Today's Review: JMBricklayer 20104 Botanical Collection Succulent Flower Set

Welcome back to It's Not Lego, my blog where I review the latest Lego compatible building block sets.  Today I'm reviewing the 20104 9 pack Succulent set, the latest in a series of botanical building block sets from JMBricklayer.  

Thanks to JMBricklayer for providing the building set for this review!

This appealing succulent set can be found on their the JMBricklayer website or from their Amazon shop if you like it.  Sets come with free worldwide shipping.  Check out their website for more details.  Also don't forget to check out JMBricklayer's latest promotion and contests!

Use my discount code "itsnotlego15%" to save on applicable purchases from the website.

At a glance

Brand: JMBricklayer

Set: 20104 Succulent Set (9 different plants)

Theme: Botanical Collection

Piece count:  750 pieces

Numbered bags? No

Stickers or printed parts? No

Missing or deformed pieces: No

Extra parts: Yes

Minifigures: No

Lighting kit: No

Brick Quality and Clutch: Excellent

Measurements (approx): N/A

Age Rating: 14+

Unboxing

Here is the colourful box for the JMBricklayer's succulent collection.

Inside the box, it is jam packed with a total of 10 bags of parts and a package of separate instruction sheets to build 9 different succulent plants.  There are a total of 750 pieces in this set.

There is one bag of parts and a two sided instruction page for each of the 9 plants. The turquoise coloured plant also uses the extra bag of small flowers.

Here are all nine of the succulent plants completed.  Each succulent plant comes with a unique shaped planter.   They were easy to assemble and look great by themselves, in smaller groups or displayed all together.   All the flower parts clutch together very well and the quality of the pieces used is excellent. I really like all the colours and flower types.  

For the research for this blog post, I learned the names of some of the succulents, such as Haworthia, Echeveria, Graptopetalum, and Sedum to name a few.  I think flower #1 looks like a sedum, flower #5 looks like echeveria, and graptopetalum might be flower #7, and haworthia - flower #3.  If you know more about succulents, please let me know what the other flowers are called and whether I got them right or not.

There's a small handful of parts leftover afterwards.

I like them all but if I had to choose, I think the leafy green plant (pictured top left) looks the most realistic. The pink flower succulent (pictured top center) is also another favourite of mine.  

In conclusion, it was very satisfying to build these little representations of succulent plants.  They make a very nice display for your home decor.  They are small enough to not take up too much space on your desk or table but still add a pop of colour and vibrancy to your indoor space.  Best of all you don't have to maintain any of these lifelike plants.  

Here's my entire JMBricklayer botanical collection.  If you missed my other reviews, you can find them below.

JMBricklayer 20109 Flower Bouquet

JMBricklayer 20106 White Orchid

My rating for this 9 pack JMBricklayer succulent set is 5 out of 5.  Please let me know what you think and whether you agree with my rating.  Thanks for visiting and see you next time, bye!

What's my latest build? It's the JMBricklayer 70124 Mechanical Chameleon set

 

Hi and welcome back to my blog about Lego compatible building block sets.  I've got another set from JMBricklayer to show you today, it's the Mechanical Chameleon 70124 and it's the latest addition to my growing collection of mecha inspired building block sets.   

In case you missed those set reviews:

70102 Mechanical Astronaut (Chrome)

70107 Mechanical Dinosaur (Brown)

70109 Mechanical Astronaut (Gold)

This post about the JMBricklayer Mechanical Chameleon looks at the 5 major building sections and the completed set.  For the initial unboxing post for the Mechanical Chameleon, you can find that post here.

For the latest JMBricklayer promotions, check them out here.

Here's the first stage of the build.  As you can see it is comprised of the chameleon body and the head.  The heart of the chameleon is a green light brick that can light up.

Here are all the parts for stage 1.  At first glance we find that the brick quality is very good.  Colours are consistent and the transparent blue eyeball glass is not scuffed.

Here are the instructions to attach the chameleon head to the body.  It is hinged to allow some posing and movement.

