Train Station, Eden Central by Thelma Winter – Milton Bradley – 1000 pieces
This puzzle was excellent! The image is perfect for puzzling, the quality was amazing and it even came with a couple of extras – a resealable bag for the pieces and a box easel to set the lid on so you can easily see the picture. I don’t normally get all worked up over extras in the box, but I have to say the easel is the best quality one I have ever seen. It’s made from much thicker cardboard than the ones you get from other companies. Unfortunately for mom it lives at my house now. 😊
It went together pretty quickly, it was easy to pull out all the pieces for a section and assemble them without having to look at the box top for guidance – roof, building, train, etc. I enjoyed it immensely, although there was quite a bit of sky and that took more concentration. If nothing else, at least my brain cells are getting exercise.
This was one of those puzzles that was easy and fun and goes together well without too much checking the box top. Now and then it’s nice to puzzle a lovely, calm scene in the middle of our sometimes hectic lives.
The quality of this Milton Bradley puzzle was great, I’d love to find more of them. The pieces are thick with a nice variety of shapes and they fit together well. They feel almost soft, with a matte finish to prevent glare. They have a whole line of these puzzles with amazing artwork by Dominic Davison, Joseph Burgess, Royce B. McClure, Thelma Winter, and Bob Fair – 3 puzzles from each artist! The quality was exceptional, and the images are lovely; thumbs up to this line of puzzles. 👍
Spirit of Coca Cola by Pamela Renfroe – Springbok – 1000 pieces
Spirit of Coca Cola was a fun but quite challenging puzzle. I like the image, it makes me think of my dad who always has and always will drink Coca Cola!
Springbok puzzles are good quality with nice thick pieces that fit together very snugly and excellent image reproduction. I’m not sure if you would call the cut random or semi-random, but it did make for an interesting assembly. If you read this blog regularly you know I’m not a fan of the super tight fit, but many people are; to each his own. It does make it easy to assemble a smaller section and then pick it up and move it – that’s one good thing about a very tight fit. There’s always a positive to be found, so I always try to find it. 🙂 Springbok has a varied catalog; there are so many interesting puzzles to choose from – nature, animals, sweets, holidays, and many others including more Coca Cola images! Click the link above to see all the puzzles from Springbok available at Puzzle Warehouse.
There was a fair amount of puzzle dust in the bag, but the pieces were all separated and undamaged; the fit was tight and required some effort to connect pieces. The image reproduction was beautiful with a slightly shiny finish. It was a bit difficult to work the darker areas of the puzzle for me, my puzzle area only has artificial lights so there was glare to deal with. The finished puzzle is on the large side for 1000 pieces 24 x 30 inches (61 x 76 cm) so be sure you have a large enough work space. The box has the name of the puzzle, manufacturer and piece count along with a small image on 3 sides so that you could store it vertically or horizontally.
The assembly was relatively easy at first, the bottom half of the puzzle was easy to pick out pieces to assemble the plane, all the people and signs, etc. Once the building and everything below it was complete the challenge was turned up a notch! There is a fair amount of blue sky to put together and an even larger amount of tree line. This section was more time consuming and slightly tedious for me; the trees were more difficult than the sky and took the most time. This wasn’t my favorite assembly, but it wasn’t too bad and I sure was proud when I finished it. 🙂
The artwork by Pamela Renfroe feels retro/nostalgic and makes me think of “simpler times”. I love the feeling of family in this image, and it made me look through the vintage puzzles at Puzzle Warehouse and add several of them to my ever growing, insanely long wish list. 😮 There are a bunch of wonderful collage puzzles that I would love to get my hands on!
Spirit of Coca Cola is no longer available at Puzzle Warehouse, but don’t worry, Coca Cola is a popular theme for puzzles and there are a surprising number of them to choose from. Click here to see all the Coca Cola puzzles available from Puzzle Warehouse from several different puzzle manufacturers. I especially love Santa’s Coca Cola Christmas – such beautiful artwork! The Coca Cola puzzles make me smile and some of them definitely seem like a fun challenge to take on!
I received this product at no charge in return for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are truthful and 100% my own.
This is a vintage puzzle I believe; the age is showing on the image. You can’t really tell in the picture, but close up you can see some aging discoloration. Still, it’s cute and it’s the Bambi I remember. So many of the Disney images are altered these days, they don’t look the same as they did in their movies. Perhaps it’s because I’m older now that this bothers me; I think they should stay true to the original character. I don’t need the princesses to look prettier or the characters to be cuter, they should be as they were!
Sorry, that was my rant for the day. 🙂
This was another puzzle from our marathon day, I think it was the last of the small puzzles we did. I didn’t know Golden made puzzles; I knew they made books but not jigsaw puzzles! The pieces were thick and fit together very well, and aside from the discoloration this puzzle was very nice quality. It was a little bit of a challenge actually, or that could be because it was the last puzzle of the day. Who can tell? Can’t wait to see if we can find more puzzles from Golden, this one was very nice!
I loved this movie when I was little, Thumper was my favorite because he was kind of sassy like me and always laughing and joking. When I was young if you wanted to watch a movie you had to go to the theater, there was no way to watch movies at home. So mom would buy 8 tracks or cassette tapes that were sort of a read along shortened story of the movie with the actual character’s voices from the movie and the songs too! That way we could “see” the movie over and over and sing the songs at home. We had them for many of the Disney movies; we would listen to these in the car when we took road trips, or even just on the way to the grocery store. What I wouldn’t give to have those now! 🙂
Battle Creek Balloons by Anthony Kleem – Prism Puzzles – 500 pieces
Very fun puzzle mom and I worked together, got it finished in one afternoon. 🙂 We did most of it together and she finished it after I went home. New puzzle company too!
The quality was good – the pieces were on the thinner side but sturdy, the image reproduction was good and they fit together well. There were a nice variety of piece shapes too. All in all, not too bad!
It was a quick assembly with two people working on it, and it was easy to each take pieces for a specific section and assemble them. It’s always fun working on a puzzle with mom, even if the puzzle isn’t as fun as we’d hoped we can still talk, laugh, joke and have a good time. 🙂
I’ve been avoiding balloon puzzles for a while, and now I’ve done 2 of them in just a couple of weeks. Apparently I have no clue what will be enjoyable for me or not. Actually, it seems I like about 99% of the puzzles I do; cause I’m just a puzzle gal at heart who loves to put pieces together to make pretty pictures. 💖
Country Store by Tom Antonishak – TCG – 100 pieces
I love this image, it would make a great larger piece puzzle – 500 or 1000 pieces. Another puzzle from our marathon and another one that isn’t a child’s image. Unfortunately, another one with less than stellar quality. 😦
TCG and Sure-Lox, for me, are just poor quality. The pieces are extremely thin, easily bent and have quite a bit of image lift, especially if you place a piece incorrectly. It’s a bummer for me when we have a poor quality puzzle. Mom and I have decided no more of this brand even if the image is amazing.
On the plus side, the pieces were all there and the image itself is a lovely one for a puzzle. It would be excellent in a larger piece count!
My Jigsaw Journal 