Building a Cherry Blossom Tree

[lostcarpark]

Hi,

Here is my cherry blossom tree built mostly with flower pieces. The main technique is to keep the flower petals on their sprues, connected my stem pieces.

LEGO Tree in Blossom by James Shields, on Flickr

A run down of the method follows...

1. First attach stalks to each corner of the flower sprue.

2. Next, attach to the foliage piece, and keep adding more flower sprues.

3. Add further flower pieces. Connect to the foliage where you can, but it doesn't matter if stems are only connected to flower sprues.

4. Keep going past the edges so that flower sprues hang down on floating stems.

5. The completed section from underneath.

6. Next, attach a plate with vertical bar (or any part with a bar for a strong connection to the foliage) to your tree branch.

7. ...which should be attached to your tree...

8. Push the bar of the plate into one of the holes of the foliage.

9. The top of the canopy reapplied.

10. And another view of the finished tree

[Lady K]

That is a beautiful Cherry Blossom tree, thank you for the detail on how you made it!

[dylanfarrow]

Amazing! And thank you

[Graham Gidman]

So that's how it's done! Thanks!

[Colossus]

Hot damn! Great job! I need to use this technique when building my trees for the Ninjago temple.

[lostcarpark]

I should add that used the old flower stems part 3741:

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3741

The newer part 99249 would be even better (mixing in a few 19119 would also be interesting), as you could push the bottom bar into the holes of the foliage pieces:

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=99249

The main problem is these parts are still quite expensive.

James

[Kristel]

Beautiful tree! Thanks for sharing!

[mandylions]

That is so very beautiful. I never would've thought to make a tree like that. I think I need to try this!

[eurotrash]

Great technique! And thanks for sharing it.

[AFOLguy1970]

Very nice, I would never have thought about keeping the sprues intact, but it works well!

[wooootles]

I NEEDED THIS

Thanks very much for sharing this! This would work well very much on a park that I've been concepting!

[Dazz]

Thanks for sharing!

Now I guess I need to stop seperating the flowers pieces when I'm just saving them for a later usage.

[King Andy]

Beautiful MOC, and thanks for sharing how to build. This would look great on a traditional Japanese display.

[dr_spock]

Cool. Thanks for sharing. I tried using green travis bricks but it didn't quite work out.

[LegoSjaak]

Really nice tree, and i like how someone still can surprise me with the use of bricks! Any idea what this tree would cost? Seems to be rather expensive...but then again, the tree is also 'rather' beautifull!

[peedeejay]

I've been using this technique also after seeing it somewhere else (can't remember where). To me it's the best way to build cherry blossoms.

I think this kind of tree is even cheaper than using leaf plates. The parts (stem pieces and petals) are pretty much always available in a PAB wall at my local LEGO store and that is pretty much all you need. If you fill a large cup of stems and petals you easily have enough to build 10-20 of these trees (excluding the parts for the trunk of course). You can easily fill hundreds of of every part into a large PAB cup.

[LegoSjaak]

I've been using this technique also after seeing it somewhere else (can't remember where). To me it's the best way to build cherry blossoms.

I think this kind of tree is even cheaper than using leaf plates. The parts (stem pieces and petals) are pretty much always available in a PAB wall at my local LEGO store and that is pretty much all you need. If you fill a large cup of stems and petals you easily have enough to build 10-20 of these trees (excluding the parts for the trunk of course). You can easily fill hundreds of of every part into a large PAB cup.

It is an advantage if you have a LEGO store in your neighbourhood... I've been to the Oberhausen store once of twice, but it would not be very efficient if i go there for Lego only.. so i'll have to order all pieces through bricklink... Till now i only made these trees...

[Redhead1982]

Thanks for sharing this building style. I wouldn't thought of using flowers on a sprue. I like the nice rounded shape it gives.

[LegoSjaak]

This piece might be usefull as well...(new in the Ferriswheel set..)

[Rick]

I've been using this technique also after seeing it somewhere else (can't remember where). To me it's the best way to build cherry blossoms.

I think Cecilie came up with it first. Here are some MOCs where she uses it.

[Ghandidcm]

It is really amazing! I also want to make a tree like that.

Unfortunatly we don't have a Lego store in the Netherlands, so I have to make a Bricklink order. Could you tell me how much sprues are in one tree?

[Captain Dee]

It's a good thing Willy Wonka's technology never came to be or I'd just reach out and take that tree. The flowering canopy is simply beautiful and it looks far more realistic than most Lego trees - even the good custom ones. I've employed a similar sagging approach using only the standard leaf pieces but I never considered anything like this. I bought a bulk order of pink flowers on sprues and this is what I need to use them for. Thanks for sharing!

[lostcarpark]

Unfortunatly we don't have a Lego store in the Netherlands, so I have to make a Bricklink order. Could you tell me how much sprues are in one tree?

In this tree there were somewhere between 150 and 200 flower sprues, and a similar number of stems. I'd probably have used more if I hadn't run out, to be honest.

You could definitely get away with smaller trees, especially in minifig scale displays.

James

[Ludo]

Hi James,

Verry nice tree indeed.

Is there a kind of pattern to follow when adding the sprues and the stem length?

Kind regards from a former Ambassador (BeLUG)

Ludo

Edited September 24, 2015 by Ludo

[paul_delahaye]

Flowers are one of the few parts which there are always plenty of them in the pick a brick bins, seeing how to construct these trees, is really cool.