So far, so good.  The eyeball can be rotated depending on the look you want.  Also, I love the look of the gears, too bad they don't do anything though.

In this stage, the body and head of the chameleon get extra greebling, along with some detail on the top.

Here are the pieces for this stage.

In the picture above, we inserted the tube that goes into the round light brick.  The top of the light brick swivels just a bit and then the light comes on.  The neon green light travels along the length of the tube.  Very cool.

I ran into problems on step 90 of the second stage.  I couldn't keep all the pieces together when attaching the light tube as per the instructions.

This is how the assembled part is supposed to look like.

Unfortunately,  the tube was a bit too stiff and it caused the other pieces not to clutch.

This was the best I could do.  I left come pieces unattached, but still managed to have the light working.  I had mentioned my issue on JMBricklayer's Facebook page, and they tried to help by putting together this small tutorial for anyone that needs it on their website.   

Here's the link to the tutorial page:  

https://www.jmbricklayer.com/chameleon-70124-building-tutorial/

Since I had already assembled mine, I decided to keep it as is, but if you are building the chameleon for the first time, please use the tutorial in combination with the instructions.

Here's stage 3.  In this stage we are adding the tail and the green translucent shell pieces for the body and tail.

The moulded pieces are tinged in light green and have some markings on them.  There are pieces for the head, body, tail, arm and leg.

Here is the tail assembled and attached to the body.  I didn't have any issues with the tail, but you can refer to the tutorial webpage I mentioned earlier if you encounter any problems.  The tail can be displayed straight or curled up.

With the body shell attached you can see the green glow from the light brick underneath.  I wish they could have had room for two light bricks, with the other tube light going down the tail.  How cool would that be?

In stage four, the legs and the remaining green tinged shell pieces will be added.  Also in this step the chameleon tongue is eating a flying insect.

Tada, the mechanical chameleon is complete.  As you can see, it is possible for the chameleon to stand on his own legs, as he is supported by his tail and tongue.

This is the view from the non mecha side of the chameleon.  Do you see that there is not only a green colour but also a purple tinge to the shell as well?

But wait, we aren't finished yet, there is still the display stand to build.

Here are the last pieces that will build the stand.

The chameleon is perched on his display.  This is the mechanical side on display.

And here is the translucent body side.  Again I wish that somehow more lighting could be added to the tail and the tongue to give it extra effect.

In case you were wondering, I had a handful of pieces leftover and did not encounter any missing parts.

Just want to add that once the mechanical chameleon is mounted to the display, it is very sturdy and can be moved around easily.  I took the set to the backyard to display and nothing fell off.

I hope you have enjoyed my review of the 827 piece JMBricklayer 70124 Mechanical Chameleon building set.  I did have some challenges on step 2, but since it is mostly an aesthetic issue and not a functional one, it doesn't affect the display of the chameleon.  Other than that, this was an enjoyable build and as you can see from the final result it was worth the effort.

This cool looking set can be ordered from the  JMBricklayer website. See their latest promos here.

It is also available from the various JMBricklayer Amazon stores, just search Amazon for JMBricklayer to find it.

Thanks for looking!

The JMBricklayer 21102 Coffee Shop Set Review, It's Lego compatible

 It's review time at It's Not Lego and today, we will take a closer look at the JMBricklayer 21102 Coffee shop!

Update:  I modified the Coffee shop to fit my modular city!  Check out my mods here:  https://bricksandfigs.blogspot.com/2023/04/i-completely-rebuilt-jmbricklayer.html

Where to Get it

Today's set was generously provided to me by JMBricklayer.com for the purpose of the review.  

Get it from their web store, on sale right now.

Or from the JMBricklayer Amazon store (discount coupon).

For other non sale items, use my code ITSNOTLEGO15% to save 15% in the JMBricklayer web store.

