Review: 10342 Pretty Pink Flower Bouquet
Posted by Huw,10342 Pretty Pink Flower Bouquet is the fourth bouquet in the popular botanical collection. It contains an assortment of 15 flower and foliage stems which, despite the set's name, are not all pink.
Most of the varieties are appearing in brick-built form for the first time, but a couple of old favourites have been re-coloured and/or redesigned.
Summary
10342 Pretty Pink Flower Bouquet, 749 pieces.
£54.99 / $59.99 / €59.99 | 7.3p/8.0c/8.0c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
Beautiful and colourful selection of blooms, but they are difficult to display altogether
- Nice parts usage and interesting techniques
- Life-like and attractive
- Heavy flowerheads cause stems to bend
- Some are fiddly to build
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
The set contains ten different varieties, most in shades of pink or white, but also two extremely vibrant orange heads that look a bit out of place to me.
Let's take a look at them in turn...
Cornflower
10313 Wildflower Bouquet contains blue and white cornflowers and those here are constructed in the same way, but with dark green stems, white petals and pink stamens.
One stem comprises two heads and a bud, the other of a single head.
Eucalyptus
Specifically, Eucalyptus pulverulenta, or blue-leafed mountain gum, which is endemic to New South Wales. Cuttings of cultivated examples are often used in bouquets to give them volume and colour. Here, round 2x2 sand green tiles are clipped to two of the new curved 3.2 shafts with cross-axles and from the front it looks very effective, but a bit messy from behind.
Elder
Elder flowers are the source of a popular flavouring for drinks particularly, and the two cuttings of the tree here look wonderful. Both have flowers and berries: I'm not sure how realistic that is, given that one follows the other, but their different colours, textures and shapes certainly add interest to them, as do the dark grey branches.
Rose
I believe these are the sixth iteration of rose to have appeared in botanical sets and their revised design is definitely the best yet.
They are the first pink ones, and they make use of the same combination of wheel arch and shell as one design found in 10328 Bouquet of Roses, but this time the shells are offset by half a stud, so they interleave more closely and look much better as a result.
Blue daisy
Botanical sets have largely made use of existing pieces to recreate life-sized brick-built plants and that is part of their appeal. This year, though, several new elements have been introduced, including the light blue flower head piece used for these daisies. A yellow one can also be found in the dandelion in 30701 Field Flowers, which we reviewed recently.
Canterbury bells
Two new pieces are used here: an 'inverted bell' for the smaller flower heads, and a new type of three-pronged stalk which has 3.18 bars rather than the thin stems.
I haven't added pictures of them here, partly because New Elementary has already done a fantastic job of photographing them and exploring their potential, so check out the article over there if you'd like more information.
Persian buttercup
These definitely win the award for best parts usage in the set: each head comprises 30 axe heads in reddish orange and orange clipped to a steering wheel and an octagonal ring. I found it quite fiddly interleaving them in the way shown in the instructions, but I guess ultimately it doesn't matter whether they are constructed exactly as shown or not, given flowers are organic structures with natural variety.
They are undoubtedly vibrant and very attractive but, nevertheless, I think they look out of place in the otherwise pink bouquet.
Waterlily dahlia
Minifig shields almost look as if they were designed to be used as petals, and the 24 light nougat ones here give this impressive bloom a lovely shape and texture. Like the buttercup, it was fiddly to clip them equally spaced around the two steering wheels and angled into a pleasing shape, but with perseverance the end result looks magnificent.
Boat orchid
Last but certainly not least are the Cymbidiums, or boat orchids, whose deep colour and size dominate the bouquet.
The petals are the fourth new element in the set, and they look versatile enough to be used as petals, leaves and maybe even as tree canopies at minifig scale.
There is a lot going on inside the head to form the various parts of the flower: the white frog for the column, boat studs for the caps, and the white 1-wide and dark red 2-wide ferns at the bottom for the lip. It looks magnificent!
Displaying in a vase
32-long axles are used for eleven of the stems, some of which have axle joiners at the bottom to vary their height, so you will need a tall vase to display them in. It'll also need to be heavy: the weight of the heads had a tendency to tip the 3D printed one I used over, unless I was careful to evenly distribute the weight.
The heavy heads cause the stems to bow slightly and roll until the flower 'droops' to wherever gravity wants it to be. I therefore found it difficult to arrange them all pleasingly. I suspect a chunk of horticultural foam at the bottom of the vase to stick the stems in would help immensely, although I've heard conflicting views whether it reacts with LEGO pieces over time or not.
These are not problems unique to this bouquet, but the increased size and weight of many of the blooms has exacerbated them.
I found that 'less is more' and putting just a few into a smaller vase looked much better.
Verdict
Although I have concluded that the entire bunch is somewhat difficult to arrange altogether, and the orange blooms don't go well with the others, the individual flowers are all spectacular. They incorporate nice parts usage and new techniques, and every one of them showcases the versatility of LEGO and how parts designed for one thing can also be used for something entirely different.
If you have any of the other bouquets, you'll enjoy mixing and matching them together, perhaps putting the buttercups with others of a similar hue, and splitting the remainder of these into two or more vases.
LEGO can do no wrong with the botanical collection, and I can't even complain about the price because this bouquet is the same as the first, $59.99, £54.99, €59.99 for a similar number of pieces.
