Noah’s Ark by Jenny Tylden-Wright – Pomegranate – 300 pieces
I’ve done a few Noah’s Ark puzzles, but this one is so different and beautiful I just had to get it. It’s striking and unusual, and I had the best time assembling it. Why aren’t there more puzzles with her artwork??
I also wanted to try a 300 piece Pomegranate, I’ve done both their 500 and 1000 piece puzzles and wanted to see how the smaller piece count was quality-wise. Excellent! I wasn’t expecting anything else, they’re just wonderful quality all around, and their catalog is full of gorgeous artwork to choose from. I highly recommend these puzzles!
I loved this puzzle so much I went back through the Pomegranate puzzles available at Puzzle Warehouse and added 4 more of their puzzles to my wishlist. Â This is getting out of hand!
Witch Way to Halloween by Kathy Jakobsen – Bits and Pieces – 765 pieces
I did this puzzle in 2016, I put it on the 2016 Completed Puzzles January – March page but for some reason haven’t done a full post on it. While going back through the blog to prepare the first birthday post I came across this puzzle and realized with October only a few days away that it was the perfect time to post it. Witch Way to Halloween??
I love the artwork of this puzzle, the gravestones, the trick or treaters, the gorgeous colors of the leaves on the trees, the headless horseman, bats, etc. – it’s an excellent puzzle image. It also included several whimsies – a black cat, a witch in the shape of the puzzle itself, gravestones and others. The puzzle itself it gorgeous; the quality, unfortunately, not as beautiful. 😦
The pieces were a good enough thickness and the image reproduction was very nice. My problem was the cut/fit of the pieces. I know with a shaped puzzle and especially when there are whimsies that you can’t have every single piece connect, sometimes they just sit next to each other. But the fit of this puzzle took this to the extreme. Even when the entire puzzle was completed you could pull away whole sections because they didn’t connect anywhere. You can see in the picture that you can actually remove the witch’s hand – it just comes away. There was constant readjustment necessary, which is extremely annoying to me. And even where the pieces did connect the fit was very loose; any slight bump would upset many pieces.
This puzzle and the terrible cut/fit turned me off Bits and Pieces puzzles. I haven’t ordered from them since. I’ve done one or two of their puzzles we’ve found at thrift stores, but in general they’ve been on my naughty list. I may have just gotten a puzzle from the end of the run, you never know. Still, they’re not a manufacturer I go out of my way to find. They do have some gorgeous puzzles though – we’ve still got some on our to do list that we’ve picked up from the local thrift stores. Maybe the next one I do will be awesome!
Nevertheless, this puzzle is beautiful and a nice kick-off for the Halloween season. I love the fall! 🎃
Excellent quality kid’s puzzle by Mattel. It’s only a 24 piece puzzle and even though it literally took just a few minutes to assemble I still found it enjoyable. And who doesn’t love Winnie the Pooh?
This image has bright, fun colors and is appropriately easy enough for a 24 piece puzzle. The pieces are thick and sturdy and fit together amazingly well. Great quality!
These are the characters I remember from my childhood – they haven’t been “updated” thank goodness! I don’t care for the makeovers so many older Disney characters seem to be getting. In my opinion they should be left the way they were originally drawn. It makes me sad that the characters I remember so fondly from my childhood are different now or prettied up. Perhaps this is equivalent to “you kids turn that awful music down!” Some things seem better as they were in our memories.
*Black belt thrift store puzzle shopper here* (that’s my mom)
I find it nearly impossible to leave an unusual puzzle behind in the thrift store. Therefore, this puzzle came home with me, even though the package was in rough shape. This was from a company I had never done before, and for only 69 cents I more than got my money’s worth from it. A search for Hambly Studios, Inc. yielded a website for a maker of scrapbooking materials, rather than puzzles.
That said, I had a great time with the puzzle. It kept an old lady entertained and off the streets until well into the night. (Actually, till 1:00 AM, when I finally surrendered and went to bed.) Truth be told, I would have finished it if hubby had not come in and reminded me I had to get up early for church!
The fit was very loose, with just a slight jostle dislodging 4 or 5 pieces at a time. It was still a LOT OF FUN. Unfortunately it was missing 4 pieces. It would have been a keeper otherwise, in spite of the loose fit – I enjoyed it that much and would have done this puzzle again.
The packaging left a lot to be desired, as it was a clear plastic container; much like the throwaway packaging on a lot of items we buy these days. The advantage was that it was easy to see the quality of the pieces without having to open the container. Still, it was very flimsy and that may be how 4 pieces escaped.
All in all I enjoyed this puzzle very much, despite it’s quirks and missing pieces. It is still sitting on my board, as I can’t quite bring myself to throw it away just yet. Maybe tonight. When another puzzle calls my name and I need a place to work on it.
This puzzle was lots of fun! Mom and I assembled it together and we both found it very interesting. There are 3 puzzles in one box, 3 different sizes of pieces; you can assemble them one at a time, or do them all and make a panoramic puzzle.
The piece counts are 24, 48, and 63 pieces. They were a good thickness, sturdy, and fit together nicely. It’s a shame there was a piece missing because this was a very nice puzzle; Cardinal does a good job with kid’s puzzles in my opinion.
I liked the irregular border on these puzzles and that the different piece sizes make it an excellent puzzle to work on with someone else. If you’ve got a child who likes Doc McStuffins, I would definitely recommend this puzzle. 🙂
My Jigsaw Journal 