Review: Cow Parade

This post is sponsored by Puzzle Warehouse.
Cow Parade
Cow Parade – Cobble Hill – 1000 pieces

Cow Parade was a wonderfully entertaining puzzle that made me happy with each piece that I put into it. The collage aspect made it so much fun for me, and the interesting artwork on the cows was beautiful (and sometimes very funny).

Cobble Hill Puzzles are very well made, and I find their quality to be very good. The pieces are a good thickness, with an excellent variety of shapes that fit together well. The image reproduction is excellent, with bright, beautiful colors and crisp lines. The finish is linen-covered, which has a great feel in your hands. Even their boxes are covered with linen and have a luxurious feel to them. Click the link above to see at the Cobble Hill Puzzles currently available at Puzzle Warehouse, they have an excellent catalog of puzzles to choose from. (check out Red from their rainbow collection of collages in 7 different colors – I want them all!)

The fit can sometimes be loose, making it difficult to move smaller sections around, but I don’t find it to be too much so. The piece shapes can be very prominent in the finished image, which is not optimal if you wish to display it; but I find that it doesn’t make the assembly any less fun. Most times, applying glue to a puzzle can lessen the appearance of the piece shapes.

This puzzle is a collection of some of the cows designed and decorated by artists all over the globe for CowParade, the world’s largest and most successful public art event. Over $20 million dollars has been raised by charitable organizations all over the world by the auctioning of the cows. Wow!

It was such great fun, I enjoyed learning about the charity/art installation, and I loved assembling every single cow. They all were beautiful in their own way, but these are my favorites…

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Jacques Moosteau, he made me laugh out loud! The writing is so small that it’s difficult to see the information for each of the cows; the title, artist, and city of display was listed near each one.

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This gorgeous head of hair is worn by Woodstock, he’s got quite the outfit on, and I love the rose colored glasses!

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This interesting beauty is Homage to Picowso’s African Period, perfection!

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This one was so much fun to assemble, the bike made it larger and a bit more challenging than his other friends. He is Lait Triporteur, which I found means basically Milk Scooter (a triporteur is the name for the 3-wheeled cargo bike shown). I learned a new word in addition to having a great time!

I specifically chose this puzzle to review, because I’d had my eye on it for a while; it was on my wish list at Puzzle Warehouse for quite some time – it just looked like so much fun. I was hoping that it would be, and I was absolutely right! I love to find puzzles like this for review, ones I think will be entertaining and well made that give me the chance to let others know about them.

Cow Parade was a great quality puzzle that was extremely entertaining to assemble. I found it to be about medium difficulty, there aren’t as many plain white pieces as you’d think. I absolutely loved it – and it’s highly recommended. Moo! 🐄

Details:

  • Title:                  Cow Parade
  • Artist:                Cow Parade Holdings
  • Brand:               Cobble Hill
  • Piece count:     1000 pieces
  • Size:                  Approx. 27 x 19 in. (68 x 49 cm)
  • Purchased:      N/A, sent for review

Quality:

  • Board:               Very good
  • Cutting:             Very good
  • Image:               Excellent
  • Box:                   Good, sturdy
  • Fit:                     Good, slightly loose
  • Puzzle Dust:     Moderate amount
  • Piece cut:          Random cut
  • Piece shapes:   Very good variety
  • Finish:               Matte finish, lays flat

Overall Rating:      Very good, 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.

Bookmarks

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Bookmarks by Charlie Girard – White Mountain – 1000 pieces

Even though this puzzle was missing a piece it, it was still great fun. Each bookmark was entertaining to put together, and it made for an excellent all around puzzle.

I didn’t use the image on the box to help me with the assembly – so only shape, color, and patterns were used to solve it. I sometimes enjoy challenging myself by putting the box away and solving the puzzle with no help from the image at all. I don’t always know which puzzle is going to lead me to attempt it without the image; usually it’s the more difficult ones, but sometimes it’s fun collages like this one.

Charlie Girard puts together some amazing images that make for wonderfully fun puzzles, that’s why he’s one of my favorite puzzle artists. His collages make me so happy! I’ve done many of his collages, but there are still many more I’d love to get my hands on. 🙂

These are some of my favorite bookmarks from this puzzle…

I wonder what my choice of these 3 bookmarks says about me. Thoughts? 😉

Crafty Critters

Crafty Critters
Crafty Critters – Creative Edge – 100 pieces

I haven’t posted a kids puzzle lately, and luckily I found a couple here that I hadn’t yet assembled. Crafty Critters was a quick, fun puzzle that was fair quality and makes for a very cute finished image.

This is only the second puzzle from this manufacturer that I’ve assembled, and overall I would say their quality is good to fair. The pieces are somewhat thin, but sturdy. There are a good variety of shapes and the fit is very nice. The colors are bright and fun; although the finish is a bit shiny. Good enough quality, although I wish the makers of puzzles for children would make them a bit more tough to withstand the sometimes not-so-gentle way children play.

As an added note, the first Creative Edge puzzle I assembled had the absolute BEST GLOW IN THE DARK IMAGE I’ve ever done or seen. It was also the best “glow” picture I’ve ever gotten. Check out Creepy Crawlies! if you’re interested, I got some great images!

Retro Cats

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Retro Cats – Re-marks – 300 pieces

This was such a fun puzzle, I had the best time putting it together! I don’t always say this about 300 piece puzzles, but this one would be even better at 1000 pieces. Each of the sections was fun and interesting to assemble, I wish there had been more pieces so I could have spent more time with each one. (The picture is a bit fuzzy, my apologies 😕)

Cats aren’t really my thing, I’m more a pooch person; but these cats are too cute to resist and the entire puzzle was completely entertaining. I did the Retro Dogs puzzle last year, it was a Christmas present from my son, and my daughter helped me with the assembly. They’re both fun collages with very good quality pieces – what more could you ask for?

These cats show 3 different sides of me, sweet, sassy, and completely weird – that’s pretty much me in a nutshell!

Mathematics

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Mathematics – Professor Puzzle – 150 pieces

Unfortunately we’ve come to the end of our STEM puzzles, or as hubby and I like to call them, “bathroom puzzles”. They’re such tiny pieces that they all fit onto a paper-lined cookie sheet and I put it in the master bathroom for hubby to work on while he’s spending lots of time in there.

I didn’t get to work on this one as much as I’d hoped, although it looked like a lot of fun. Hubby did most of the work during the night when he couldn’t sleep; I woke up to an almost complete puzzle. I was pretty bummed, because Math was the one I was looking forward to the most -those blocks of color looked like so much fun! Of course I didn’t tell him that; I’m not only an excellent puzzler, I’m a wonderful wife too. 😉

This was the last of the four we assembled, and he didn’t tell me until it was finished that he’d like for me to glue them and put them all in one frame and hang them up at his work (he writes programs to run machines, so he uses Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math every day at his job). Now he’s got to put together the other 3 all over again – although I don’t think he’ll mind at all, he really had a good time with them!

I’d love for Professor Puzzle to come out with more of these mini jigsaw puzzles, whatever the subject matter may be. They’re extremely well made – the best quality I’ve ever seen on such small pieces. The piece shape is very obvious in the finished image, but that doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the assembly for me; and once they’re glued that will lessen quite a bit.

 

If you enjoy mini puzzles or mini pieces, these test tube puzzles may be just the thing for you. We found them at Barnes & Noble in the US, and hubby and I enjoyed them very much! Looks like we’ll be enjoying them once more, we have to re-assemble them so I can get them glued and framed. 🖼