) oarfish (3) coelacanth (4) footballfish

animal (1) rabbit (2) hamster (3) parakeet (4) lesser panda (5) fox (6) tanuki (7) kingfisher (8) long-tailed tit

dinosaur friend (1) tyrannosaurus (3) pteranodon (4) triceratops (5) stegosaurus (6) spinosaurus (8) velociraptor (9) ankylosaurus (10) mosasaurus

work vehicle (1) excavator (2) police car (4) ambulance (5) bulldozer

robot builders (3) fighter

monsters (I) dragon (II) unicorn (III) phoenix (IV) fenrir (V) qilin (VI) azure dragon (VII) ifrit (VIII) leviathan