Spring Dance by Diane Phalen – MasterPieces – 300 pieces
Spring Dance was much less difficult than I thought it would be and I thoroughly enjoyed assembling it. Mom and I swore off flowers for a while, but I couldn’t resist those quilts and gave it a go anyway.
This puzzle comes in a metal tin, which is not great for using the image on the lid for reference. The picture is so small that it’s barely useful, I just had to go with the shapes and colors of the pieces. The quality of the pieces were good; thinner but sturdy pieces that fit together very well.
I’m still struggling with being able to sit and puzzle for any length of time, so 500 pieces or less is mostly what I’ve been working with lately. There are stacks and stacks of 1000 piece puzzles both here and at mom’s house, but they’re just too much for me most days so I’m hanging out with the smaller ones for a while – we’ve become quite good friends!
Today’s puzzle was completed by a reader from the UK who has completed MANY large piece puzzles – congratulations on your achievement Derek, it looks beautiful!
This is the current World’s Largest Jigsaw Puzzle at 48,000 pieces and is made by Grafika, a French puzzle manufacturer. The puzzle comes in 24 bags of 2000 pieces each, much easier to deal with than some sections of the larger piece count puzzles; and storing the completed sections would be easier as well. The image forms a world tour that represents countries and places from every continent – stunning! The finished puzzle measures approximately 25.2 feet long and 6.7 feet high (768 x 204 cm). It’s absolutely breathtaking!
Derek says it’s the best quality jigsaw puzzle he’s ever worked on. Wow! That’s saying something, because he’s worked a LOT of different puzzle brands. I’m dying to try a Grafika puzzle, but they’re not very readily available here in the US.
The colors are soft and beautiful, I bet it’s gorgeous in person! Derek raises money for charities by auctioning off the final 10 pieces of the puzzle, giving a few people a chance to “complete” the World’s Largest Jigsaw Puzzle – isn’t that a great idea? I love it! So far with this puzzle he’s raised about £6000 for cancer research and the Yorkshire Air Ambulance – amazing!
To date Derek has completed two 32,000 piece puzzles, a 24,000 piece, two 18,000 pieces, a 13,200 piece, and two 9,000 pieces – and he raises money for charities with every one – what an awe-inspiring accomplishment! All of his puzzles are framed and on display at his place of work, Dove Mill. I’m definitely inspired by both his dedication to puzzling and his use of puzzles to help raise money for charities that are important to him.
Look at all those cute little guys in front of that giant puzzle!
Well done my friend! 👏👏👏 I can’t wait to see what you do next!
Summer Surprise by Mary Ann Vessey – MasterPieces – 500 pieces
Summer Surprise was not the best quality puzzle, but for some odd reason I really wanted to finish it. I have no explanation for my completion obsession other than I found the assembly to be somewhat entertaining even though the quality was lacking.
I’m surprised at the variation in quality that I’ve found from MasterPieces. This puzzle was quite thin, there were no variety in piece shapes at all, and it was grid cut. I’ve also worked several of their space saver puzzles and found the quality to be quite good; with good thickness, a random cut, and very nice images. Their EZ grip large piece puzzles have excellent quality with very thick pieces that fit together wonderfully and lovely image reproduction. From “meh” all the way up to “excellent” – hmmm, what is the reason for such fluctuation? Perhaps their different puzzle lines are produced by different manufacturers?
I liked the image well enough, thought it doesn’t wow me. It took me a couple of days to finish, and was entertaining at times. I wouldn’t recommend this puzzle though – the quality just wasn’t up to snuff.
Preamble by Mike Wilkins – Pomegranate – 1000 pieces
Preamble is a beautiful, interesting puzzle that I can’t recommend enough – I had the best time assembling it! It’s a little more challenging than I thought, but it never became tiresome or frustrating; it was fun for me to the very last piece.
I first bought this puzzle last year as a gift for my favorite sister-in-law; she had many family members coming to stay at her house for several days (including my husband and myself) and I sent ahead a hostess gift of a couple of jigsaw puzzles. When there’s a puzzle in progress it’s difficult not to stop and look, and you end up adding pieces if you can – before long people are working together, talking, laughing and really enjoying themselves. I was hoping the puzzles would help take the pressure off feeling as though her guests needed to be entertained all the time, and they absolutely did – we entertained ourselves and enjoyed the time spent together. ❤
Although we weren’t able to assemble this puzzle on our visit, I loved the look of it so much that I wanted one for myself. When it came time to pick a few puzzles for review I jumped at the chance to take this one off of my wishlist. I was not disappointed; it was tougher than I thought (especially when it was only white license plates left) but always entertaining.
Pomegranate puzzles are the cream of the crop in my book, the quality is superb. The pieces are wonderfully thick, fit together exceptionally well, and there are a very good variety of piece shapes. The image reproduction is lovely, with a matte finish that reduces glare; and even the boxes are sturdy and gorgeous. As an added bonus, the puzzles come in a resealable plastic bag for storage and the image of the puzzle on the front of the box is complete and unobstructed – we puzzlers love the extra details like these that make things easier! Click the link above to see all their puzzles currently available at Puzzle Warehouse, they’ve got a gorgeous catalog of images to choose from.
If you haven’t looked closely, the 51 license plates in this puzzle from the 50 states and Washington, DC phonetically spell out the preamble to the US constitution in abbreviated “license speak”. They wouldn’t make sense on their own, but together in alphabetical order they re-create the beginning of one of America’s most famous documents. What an interesting and well-executed idea!
If you’re a fan of collages, or just interesting images that make for entertaining puzzles I highly recommend Preamble. It’s a bit challenging, but only in a fun way if you ask me – too easy can be so boring!
Details:
Title: Preamble
Artist: Mike Wilkins
Brand: Pomegranate
Piece count: 1000 pieces
Size: Approx. 25 x 25 in. (64 x 64 cm)
Purchased: N/A, sent for review
Quality:
Board: Excellent
Cutting: Excellent
Image: Excellent
Box: Excellent
Fit: Excellent
Puzzle Dust: Small amount
Piece cut: Grid cut
Piece shapes: Good variety
Finish: Matte finish, lays flat
Overall Rating: Excellent, highly recommended
I received this product at no cost in order to facilitate this review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are truthful and 100% my own.
Fancy Nancy by Robin Preiss Glasser – Briarpatch – 100 pieces
When mom showed me this puzzle from her latest thrift store finds I was excited to assemble it, even though it’s a kids puzzle. I absolutely love the image, that little girl is so me!
This was my second Briarpatch puzzle, and the quality of this one was completely different than the first. They were both thrift store purchases, so you have to take into account that they’ve been assembled before – possibly many times. My first puzzle from this brand was an I Spy puzzle, mom and I were impressed with the quality of the pieces; they were thin but very sturdy and fit together quite well. This puzzle also had thinner pieces, but they were easily bent, didn’t fit together well and the finished puzzle didn’t lie flat. A bit of a disappointment for such a fun image. 😦
Four missing pieces was quite a bummer. Not only because I wouldn’t be able to pass this puzzle along to the school my daughter works for, but because I liked the image so much and would love to have seen the entire puzzle assembled. That’s the gamble with used puzzles though. Wait – does that mean my sweet little old lady mom and I who love buying thrift store puzzles are degenerate gamblers? Nice!
I’ve never read the Fancy Nancy books, but she looks like a little girl who’s slightly weird (not a negative if you ask me) and loves who she is even if that’s different than everyone else. That’s the impression I get from this image, and it makes me smile every time I look at that adorable face. We weird girls have to stick together and be ourselves no matter what – you go girl!
My Jigsaw Journal 