It'll be available at LEGO.com from 1st January and I suspect it will fly out of the warehouse.
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27 comments on this article
I feel like I need to make a Holy Grail joke here....
I need some more flowers to fill out my second vase, these look ideal.
Total miss. Nothing here makes me think of Molly Ringwald or John Hughes.
However, for some reason the Psychedlic Furs’ music is now stuck in my head
Stunning! If only Botanicals had been a 3 or 4 set novelty. Constant must haves are getting a bit pricey!
Looks like a block of Oasis might make for easier arrangement.
@ohrmazd said:
"However, for some reason the Psychedlic Furs’ music is now stuck in my head "
That's just The Ghost in You. ;-)
The Water Dahlia and Boat Orchid have particularly clever pieces!
Quite nice, but very delicate. I wouldn't want to knock them over.
@Maxbricks14 said:
"Quite nice, but very delicate. I wouldn't want to knock them over."
Actually. they are quite robust. They might go out of shape if you did but bits don't fall off easily.
I'll wait for a sale, These and other flower sets go on sale.
except book sets. I could be wrong on book sets ones... can preorder them though for price of a hardback book. Tiny Desert Garden, Tiny Wildflower Bouquet
wow target has now
I think expensive, lego should be $5, but buying a book too I guess $20 not bad. I rather just have lego.
These look spectacular. I will definitely have to pick them up sometime.
At Five Below recently they had some flower knock offs so I picked up a few since I didn't see LEGO made certain types (or the piece mold wasn't existing yet). But I will always prefer LEGO versions and these nailed it.
I have most of the previous botanical sets and I'm thinking to put orbees in the vases.
Anyone knows if that's healthy for lego or not?
There will be no direct light coming in, so that's no concern for me.
@WizardOfOss said:
"I feel like I need to make a Holy Grail joke here...."
Sixteen shalt thou not count, neither count thou Fourteen, excepting that thou then proceed to Fifteen. Seventeen is right out. Once the number fifteen, being the fifteenth number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Bouquet of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.
Thanks for the review Huw. And once again presented beautifully in one of your 3D printed vases.
@Huw said:
" @Maxbricks14 said:
"Quite nice, but very delicate. I wouldn't want to knock them over."
Actually. they are quite robust. They might go out of shape if you did but bits don't fall off easily."
Have you given it the cat test?
@Maxbricks14 said:
" @Huw said:
" @Maxbricks14 said:
"Quite nice, but very delicate. I wouldn't want to knock them over."
Actually. they are quite robust. They might go out of shape if you did but bits don't fall off easily."
Have you given it the cat test?"
The cat test is not 'given' - it comes only when it is not wanted.
Someone should do an article or poll on Lego sets that are a total, tedious pain in the backside to build but the finished build looks amazing. I can think of many, including Botanicals:)
Too.much in this. Flower arrangements are best kept simple. This one is over done and I am not surprised that the quality doesn't hold up over time.
No flower set should be over $50.
@shedjed said:
"Too.much in this. Flower arrangements are best kept simple. This one is over done and I am not surprised that the quality doesn't hold up over time.
No flower set should be over $50. "
those sets fly off shelves... at $60.
I really like these, but there are so many Botanical sets now that I have to be very judicious in what I buy! Flowers are cute but they're less interesting to me than specific plants, like the Orchid or Chinese quartet.
I am very pleased at the line's continued success, though! What initially seemed like a quirky idea has become one of LEGO's best original properties.
My sister-in-law first had the thought to use uncooked rice in a vase to give it more weight and shore up the stems, which you can just stab into the rice. Cheap, and it works well!
Cons: Fiddly to build
Sounds like a pro to me!
@Brickablat said:
"My sister-in-law first had the thought to use uncooked rice in a vase to give it more weight and shore up the stems, which you can just stab into the rice. Cheap, and it works well! "
Great idea! I tried 1x1 round tiles but they are a bit coarse and difficult to stab into.
Axes and shields being turned into flowers sounds like a world peace metaphor. I also hope such part usage will be continued; the clever use of existing parts to create the flowers has always been my favourite part of the Botanicals, so it’s a bit disappointing to hear that there’s four instances here of them just creating new elements to be the components they want
@Brickablat said:
"My sister-in-law first had the thought to use uncooked rice in a vase to give it more weight and shore up the stems, which you can just stab into the rice. Cheap, and it works well! "
I was as thinking of sand, but this sounds like a great solution too!
@Huw said:
" @Brickablat said:
"My sister-in-law first had the thought to use uncooked rice in a vase to give it more weight and shore up the stems, which you can just stab into the rice. Cheap, and it works well! "
Great idea! I tried 1x1 round tiles but they are a bit coarse and difficult to stab into."
Technic connectors really do the job as well.
@WizardOfOss said:
"I feel like I need to make a Holy Grail joke here...."
"That's not the cup of a carpenter..."
@Sethro3 said:"These look spectacular. I will definitely have to pick them up sometime.
At Five Below recently they had some flower knock offs so I picked up a few since I didn't see LEGO made certain types (or the piece mold wasn't existing yet). But I will always prefer LEGO versions and these nailed it."
I've seen those at Walmart. Never considered getting them, as the only non-Lego interlocking brick toys I buy are the occasional Mega Pokémon.
All I see its amazing partpack.