Mousing Around

Mousing Around
Mousing Around by Tim Rogerson – Mega Puzzles – 300 pieces

My very last puzzle of 2018 was this Mickey Mouse puzzle that was great fun even though there were basically only 4 colors to work with. It’s such an interesting look for Mr. Mouse, and it made for excellent puzzling. 🙂

*I’m not feeling very chatty this morning, perhaps it’s my PADS diagnosis*

New 40,320 Piece Mickey Mouse Puzzle!

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Well what do you think of this?!? I read about this puzzle on the blog of a friend from Russia, and found it already available for sale on a jigsaw puzzle site in the Czech Republic! It took a lot of searching online to find it, but I refused to give up and finally found the little bugger. 🙂

Here’s the info I was able to find:

  • 40,320 pieces (same size as Disney Memorable Moments)
  • 22.3 feet x 6.2 feet (680 x 190 cm)
  • Comes in 10 sections of 4032 pieces
  • Box weighs about 44 pounds
  • Manufactured by Ravensburger
  • Priced at around $500 USD 😮

This puzzle is celebrating the 90th birthday of our beloved Mickey Mouse. I wish I could get a better look at each of the 10 frames, but unfortunately I was not able to find any images of each of the sections separately. This is the best I can do for now…

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It looks as though it’s artist desk/collage images from Mickey’s past 90 years. I’m really looking forward to being able to see each panel close up – it looks like fun!

I wasn’t able to find the official title of the puzzle. It could be “Mickey – The True Original” – that’s what I can see on the front of the box; my friend in Russia says the title is “Disney – The 90th Birthday of Mickey Mouse”. According to the Czech puzzle site, the name is Puzzle Mickey Mouse. Google translate tries, but it doesn’t always do right by me, so I can’t say for sure just yet. 😉

I doubt I’ll be buying this one any time soon, but for some reason news of this puzzle really got me excited! I spent well over an hour searching everywhere I could think of to find any information I could. I’ll update with new info when I can find it, but these things seem to take a long time – especially when you’re really looking forward to them!

What do you think? Gonna give this one a go?

Disney Classics

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Disney Classics – Kohl’s Cares – 300 pieces

This was a fun puzzle, but more challenging than it looks! Either that or I’m slowly losing my puzzle mojo – oh dear. 😐

This was the second Kohl’s puzzle we’ve found at the thrift stores, and I have to say I’m quite impressed with the quality. The pieces are thick, the colors are bright with crisp lines, and the fit is excellent. I was pretty bummed that 3 pieces were missing, the kids at my daughter’s school would have really loved this one.

I love a puzzle that’s easy to sort and this was definitely one of them. We started with the thick blue lines separating each section and the nameplate in the middle. I sometimes find putting together outlines first to be a bit difficult, luckily these were thick lines with words and they went together pretty fast. This is a “look and find” puzzle, so the words on the lines give you things to look for in each of the sections. Lots of fun for the little ones!

Jungle Book and Lion King weren’t as easy to sort, so I just put those pieces all on one tray and worked both of those sections at the same time. 101 Dalmatians and Dumbo were relatively easy to sort and put together and I had much more fun with this assembly than I thought I would. I’m just a big old kid at heart. 😁

 

Movie Reel

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Movie Reel – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

My youngest son gave me this puzzle for Christmas, so bright and fun and full of color! My daughter and I started it’s assembly on Christmas Day after we finished Retro Dogs, and I finished it a day or so later. I love the image, and it was mostly great Ravensburger quality but I was slightly disappointed in the image reproduction. Some of the smaller images were more fuzzy and indistinct than others; that’s not something I usually find with a Ravensburger.

The quality of the pieces themselves was excellent, as usual. The image reproduction, though, left a bit to be desired. Most of the image was crisp and clear, but some small sections were seemingly out of focus and slightly fuzzy. I haven’t had this problem with Ravensburger before, but it’s worth mentioning for this puzzle specifically.

I enjoyed this puzzle very much, I think the choice of these 3 Pixar movies was excellent, probably because I’ve seen all three of them and the kids and I loved them all. The bright colors and adorable characters made this wonderfully fun to assemble. The edges of the movies reels and the blue background gave it a bit of a challenge, but it wouldn’t be as much fun if it were too easy. 🙂

Even with the small quality issue, this was a great puzzle and I still recommend it. For me it brought back memories of watching these movies with my kids when they were younger; how in the world is Toy Story 23 years old?!

 

 

Review: Mickey & Minnie Forever

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Mickey & Minnie Forever – Mega Puzzles – 300 pieces

Here’s another puzzle that mom and I did together. There’s something about this image, the colors, the silhouette of Mickey, the comic strips in the background – I can’t properly put it into words, but this image makes an excellent puzzle and makes me happy.

I haven’t done many Mega Puzzles brand, but this one seemed to have better quality than others I remember. The pieces were on the thin side, but very sturdy and fit together remarkably well. The image reproduction is a bit shiny, but detailed and clear. This is the second of this brand in the past month that I’ve worked that has larger pieces, it seems that the larger pieces are better quality than the average 1000 piece size. Hmm. Interesting.

The assembly was more difficult than I thought it would be, but it was no match for the 2 puzzle princesses who were working on it. 😉 I will give credit to mom though, she did more of the work than I did – she’s the best!

I’m slightly re-thinking my attitude towards Mega Puzzles. I’d like to find a regular 1000 piece and another with larger pieces so I can compare them side by side. I’ll let my thrift store sensei know what her next mission is. 🛒

Details:

  • Title:                  Mickey & Minnie Forever
  • Artist:                Disney
  • Brand:               Mega Puzzles
  • Piece count:     300 pieces
  • Size:                  Approx. 27 x 19 in. (69 x 48 cm)
  • Purchased:      Used, thrift store

Quality:

  • Board:               Good, somewhat thin but sturdy
  • Cutting:             Good
  • Image:               Very good
  • Box:                   Average
  • Fit:                     Very good
  • Puzzle Dust:     Small amount
  • Piece cut:          Grid cut
  • Piece shapes:   Good variety
  • Finish:               Somewhat shiny finish, lays flat

Overall Rating:      Good,  recommended