Michigan State University – R & R Imports – 500 pieces
I received this puzzle as a gift from my favorite sister-in-law. She works for the school, and is always sending us MSU things – this time it was a puzzle, yay!
It was very challenging, but the puzzle goddess hasn’t lost her touch – I still got it. The edge was difficult, the crowd was difficult, and overall it was quite demanding. It isn’t the easiest image, but I thought the challenge was fun.
This puzzle wasn’t the best quality, but that’s par for the course with a company that doesn’t specifically produce jigsaw puzzles. The pieces were quite thin, and the cutting was sub-par as well. A few of the tabs were broken off, and some were close to breaking. But it was a gift, and I very much appreciate the thought behind it.
The whole time I was assembling the crowds I was thinking “I would hate to be there in the midst of all those people”. Rather than being in the middle of a throng of people making too much noise (according to a little old lady), I would much prefer to be home in front of a puzzle. But that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. 😉
100 Aussie Icons by Jim Tsinganos – Mr. Bob Puzzles – 515 pieces
100 Aussie Icons is a fantastic image, and made for a wonderfully interesting puzzle. This is one of two wooden puzzles sent to me for review, and I had an absolutely great time with the assembly. I’m so looking forward to the next one!
Mr. Bob Puzzles is an Australian puzzle company that has switched over from producing cardboard puzzles to making wooden ones. They primarily focus on the artwork of Australian artists, and are trying to avoid the well-worn path of puzzle images; I think that pitfall has been avoided, their catalog is full of interesting and not seen before images to choose from. The quality is excellent, with thick wooden pieces that feel good in your hands, and a cut that looks easy, but offers more of a challenge than you think.
There’s one thing I can’t show you with a picture – the smell. Mr. Bob Puzzles uses aromatherapy essential oils to give their wooden puzzles a wonderful smell. I can’t tell you what it is, because I have no idea the exact scent; all I can tell you is they smell amazing! Mr. Bob Puzzles believes in the health benefits of puzzling (there are 10 health benefits listed on the back of their boxes), and they are adding aromatherapy oils to their puzzles to enhance the assembly experience and add to the health benefits. It’s something I’d never heard of before, but I think it’s great and the scent in my puzzle room was truly lovely.
The first picture is after one day’s assembly. The second is when it is almost complete, all that’s left is the sky. The cut is seeming a simple one, with regular “puzzle” shaped pieces, but it’s quite deceptive. There are many straight edges on the inside of the puzzle, and it makes for a much more challenging assembly than I thought. I loved the added difficulty and it went together much more slowly than a 500 piece puzzle usually does for me. In my book that’s a plus!
According to the box, all Mr. Bob puzzles have Australia themed whimsy pieces, I love the kangaroo inside the shape of the country – very cool. Of course my favorite has to be the Sydney Opera House with my initials inside! 😍 I’m not sure if that’s something they do for everyone, but I loved it.
I’m sure a good Aussie could tell you exactly who all these people are. I was almost positive that the flag bearer was Ian Thorpe (Olympic swimmer), but of course I was wrong; he’s one of the surf lifesavers. Other than that I have to confess to being an uninformed American who had no idea who the rest of these people were until Mr. Bob sent me a legend with most of the icons. I would suggest that perhaps there be a page on their website with a legend of them all so that we could see the ones we missed. This image is one of their bestsellers, and I’m sure a list would be appreciated by those of us who aren’t up to date on our Australian history.
Also, you can see in the top right of the picture that Mr. Bob has put his logo into the puzzle, very clever!
The artwork is so detailed and full of interesting people and things and it made for a most entertaining assembly. The puzzle is quite large, about the size of the average 1000 piece cardboard puzzle, and I found the large pieces are quite nice to work with. I was impressed with the quality of this puzzle, and it is most definitely recommended. I will add that I was equally impressed with their very quick shipping – this puzzle was at my door 5 days after it left Australia. Amazing!
Details:
Title: 100 Aussie Icons
Artist: Jim Tsinganos
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: Excellent
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.
