Yellow and Black Labs

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Yellow and Black Labs – Milton Bradley – 300 pieces

These adorable puppies were just too cute to pass up! It was more difficult than I bargained for, but sometimes that’s a good thing, at least it was here. The quality was very good as well – an excellent puzzle all around!

Just look at those faces! Who could leave these two sitting on a shelf in a store? Definitely not me. It’s a Milton Bradley, and their puzzles more often than not have good quality. Sometimes I come across one with poor quality, but I take my chances when the image makes me happy, and these little guys make me very happy!

It seems to me that the 300 piece puzzles usually have better quality than a larger piece count by the same brand – especially when it’s an EZ grip. I guess us oldsters who do these 300 piece puzzles need thicker pieces too hold onto. I’m not complaining mind you, I love the extra thick pieces. 🙂

Both of the puppies were easy  enough to put together, but the background and foreground where the challenging parts. It’s one of those images that makes you say “Aww!” Definitely recommended – two pups way up! 🐶🐶

Reef Fish

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Reef Fish – Lafayette Puzzle Factory – 500 pieces

My son and I completed these 16 beautiful reef fish puzzles on the same day that we put together the teacups. He enjoyed them almost as much as I do! As a matter of fact, yesterday we put together a puzzle with 15 birds and we had a great time. 🙂

The sizes and shapes of these were all different, which added some to the challenge, but in the best way. The colors are bright and beautiful, and there were some very interesting looking fish. My son took one look at the clownfish and said “I found him!” It seems he’d been looking for Nemo for quite some time. 🐠

They were lots of fun, smallest fish had only 10 pieces, and the largest one (the clownfish and coral shown above) had 63! They were extremely entertaining to assemble, and I’m looking forward to doing the second fish puzzle waiting in the wings.

If you haven’t tried a shaped puzzle before and you’re not quite sure about them I would definitely recommend giving these a try. The quality is very good, and I can’t seem to put into words how much fun I find them – they’re jigsawrific! 😁

 

Red

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Red by Guido Cecere – Ceaco – 550 pieces

This puzzle was a little more difficult than Yellow, the colors are deeper and made it a bit more challenging to discern the different shades. Still, it was very entertaining!

The quality was good, the pieces were about medium thickness with a few bent pieces but not a whole bunch. The fit and image reproduction were both very good, and there were a nice variety of piece shapes. This puzzle was actually one of the better Ceaco puzzles I’ve assembled in a while.

I love the Mobil Pegasus, and the vintage picture is gorgeous as well…

It really was a fun puzzle to put together, and thankfully it was one of the better quality Ceacos. There’s a blue one that I haven’t done yet, but if I come across it one of these days I’ll definitely be wanting to assemble it.

Cobble Hill has a whole rainbow series of puzzles that look challenging and interesting – I’m just not sure I’m up to working on those yet. Fingers crossed though, maybe soon!

Bright Red Barn

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Bright Red Barn – Milton Bradley – 300 pieces

An uninspired name for a puzzle, but an accurate one. It’s a great image for a puzzle, but unfortunately it was terrible quality – even though it was mostly fun to put together.

The image itself made for a pleasant assembly, the flowers were a bit of a challenge and kept me on my toes; the barn itself was very entertaining, and the windows and roof helped break up all the red. It was a great couple of hours putting it together, even with the quality issues.

This Milton Bradley puzzle was purchased new, and right out of the box there were problems. Many of the pieces had extremely bent tabs, so much so that when the edge was assembled one of the tabs broke off completely when the piece was connected. The tab stayed in the hole of the adjoining piece, but the image had lifted and remained on the original piece…

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It was quite disappointing, the quality of this puzzle. Milton Bradley joins Ceaco on my list of companies who can’t seem to regulate their quality control. Some of their puzzles have been excellent, and some – like this one – have been less than stellar.

There are always occasional problems, even with the premium puzzle companies; no manufacturing process is perfect. But companies like Ravensburger, Jumbo, Heye, and Pomegranate have managed to produce excellent puzzles almost all of the time. I know you get what you pay for, but if a puzzle company is at least consistent with their quality then I know what I’m buying. If it’s a gamble, I’m less likely to take a chance unless I’m buying used.

Thus ends my rant for the day.

Pattern 1

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Pattern 1 by Patchwork – Milton Bradley – 300 pieces

These puzzles make me so happy, they’re beautiful, fun to put together, and they remind me of the pattern/coloring books that mom used to get for us. For me they were so much more interesting to color than your “regular” coloring books for children.

I would love to do this pattern in a larger piece count, they are the perfect image for me; bright colors, fun patterns, and they’re a collage. The quality is excellent – thick pieces, good variety of shapes, excellent image, and a great fit. I’ve found and assembled all 3 of the 300 piece patterns that I could find. There’s a similar 500 piece puzzle available that I would definitely like to get my hands on.

If I could find these patterns in 1000 pieces or even more I might get over my issue with larger piece counts at the moment and dive in!