That old saying, “work smarter, not harder,” isn’t in my vocabulary thanks to the influence of my hard-working parents. I tend to work hard, but I also like to think I work smart too. For example, this year, I started a LEGO Club at my elementary school. Now I know what you’re thinking, “How is that working smart?” I encourage you to come on a journey with me and I’ll tell you how. Life Is Like A Box Of LEGO I started considering hosting a LEGO Club at my school in the summer of 2021. I remember telling my school admin about my idea at the annual staff picnic. They lit up at the idea! But, you know, life… As an Education Assistant, my job is extremely demanding. It is emotionally draining a lot of the time, thus the high burnout rate in the profession. Instead of quitting, I took a...

Today’s article comes from guest contributor BrickinNick who attended the New York launch of LEGO Fortnite. LEGO Fortnite Hello BrickNerd readers! I’m BrickinNick, a content creator, LEGO Master and avid gamer. BrickNerd was kind enough to invite me to be a guest contributor for a special event held in New York City: an early look at LEGO Fortnite for press and fan media, featuring a hands-on game demo and roundtable Q&A. This was an extremely exciting invitation to receive, as my favorite types of custom builds to create are ones based on video games. I’ve even tackled a wide variety of Fortnite-based builds over the years, so I couldn’t wait to get a glimpse of what LEGO and Fortnite were building together! View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize Going Digital… Again But before talk about what is new, let’s take a step back at what has come before. Going...

There are some things that only happen once in a lifetime, so when they do, you go all out. Five siblings attending a LEGO convention together is one of those things, so when that happened to us at Brickworld Chicago earlier this year, we knew the achievement called for a big collaboration. But there was a hitch. You might know that my family lives in South America. You almost certainly are aware that air travel is not known for its friendliness to LEGO creations. Besides, with the size of collaboration we were going for, there’d hardly have been enough room in our luggage! Enter the amazingly generous LEGO community, which helped us raise money through a GoFundMe. Dozens of PAB cups and BrickLink orders later, we had the bricks we needed to build a show stopper. But bricks are only half the battle. Finding a strong concept for our collaboration was...

A new month is upon us which means more competitive building! Are you ready? Here’s the latest batch of LEGO contests and challenges from all around the AFOL community for December 2023 to help you find some inspiration and motivation to build! There’s nothing quite like a theme or a prompt to take you out of your comfort zone and give you something new to try. Besides, contests are the perfect place to interact with other contestants and judges and get to know your fellow builders. And if you’re like me, a deadline helps make sure you actually finish! We’ve listed them in order of deadline so you can plan your building time to the best advantage. Make sure to check the LEGO activity calendar for local challenges and events near you. Here at BrickNerd, some of our fondest memories, greatest building achievements, coolest trophies, and best friendships came from LEGO...

Forget the typical Western Main Street with a bank, saloon and the sheriff’s office. This Mexican layout shows a different take on a Western theme, and is a wonderful collaboration of Vesna, MstrOfPppts, Peter and Anakin2001_lego. The layout is filled with plenty of buildings, all of them different but with a coherent style. The vegetation and rockwork bring a bit more color into it, and the well-made minifig combinations make it come alive. And if you look closely there are plenty fun details like the piñata that’s hidden on the roof. I could go on but Vesna aka Readhead1982 was so kind to tell us a bit more about this MOC. So make sure to read on and take a closer look at some of the close-ups! Inspiration Marco: Can you tell me how you and the others came up with this idea?  Vesna: The idea was initially proposed by MstrOfPppts, and...