50 Scents of Grey by Lucia Heffernan – Eurographics – 500 pieces
My daughter fell in love with this image when we were shopping, so obviously I had to get it. (I wanted to interject here to tell you what a good mom I am for purchasing this puzzle to make my daughter happy, but the truth is I probably would have gotten it anyway. I am afflicted with a severe and non-treatable case of PADS. 😎)
It was fun to assemble, and I was thrilled to see that there was more than one piece shape. The previous Eurographics puzzle that I assembled only had the one shape, luckily this one had some variation. The box says it’s a “family puzzle”, which I thought meant several different sizes of the pieces, but that wasn’t the case. I’m not certain what makes it a family puzzle, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t the image.
My daughter says I should frame this puzzle, she tells me she would love to hang it in her house – it makes her laugh. Unfortunately I had already disassembled it by the time she replied to my text, so it looks like I’ll be putting it together one more time for my baby girl. I hope she likes it.
After the “easy” parts, all that was left was all blue and all red pieces. Thankfully there were several piece shapes and shades of color to help put these sections together.
The scratch and sniff part was my favorite – how silly and cute/gross is that? This is a great little puzzle with interesting shapes and very good quality; it’s fairly easy and quick to put together, but still enjoyable.
I’ll be reassembling this puzzle for my beautiful daughter so she can display it in her house. I hope it makes her smile and think of me whenever she looks at it; and I hope it doesn’t get her dogs too worked up. 😉
#Fuzzy Friends by Keith Kimberlin – MasterPieces – 500 pieces
How adorable are these guys and gals? So sweet! This was a great quality puzzle by MasterPieces. The random cut was lovely, but it took me a minute or two to wrap my aging brain around the way things would go together. There’s always a period of adjustment when I start a randomly cut puzzle, I have to stare at things for a while until the gray cells warm up and comprehend how the pieces fit together. Once that’s done it’s off to the races!
This is how it looked after putting together everything I pulled from the initial sorting – not bad!
This was my favorite section, I love those faces! Puppies and kittens are almost always cute and make for adorable puzzles. They’re not always easy (a lot of fur tends to be a bit of a challenge) but they’re usually entertaining.
The fit was very good and I truly enjoyed the random cut. It’s been a little while since I’ve assembled a MasterPieces puzzle, I forgot how much fun they can be. After a steady diet of grid cut puzzles, it’s lovely to change things up and do something different.
Whether you prefer random or grid cut, there’s no denying they are very cute fuzzy friends. 🐶🐱
Who Said That? by Colin Bodie – Crystal Lines – 504 pieces
What a fascinating and fun jigsaw puzzle! It was almost as much fun sorting this one as it was assembling it. I loved reading all the quotes – many I knew, and many I’d never heard before. If you can find one of these puzzles I would highly recommend giving it a try; it’s not easy, but the challenge is oh so much fun.
In my previous in progress post regarding this puzzle I mistakenly said that this was a Buffalo puzzle, in fact it’s by Crystal Lines. It was made in Australia, a great product sent to us from Down Under. This particular puzzle is 25 years old, produced in 1994. I highly doubt it’s still being manufactured, but you might be able to find it in your local thrift store if you’re very lucky.
There were 240 portraits and 240 quotes to match up. Every portrait piece fits with every quote piece, you have to be careful. The portraits all overlapped with the pieces above or below them (or both), and they were helpful in making sure you matched them up properly. You don’t need to know them all to assemble this puzzle, but knowing some of them helps to get you started. There were quite a few quotes from movies that were easy to match up with the actors who said them: “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn” can only be one person, find the portrait of Clark Gable and you’re on your way.
There were philosophers, artists, entertainers, businessmen and women, writers, poets, and public figures just to name a few. From Socrates to Robin Williams the quotes were thought provoking, funny, a little shocking, and hilarious. Reading through them all was so entertaining! 😎
I knew more than I thought I would, and there also were a few that I thought I knew for sure and was completely wrong. Oh well, I don’t usually get a perfect score on anything.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes – mostly silly and very true….
The quality of this puzzle was stellar, and the pieces were quite large. At 504 pieces this puzzle measured approximately 38 x 24 inches, about the size of the average 2000 piece puzzle! The pieces are very thick and fit together quite tightly. The portraits were very well done and I could tell who most of them were without reading the names (the ones I was familiar with, anyway).
If you are lucky enough to come across this puzzle, I suggest you give it a try. It isn’t easy, but boy howdy is it fun! 🙂
The scratch and sniff part was my favorite – how silly and cute/gross is that? This is a great little puzzle with interesting shapes and very good quality; it’s fairly easy and quick to put together, but still enjoyable.
