Month: November 2019

Review: Save The Whales

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews2 Comments
Save The Whales
Save The Whales by Robert Williams – Mr. Bob Puzzles – 515 pieces

There aren’t enough words in my vocabulary to describe how much I adored Save The Whales. It made for the most enjoyable puzzle assembly and to say I loved just doesn’t do it justice. This puzzle was such great fun!

This is the second of two puzzles I was sent for review from Mr. Bob Puzzles, and I am quite impressed with the quality. The pieces are thick 4.5mm wood, and the fit is not as loose as some other wooden puzzles. The pieces have a good hand feel, and the cut is deceptively challenging; it looks easy, but it most definitely isn’t. They also have been infused with essential oils, giving them a lovely, relaxing scent. The whimsy pieces fit the theme of the puzzle, and range from quite large to very small. I knew what to look for this time, and found all the pieces that spell out the Mr. Bob logo on the first try! 🙂

Save The Whales whimsies

I did find that this puzzle had a quite a few pieces that had the image ever so slightly lifting at the edges, and relayed this information to the Mr. Bob team through emails. The 100 Icons puzzle didn’t have this issue at all, so I wanted to let them know that there was something different about Save The Whales. They believe they may have “overdosed” some of the pieces with the essential oils, and that’s what caused this problem. Easily remedied with careful application of the oils, or if the customer prefers it the puzzle could be scent free. (I for one love the added scents, and found them to be pleasant and relaxing.)

I also gave some feedback on the whimsy pieces; some tails on the sea creatures were quite thin, and to prevent breakage and image lift the suggestion was made to thicken them. I was pleasantly surprised at how eager the team was to hear suggestions and make changes to improve the quality of their puzzles. As an avid puzzler it’s nice to see that a company is striving to make the best puzzles they can; I appreciated their willingness to address the small issues that I found.

There was one more suggestion I had for the team, and that was to please put more of Robert Williams’ artwork on their puzzles. Robert is the “Bob” in Mr. Bob Puzzles, and I think his artwork is just beautiful! I was drawn to this image right away, it reminds me of the artwork of Edward Kinnally, which I also adore. It’s just my opinion, of course, but I certainly hope they consider my suggestion. 😉

There was only one in process picture, I was having too much fun to stop and take pics. To be honest, the only reason I took the picture was for a post about the progress of my assembly. The colors and the movement of the image was quite compelling, and once I got to assembling it was difficult to walk away and leave the next piece undone. It must be easy to find, don’t leave yet, just one more piece…

Whales IP

The bottom line for me is that this puzzle was completely engrossing, entertaining, and both beautiful and beautifully made. I had so much fun putting it together that even though I want to frame it and hang it as artwork, I took it apart. Hubby is planning to make me a custom frame, but I really want to assemble it again; there aren’t many puzzles I can say that about! 🐳

If you’re a wooden puzzle fan I absolutely recommend giving a Mr. Bob puzzle a try. They have some stunning images to choose from, and they’re well made and very entertaining. As an added bonus, depending on where you live, the exchange rate could give you a discount right off the bat – as of today the Australian dollar only costs 68 cents American!

Details:

  • Title:                  Save The Whales
  • Artist:                Robert Williams
  • Brand:               Mr. Bob Puzzles
  • Piece count:     515 pieces
  • Size:                  Approx. 23 x 17 in. (54 x 43 cm)
  • Purchased:      N/A, sent for review

Quality:

  • Board:               4.5mm wood
  • Cutting:             Excellent
  • Image:               Very good, some slight image lift
  • Box:                   Excellent
  • Fit:                     Excellent
  • Puzzle Dust:     None
  • Piece cut:          Grid cut, whimsy pieces
  • Piece shapes:   Very good variety
  • Finish:               Slightly shiny 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.

 

Sketches

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments
Sketches
Sketches – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

This adorable puzzle went together amazingly quickly, and it was exactly the right amount of challenge. I absolutely adored it! Unfortunately a piece was missing, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment at all.

