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Following on from the Rubik Cube themed goodie list I posted a little while back, I’d now like to present a list of interesting and quirky Lego related gifts. Thanks to my wife for spotting the first of these in the Metro newspaper, which is the Lego Wallet. These wallets are built to order by hand, and the bricks are glued together so it won’t keep coming apart in your pocket.
You can choose from a wallet made with either two Lego baseplates for the sides, or for a slightly thicker wallet the sides can be constructed from a variety of different coloured Lego bricks. The wallet opens via a sturdy zip which is glued to the two sides, which makes sense as I don’t think making the entire thing out of Lego would be that good an idea. They are available direct from ColorByNumbers, although last orders for Christmas have passed already unfortunately. Still, it’ll make a good next years birthday gift!
My next Lego inspired item is great for those who love to play in the kitchen! The Lego minifigure kitchen scales.
They are made in the shape of a giant Lego man head, complete with comedy moustache! The scales can weigh in both metric and imperial, and will make weighing out ingredients when cooking a bit more entertaining.
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I’m not sure why, but the Eighties seemed to be a time when breaking the world domino toppling record became a bit of a mania, particularly among Japanese students as I recall.
When I was very small I first got into building with Lego with a selection of Duplo bricks, or as my family called them, Big Lego! Â Back then they were pretty simple looking bricks. Â I only remember having the 4×2 studded and 2×2 studded rectangular bricks, and a largish base to build on which was fitted with wheels. Â Despite the simplicity though, many houses, cars and towers were built with those bricks.
By the time the early 1980’s came around I was around about the right age to start making model aeroplanes such as those made most famously by Airfix. Â I can’t claim to have been very good at it, but it was good fun and the finished models looked great on my shelf or hanging from the ceiling.
I remember loving my Sticklebricks when I was but a toddler, and still enjoyed playing with them with my sister when she was the right sort of age for them. For little hands Sticklebricks were probably the best building toy out there, dare I say it even better than Duplo (or Big Lego as we always called it) as they were easier to push together. You didn’t really need to be too accurate with them thanks to their unique design.
When I first saw the advert on TV for the Play Doh Mop Top Barber Shop I really, really wanted one. Â Trouble is, I was really too old for Play Doh by then, so instead I kept urging my younger sister to ask for one so that I could have a go with it. Â I think she would have liked to have had it too, but ultimately we never quite convinced Mum to buy us one, and instead we had to settle for her 
Lego was always one of my favourite toys, but by the time you reach a double digit age the normal Lego Town or Space Lego sets begin to become a little too simplistic to hold your attention – despite the fact that when you reach adulthood you’ll be more than happy to go back to these sets! In an attempt to increase sales in this older age group the Lego company came up with the idea of making some more challenging kits that would hold an older child’s interest.
There have always been two great modelling toys as far as I’m concerned. There’s Play Dough (or Play-Doh to give it its Homer Simpon-esque commercial name) and Plasticene. Both came in a range of colours, had a unique smell, kind of like marzipan though not quite, and could be twisted, rolled and generally formed into whatever shape you wanted.
