Chocolate Milkshake by Ashley Davis – Ravensburger – 500 pieces
This was a fantastic quality Ravensburger puzzle with a new matte finish. The artwork is wonderfully fun and made for the exact right amount of challenge. I just love this image!
The dancing cows, the chocolate and treats flying around and everything in the background made for quite an easy assembly. I did the cows last, as they were the most difficult part, but even then they weren’t too bad at all. And they’re so cute!
You can see the difference in the finish here; on the right are pieces from a 1000 piece Ravensburger with the usual finish, the ones I’m used to seeing. On the left is this puzzle with the matte finish. You can’t tell as much from the picture, but the difference was quite evident to someone who has assembled many, many Ravensburger puzzles. I noticed right away, and was quite happy with the look of it.
I would love to find some more puzzles like this one, it was lots of fun. 🐄🐄🐄
It’s been a few days again since I worked on a puzzle, but I’ve finally decided which puzzle is next and have gotten started. It’s a Bits and Pieces collage of dog stamps, and I’m sorting it and will be working on it in bed on my white board.
The puzzle is only 300 pieces, and the pieces themselves are oddly shaped. They’re quite blocky and somewhat geometric, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they fit together. Looking at the pieces, it seems like it’s going to be lots of fun. 🙂
Each stamp has the name of a country on it, so there are plenty of words to make me happy; and every stamp has one or more dogs on it, be still my heart!
This is another puzzle my daughter insisted I buy. I seem to be buying puzzles that SHE likes when we’re together, but I’ve completely enjoyed all of her choices so I’m definitely not complaining. She has excellent taste in puzzles, and knows what her momma likes. 🙂
After the assembly of the previous Sure Lox 300 piece in the newer boxes, I felt a little more confident purchasing this one. Again it had very good quality – which my fingers definitely didn’t want to type in regards to a Sure Lox puzzle. But it’s true, the new boxes contain much better quality puzzles than I’ve worked previously. The pieces are thicker and fit together very well; the image reproduction is quite good too. There is only the one piece shape, but that’s my only criticism.
This is the new box design. I’ve only tried their 300 piece puzzles so far, but the two that I’ve assembled have been very good quality. I was brave and also got myself a 500 piece with the new box, so I’ll let you know once I assemble it if the larger piece counts also have improved quality.
I love that Sure Lox has improved their quality, and I’m loving their “Giggles” images featuring the photography of John Lund. I don’t usually go for photographic images, but the adorable animals in silly situations are too cute to pass up. 😍🐶
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! 🙂
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…
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.
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.
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!
My Jigsaw Journal 