The quality was excellent; and the piece shapes aren’t quite as obvious as they were in the last Ravensburger I assembled. I really adore cartoon puzzles, and this image had enough cartoon elements that it ticked all the boxes for me. Ravensburger puzzles are such great quality that I never hesitate buying them secondhand from the thrift stores. Even if they’ve been assembled several times they hold up quite well. This was a thrift store puzzle that mom bought for us, she always found such wonderful puzzles at the best prices. 💖

Each of the sketches correspond with the pictures from the finished film beside it, except for Sully from Monsters, Inc.

Sketches 1

Sully’s sketch was mean and scary looking, but the image from the film is him being frightened (not frightening at all) and offering a teddy bear to Boo – so cute!

All of the Pixar movies shown are ones that I’ve seen and watched with my children; I think that’s another reason I enjoyed the assembly so much, it brought back wonderful memories of spending time with my kids when they were younger.

We would all pile into the car and get ourselves to the store when the VHS or DVDs of the movies were released. With three young children at home we didn’t bother with renting them from Blockbuster or a local video store, we always bought them.* And the rule was that we always watched them for the first time together, I loved watching the kids be enchanted by the story and images; the time we spent together when they were young was time well spent and provides me with wonderful memories to this day.

 

*For all you young’uns, people used to have to go to the store to rent or buy movies if they wanted to watch them at home. There was no Netflix, Hulu, or any other streaming service. You couldn’t watch movies on your smart phone either – there were no such things!

80’s In Progress

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

80's IP

I finally got myself back to the puzzle table and started on this 1500 piece collage of the 80’s. It truly stuns me that this decade was more than 30 years ago. I must be very old indeed!

It’s going together very quickly, most likely because collages make me happy and I love assembling each little section. I didn’t spend much time on it yesterday, but hope to be able to get back there today. It makes me wish I had more collages in the to do pile, this one has been so enjoyable that it would be nice to have some more to do.

Jumanji

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment
Jumanji
Jumanji – Cardinal – 300 pieces

I love the look of this, it’s quite striking compared to the fuzzy, soft, sweetened Christmas puzzles I’ve been seeing everywhere; I much prefer the look of this to be honest. I loved the movies too, both of them, which is why I bought it. I’m glad I did. 💗

It’s only a 300 piece puzzle, but don’t be fooled, this was way harder than it looks! It isn’t the best quality puzzle I’ve done lately, but it wasn’t too terrible. At the very least the colors are quite nice. The thickness of the pieces was fair, as was the fit. But it’s one of those puzzles where the image is so cool or entertaining that I can overlook it’s shortcomings.

Even if it wasn’t as easy as I’d assumed and wasn’t premium quality I still very much enjoyed this puzzle. The colors are both subdued and bright at the same time, and it was great fun figuring out which of the corner vignettes I was working on or what letter in Jumanji I was assembling.

300 pieces of entertainment and looking at the picture of it still makes me smile. Lovely!

Upstairs, Downstairs

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments
Upstairs
Upstairs, Downstairs by Art Poulin – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

I enjoyed this puzzle so much more than I anticipated – it’s always great when that happens. Looking at the box of pieces, they all seemed to be shades of brown for the most part, and I didn’t think it would be as entertaining to assemble as it actually was. Once I picked out some wallpaper from one room, it lead to another wallpaper, and seeing which rooms went where; and before I knew it out of the chaos came the whole house and all it’s fabulous rooms. It really was wonderfully engrossing. 🙂

Only one room was colorful, the kid’s playroom at the top of the house…

Upstairs 1

It doesn’t look very big, but perhaps to a child it would be perfect. I wonder what’s up with the big chicken on the floor?

If you ask me, the more interesting rooms are downstairs. More people, more camaraderie – more goings on. Yes, I know, they’re “the help”, but to me they’re much more fascinating. The rooms upstairs may be pretty, but they’re boring. People standing around in attractive rooms doing very little…Upstairs 4 Yawn. Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty, and one of the wallpapers that was easy to pick out; but nothing’s really happening in there – it’s just a pretty room. I’m much more interested in what’s happening downstairs. (All only my opinions of course 🙂 )

The quality was lovely, the assembly was completely absorbing, and all in all I had a fabulous time with this puzzle. If it’s in your to do pile, I definitely recommend it.