Coffee Shop Details

• Brand: JMBricklayer
• Set: Coffee Shop 21102
• Theme: City Architecture
• Piece count: 1512 pieces
• Numbered bags? Yes
• Stickers or printed parts? Both
• Missing or deformed pieces: Yes
• Extra parts: Yes
• Minifigures: No
• Lighting kit: included
• Brick Quality and Clutch: Great
• Measurements (approx): 8"W x 6" D x 7.5" H
• Age Rating: 14+

Unboxing

Here's a look at what we get in the box.  Various bags of parts, an instruction manual and a small sticker sheet.  Not sure why they spelled Coffee as Coffe, both on the manual and on the printed parts.

Here's my inventory of parts bags corresponding to the steps in the manual:

step 1: 10 bags

step 2:  9 bags

step 3:  8 bags

plus one LED light strand and battery pack.

Step 1 Highlights

Assembling the base of the coffee shop.

Ooh, we got some printed parts including some milk containers, some coffee cups with logos on them, a cookie, a payment terminal and a couple of records.

Here's the coffee counter setup with room for a barista minifigure which is sadly not included.  Love the cookie jar, the coffee maker, and the coffee grinder.

Step 1 finished.  The scale of the front door doesn't match the scale of the interior, it's way too big.  It's something I'll want to fix at a later date.  The owner of the coffee shop must love the sound of old school vinyl records.

Step 2 Highlights

More printed parts! Some more cups and cookies as well as some wall art and a clock.

Interesting concept of having a giant tree inside your coffee shop.  

Now we see that all those printed pieces are placed into the adjacent seating area.  The hinged wall makes it so much easier to take pictures of the inside.

Step 3 Highlights

Misprinted signs.  Would have preferred if it said Coffee Shop instead.

Main building is complete.

Roof 1 covers the counter area and gets a nice skylight.

Roof 2 covers the tree and seating area but didn't come with any glass panes.  I wonder if this was a case of missing parts or was it designed not to have any glass in the roof.

Exterior accessories include a lamp post and a shelving unit full of plants.

The completed Coffee Shop!

The side less frequented.

Overhead view.

Bonus Pictures

The JMBricklayer Coffee shop doesn't come with any minifigures, so I added a few of my own.   Here's Betty the barista.  And there's that one sticker which is the menu board.

Shift change at the coffee counter.  Ted has come in for the night shift.

Betty takes a break before heading home, after a long day at the shop.

Now that Betty has left, Ted can play his favourite Barry Manilow songs on the record player.

Er, not everyone is a fan of Barry Manilow, sorry Ted.

Can't forget that the Coffee shop comes with an LED light string.  There's no right or wrong way to place the light strand, so I just weave it around randomly inside.

Summary

The JMBricklayer 21102 Coffee Shop set was a lot of fun to build and makes a nice addition to your building block collection, especially if you like these little shops that open up to display the detailed interior.

The bricks used were excellent quality and had great clutch as evidenced by my pictures. I really liked all the nice details behind the coffee counter and the record player was a cool bonus.  The plant stand outside was nice to have but probably wasn't really necessary.

The large tree in the sitting area provided a nice canopy for the coffee shop patrons. This set came with a lot of printed parts like coffee cups, wall art, and signage, however the menu board behind the coffee counter was a sticker.

Play value is good because you can open up the shop to display and place your own minifigures with ease. And because the bricks are Lego compatible, you can display it with all of of your other Lego and alternative brick sets.  The included LED light string is something you definitely don't get in any Lego set.

The set is not perfect though.  The entrance door is way too large for the shop despite the interior being minifigure scale.  The rooftop over the sitting area didn't come with any glass panes, so you wouldn't want to be sitting there during a rainstorm.

Let's not forget the glaring spelling mistake for Coffee on the signage either.  

Rating

Going over all the pluses and minuses, I'll give this set a rating of 4.3.  I would have rated it higher if the spelling on the sign was correct, the roof glass included, a standard sized door was used and maybe one or two minifigures included with the set.

Thanks again JMBricklayer.com for the set.  Please visit their website or their Amazon store if you get a chance. Bye for now!