Lego Flower Bouquet review: interesting build, great on display

Cut flowers are a beautiful way to decorate a home, until they die. Then you can dry them and make them a goth way to decorate your home.

But for a bouquet that will last the test of time, Lego’s new $89 Flower Bouquet is gorgeous and filled with both new techniques and new pieces. It also matches nicely with the other new botanical set: Bonsai.

The set was designed by senior designer Anderson Grubb and apprentice Astrid Sundorf Christensen. Christensen has been building flowers for offices and gifts at Lego House for a while as part of the Lego ATE program, which “helps employees get back on track after a physical or psychological setback”. The team up happened after Grubb started working on the set, and people kept telling him about Christensen’s amazing creations, which are apparently all over the Lego offices.

Fun fact: building this set actually wasn’t my first-time making Lego flowers. The last time I built them was the night before my wedding, because two weeks earlier I’d had the brilliant idea to build my bouquet and the lapel flowers for my best men and father out of Lego, and then order the parts from Germany.

I learned a lot from that process. The main lesson being that you should always allow more than a week for parts to arrive from Europe. Other lessons included: you shouldn’t DIY something so important the night before, super glue doesn’t hold as well as you want it to on a heavy build, and that nearly five years later you’ll be able to look back fondly on that stress and laugh.

But it will take those years.

The Flower Bouquet set has 756 pieces in 5 bags split across 3 steps, with an extra bonus bag of the big bits (including giant green technic axles). The box has some lovely art of the set with the now signature black background of the adult collection. There’s also a beautifully illustrated instruction manual and, better still, not a single sticker in sight.

Step 1

The biggest, most breathtaking feature of bag one is the roses. I cannot get over how intricate and beautiful they look. I never really imagined pale pink car roofs could look this nice, especially when paired with green pterodactyl wings as leaves. They’re so much lighter and more beautiful than my last attempt to build roses.

The daisies also pretty cool in their simplicity. But the roses were just so satisfying to build and look so beautiful that they’re already the highlight of the set. My only issue with the roses is how much the leaf spins around. It’s hard to get it at the ideal angle, and it would have been easy to lock it in place using a piece with a star hole instead of a round one, but this is a pretty minor quibble given that this is a display set that won’t get moved much.

Another takeaway is just how tall these stems are. These are some long stem roses. I’m not sure exactly how tall the roses are, but the Lego site says that the snapdragons are 36cm tall, which should give you an indication. It’s easy to make the roses a little shorter by removing some of the connections from the stem, but short of committing a Lego Crime and using scissors, the daisies aren’t getting shorter.

Step 2

Here’s where you make the tallest and least subtle flower of the set: the snapdragon. I really like the way Grubb used three different shades of pink graduating down the flower. They use a tremendous amount of pieces to excellent effect. It’s not as delicate and “wow” as the rose, but it still makes quite an impression in the bouquet, and the building process is fun. Having one with a bent head and the other straight lends itself to more display possibilities.

The California Poppy is pretty classic Lego: using simple pieces in simple ways to make something brand new and unexpected. It’s a small and satisfying build.

The filler leafy bits also exist, but aren’t really worth getting excited over.

Step 3

There’s two flowers in this bag that I’m in love with: lavender and the aster flower.

The lavender is striking, big and as realistic as one can get when using a bunch of what appears to be crowns. However, the lavender was also the most frustrating part of the build.

At one point the instructions just ask you to make 9 of a particular thing and then just put it in. But, because the instructions are in 2D (even in the app), it’s really hard to see where to put them, which lead to some frustration. Of course, you can just put them anywhere you think looks best – it’s Lego, you’re supposed to be creative. But, at the same time, I wanted to build the flower as directed and poorly designed instructions hindered that instead of helping.

The other really cool flower is the aster flower, which was Christensen’s major contribution to the set, and it’s just wonderful. Lots of small leaves and petals working together to look surprisingly realistic from a distance. It’s a satisfying, if repetitive build, with an excellent end result.

Then there’s also some other leafy filler, which isn’t exciting to build, but is an important part of any good bouquet.

The finished product

Overall, this bouquet looks amazing. It would have been better if it’d also included the parts and instructions for a vase or other vessel, but it’s been nice to see all the different brick-built and traditional vessels people have put theirs in. I put ours in a jug we got as a wedding gift, and I love the way it looks. We’ve kept it on the kitchen bench and have gotten compliments from all our guests in the last few weeks.

I do wish the colours weren’t quite so muted. A shock red rose would have been really eye-catching, but that’s such a personal choice and it’s impossible to please everyone with colour. What these flowers seem to be a base to teach techniques and allow people to build new flowers to make the bouquet their own.

I absolutely recommend this set for anyone who likes the idea of having flowers, but can’t be bothered dealing with water. They also would make an amazing Valentine’s Day gift (as would these smaller red roses that I love and am trying to find an excuse to buy).