bricky

how to order the bricks

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The short version

Bricky gives you a parts file. BrickLink turns that file into shopping carts. You review the carts and check out. Most orders take about five minutes to place and arrive from independent sellers.

Ordering on BrickLink

BrickLink is the LEGO Group's official marketplace for individual parts, stocked by thousands of independent stores. It is almost always the cheapest way to buy a mosaic's worth of 1×1s.

  1. In Bricky, tap Parts list (BrickLink) and save the file.
  2. Create a free account at bricklink.com if you don't have one.
  3. Go to My BrickLink → Wanted → Upload, choose "Upload BrickLink XML format", and add the file. This creates a Wanted List containing every brick in your mosaic.
  4. Open the list and choose Buy All. BrickLink's auto-select finds the cheapest combination of stores that covers your whole list and fills carts for you.
  5. Review the carts (fewer stores usually means less shipping), then check out with each store.

Tip: in Buy All you can limit results to your country and to new parts only. Used parts are cheaper and fine for mosaics; they clean up well.

LEGO Pick a Brick, the official alternative

LEGO's own Pick a Brick store sells most current colors of 1×1 plates. It is simpler (one store, one checkout) but usually pricier, and some palette colors rotate in and out of stock.

  1. Open your parts list in Bricky to see each color and count.
  2. On lego.com, search Pick a Brick for "plate 1x1" plus the color name.
  3. Set the quantity from your parts list and add to bag. Repeat per color.

Choose "standard" elements over "bestseller" where offered; standard is cheaper and ships together.

The base: baseplates or panels

Bricky's Build It card offers two foundations.

Baseplate is the classic thin gray plate. One 32×32 or 48×48 plate carries the whole mosaic for those sizes. Bigger builds need several baseplates, and since baseplates can't attach to each other, you mount them side by side on a board or in a frame.

Panels build the mosaic on 16×16 plates instead, LEGO Art style. Each instruction page becomes one panel you can build in your lap, and the finished panels join from beneath with 2×4 plates into a single rigid piece. Costs a bit more, hangs and handles much better.

What it costs

Mosaics use a lot of pieces, and two levers move the price. Built entirely from 1×1s, a 32×32 runs $60 to $80 all in, a 48×48 runs $130 to $170, and a 96×96 is a serious wall piece in the $500 range. The Bricks slider is the big lever: larger plates cost far less per stud, so flat art built from big plates can cost a third of its 1×1 price. Fewer colors helps too; the Simple palette avoids the Wide palette's rarer, pricier colors. The parts list in the app shows a live estimate.