Playful Santa & Festive Angel

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Playful Santa – Wentworth Wooden Puzzles – 25 pieces

It doesn’t look like it, but this micro puzzle was more difficult than it looked. I’m almost embarrassed at how long it took me to put these 25 pieces together! It’s interesting to me how such a small puzzle with very few pieces can be cut to make the assembly so much more challenging. Aside from the whimsy pieces, the cuts don’t seem that unusual, but they’re the just the right amount of difficult.

The Christmas cracker puzzles are so beautiful and come in such interesting packaging; they will make excellent stocking stuffers for next year. I can’t wait to see if there will be new micro puzzles to choose from! (I think I’d better start saving now)

 

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Festive Angel by Louise Anglicas – Wentworth Wooden Puzzles – 36 pieces

This beautiful angel had a much more intricate cut which added to the challenge, in addition to being shaped. Loved it!

As someone who usually does 1000 piece puzzles (and has even assembled the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle) it’s amazing how much I enjoy these micro puzzles. It’s wonderful to work with the wood pieces, and even though it doesn’t seem like they would be much fun, they are astonishingly entertaining. I think they might even have helped me enjoy Christmas puzzles more, because I had absolutely no hesitation about ordering every single one they had available! 🎄

 

Review: The Christmas Library

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The Christmas Library by Aimee Stewart – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

Aimee Stewart and Ravensburger, always a fantastic combination! Her artwork is beautiful and colorful and ever entertaining, and her puzzles have never disappointed. 🙂

The Christmas Library made for excellent puzzling – I enjoyed every single piece. Having words to assemble always makes me happy, and the style of the vintage books, ornaments, and images was absolutely gorgeous! The quality was excellent, as usual. It’s very rare that I have any quality issues with Ravensburger. The pieces look and feel like a premium puzzle, and fit together like one too. An all around fantastic Christmas image!

I’ve never really been a Christmas puzzle person, most holiday puzzles are so similar that they don’t interest me much. This year though, I’ve been lucky enough to find a few puzzles that are outside the norm, and they’ve been quite fun to assemble. I’m putting this one in that group, it’s more of a collage and that’s more to my liking then the standard Santa and the tree puzzles.

Stay tuned, the next 3 days will be all Christmas puzzles that I’ve assembled this season; I enjoyed every one. (I can hardly believe I just wrote that! 😮 )

Details:

  • Title:                  The Christmas Library
  • Artist:                Aimee Stewart
  • Brand:               Ravensburger
  • Piece count:     1000 pieces
  • Size:                   Approx. 27 x 20 in. (70 x 50 cm)
  • Purchased:       New

Quality:

  • Board:               Excellent
  • Cutting:             Very good
  • Image:               Excellent
  • Box:                   Average
  • Fit:                     Very good
  • Puzzle Dust:     Small amount
  • Piece cut:          Grid cut
  • Piece shapes:   Very good variety
  • Finish:               Slightly shiny finish, lays flat

Overall Rating:      Excellent, recommended

Moulin Rouge

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Moulin Rouge by Marilyn Dunlap – Remarks – 1000 pieces

This was an interesting thrift store purchase that mom and I assembled together. It looked more fun than it was; for me, anyway. I chose this one to assemble, but it didn’t meet my expectations for some reason. I’m not sure I can articulate why this was, I just know that it was.

The random cut was very interesting and kept us on our toes, and the pieces fit together well. The piece shape is very obvious in the finished puzzle, which isn’t ideal but doesn’t really affect the actual assembly. It does make it more difficult to make out some of the words though.

I’m not usually so “blah” about a puzzle, it’s mostly yay or nay; either really loved it or didn’t like it. I have no idea what I was expecting, but whatever it was didn’t materialize. For the most part this one just makes me shrug my shoulders. Eh. The quality was good, it just lacked something for me. If I’m going on quality I would recommend this puzzle, if the image is something you like go for it. 🙂

Review: Skates

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Skates by Amy Rosenberg – Bits and Pieces – 500 pieces

This was a fun puzzle that mom and I assembled together. I haven’t seen very many Bits and Pieces puzzles that are grid cut, in my experience they’re usually random cut; it was a nice change.

This was a good quality Bits and Pieces puzzle that was quite a joy to assemble. It was a bit more challenging then we’d assumed, but still fun. The pieces fit together very well and the image itself is cute, and perfect for more than one person to work at a time. Mom started on the left side with the white ice skates and I started on the right with the scarves. We met in the middle to work on the chair and dog. Lots of fun!

Bits and Pieces quality seems hit or miss. Sometimes the fit is way too loose and floppy, and other times it’s just right. I would prefer it if the quality were consistent; that’s why we only buy this brand second hand from the thrift stores. It’s too disappointing when you pay full price for a puzzle that has quality issues.

This is a nice wintry image that has me wishing for cooler weather. It’s supposed to be 82 degrees here today! 🌞

Details:

  • Title:                  Skates
  • Artist:                Amy Rosenberg
  • Brand:               Bits and Pieces
  • Piece count:     500 pieces
  • Size:                  Approx. 16 x 20 in. (41 x 51 cm)
  • Purchased:      Used, thrift store

Quality:

  • Board:               Very good
  • Cutting:             Good, some hanging bits of paper
  • Image:               Very good
  • Box:                   Average
  • Fit:                     Very good
  • Puzzle Dust:     Moderate amount
  • Piece cut:          Grid cut
  • Piece shapes:   Good variety
  • Finish:               Slightly shiny finish, lays flat

Overall Rating:      Very good, recommended

Spider-Man 3

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Spider-Man 3 – Milton Bradley – 98 pieces

This was purchased from the thrift store the day mom spent the morning “Driving Miss Stacey”. I thought my younger son would enjoy it as he is a Spider-Man fan so we decided to take a chance. This puzzle is made of foam and the package said it fits together so well you don’t need glue, you can just hang it up when you’re done. While this is true, unfortunately I wasn’t impressed.

The fit of this puzzle is weird, and although it’s true that you can pick up the entire puzzle without glue I don’t think it would make a good hanging decoration. The pieces will not lay flat, not even close to flat. I tried to adjust them all so that it wouldn’t be so noticeable, but you can tell in the picture above that I was unsuccessful. Even if all the pieces had been there this isn’t a puzzle I would have kept.

Milton Bradley in my experience usually has good quality puzzles, but this one just didn’t pass muster. I will still enjoy their more traditional cardboard puzzles, but I don’t think we’ll be purchasing any more puzzles made of foam. It was fun to try out a new type of puzzle though. 🙂