It's a bold headline, we know, but read on, we've got the impossible balloons to prove it!

Since our last newsletter, we finished up the Playwell Journey, hitting all the milestones that led Playwell Bricks from a stay-at-home Dad’s creative outlet all the way through to a thriving, international design company specializing in corporate gifting.

If you missed the beginning of this series, don't worry, I gotchu! You can catch up on Part One and Part Two by clicking on the terms.

In Part Three of everybody’s favorite Brick Opera, Jason starts coaching a First
LEGO® League out of his hometown and quickly discovers that he’s A TERRIBLE TYRANT (hold on, the impossible balloon's coming, I promise).

That’s right, he somehow managed to be working with the funnest thing in the whole world and… sucked all the fun out of it.

What the heck, Jason. 🤦

Will Jason remember that children are supposed to be having fun building with bricks before it’s too late? Will he overcome his inner tyrant before he ruins LEGO® forever?

FIND OUT in The Playwell Journey: Part Three available right here:

In Part 4, we find Jason buying up secondhand LEGO® sets, giving them a good scrub, building them, and replacing any missing parts.

Is he opening some sort of brick laundromat?

Nope, but he does have plans to resell the full, clean sets to raise money for the workshops he puts on for kids at the community center. What he didn’t realize at the time was that building all of those sets was ALSO giving him a practical degree in how brick models are designed.

Then, he used this accumulated knowledge to turn a ROAD into a CLOCK.
Impossible you say? Not at all. In fact, you can read how he did it right here:

In Part Five, our CEO Jason waxes poetic about balloons and…

Wait. Is that right? (checks notes) Uh, YES. Balloons. But not just any balloons… IMPOSSIBLE balloons. 🎈 (See? I told you they were coming.)

One of these impossible balloons led to Jason designing his very first
commission: the Argonath from the Lord of the Rings and what a
masterpiece that was. Do NOT miss this episode, available to read here:

Throughout this series, we’ve watched Jason’s passion for bricks evolve into a force to be reckoned with.

In Part Six, Jason hires his first six team members to help him with a backlog of custom orders. They still aren’t making any real money, until one day a new client comes along. You might have heard of them, a little company named GOOGLE. 😮

Did Jason fall out of his chair when he got that call?

Apparently not, but HE SHOULD HAVE, for dramatic effect if nothing else.

If you’d like to hear what he DID do, well, you can read all about it at the link

Tell me the truth, do you make sound effects when you start playing with this truck or are you a monster?

🙃

Playwell Bricks designed these gems for Orchestry, based on the theme of their software as a clean-up crew for their clients. “It’s a really small dump truck with dumpster arms to lift a bin and flip it up.”

Those arms might look simple, but to get them working as best they could, Jason turned to his team for suggestions. A call to arms, as it were.

Despite the care Playwell Brick took, an error that went under the radar threatened the success of the project. Before you ask, no, it wasn’t because of the terrible pun in that last paragraph (ouch, btw). It wasn’t a Playwell mistake at all, but it still needed to be fixed. If you’d like to read how Jason rolled with the punches to give Orchestry exactly what they wanted, you know what to do:

Next up, it’s time to break out the pomade and pocket combs, brick fans, because we’re traveling back to 1958. This project was automatic, it was hydromatic, it was LEGO®-matic, why it was Greased Lightning!

With both a brick model of Greased Lightning and Hell’s Chariot from the 1978 classic movie Grease, these cars were MADE to race for pinks down on Thunder Road. Um, literally.

Smash that big ol' button below to read more about this project and see some pictures of these sweet, sweet rides. Just watch out for those razor hubcaps on Hell’s Chariot, they can really do a number on your bodywork.

One of the daunting things about finishing one project is coming up with ideas for your NEXT project. I can always feel myself slowing down at the end of a project, drawing it out just a little longer while I try and figure out what comes NEXT.

And this is doubly important for those of us who turn to bricks for stress relief and a creative outlet after a long day of adulting. 😬

Luckily for us, Playwell Bricks has a handy article filled with ideas to get us started on that next project again. Which is pretty nice of Jason, because it’s been a long while since he wasn’t juggling multiple projects at once!

From delving into your personal interests to mining the world around you for ideas, this handy guide is a good thing to have in any creative brick builder’s backpocket.

Eager to get inspired by viewing more projects? Maybe you'd just like to read more about our CEO Jason's quirky antics - we can't say we blame you! On our website you can find our past projects divided by type, case studies, articles, blogs, and even older issues of this very newsletter. Whether you're a veteran brick builder or just curious about what we do, there's something for everyone!