This cute little puzzle was at the cabin, and you know I can’t resist a kids puzzle (even if it is a Ceaco). Unfortunately one of the pieces had obviously escaped, and it’s in a pretty obvious place too; poor Snoopy is missing a section of his doghouse. Nevertheless, we had fun putting it together – and hubby helped with this one too!
You can tell by the picture above that this puzzle has been well loved; there are several pieces with the image lifting up from the tabs, and a few places where it doesn’t lay completely flat. But I can’t blame Ceaco for those things, this puzzle has been assembled more than a few times – by children. Kids aren’t always as gentle as we might want them to be with their toys. So, all of that is to say that the quality of this puzzle was actually pretty good, it seems to have held up well to repeated assemblies and disassemblies.
It didn’t take long with three adults working together, but it was still quite enjoyable. Sometimes working on a puzzle made for children makes you feel as if you’re really good at puzzles. Look how fast we got that done, we are FANTASTIC at putting together jigsaw puzzles! 😎
Plus, I spent the weekend explaining to everyone that part of the reason puzzles are so enjoyable is because you get that little hit of dopamine when you find the piece you’re looking for or make a connection. Your brain is sending you chemicals that make you feel good, and who wouldn’t want that? Puzzles are amazing!
We all got our little ego/dopamine boost when we finished this – and then we must have spent 45 minutes to an hour looking through all the other puzzles at the cabin for the missing piece.
Is that not a beautiful and interesting image for a puzzle? My favorite sister-in-law and I put this one together in her cabin in Northern Michigan, and of course we had a marvelous time. A great puzzle – assembled with someone you love spending time with – I couldn’t ask for more! 💟
I bought this specifically for my brother and sister-in-law as a gift for having us up at the cabin and putting up with us for an entire weekend. Sis and I put it together just the two of us, but my hope is that their whole family will enjoy putting it together many, many times while they’re up there vacationing.
There were great outdoorsy whimsy pieces, but we especially loved the fox, the elk, and the moose. Perfect for putting together at the cabin; there aren’t any moose in the lower peninsula that I know of, but still it’s a great puzzle for assembling at a cabin in the woods. The whimsies were all so lovely and made for such great shapes on the pieces around them – absolutely fantastic!
We didn’t notice until the puzzle was finished and I turned it over that the swirly pieces were a snake! Such delightful whimsies in a beautifully made Victorian cut puzzle assembled with loved ones – we had a wonderful time with this puzzle and thoroughly enjoyed every single piece of it. 💖
This was the first time I’ve taken puzzles with me on vacation, and let me tell you it will DEFINITELY be happening again (this week, in fact). Spending time over a puzzle with loved ones; talking about everything, nothing, or just the puzzle itself made for beautiful memories that I will cherish for a very long time.
This was the first puzzle of a great vacation. 😊
This puzzle has an awesome image with blocks of color that I very much enjoyed assembling. This is the companion puzzle to Abstract Love that I posted about previously – there is a line drawing on the back of this one as well for you to color in with the paints provided in the subscription box for that month.
Again, for me, choosing which colors to put where and making certain that I didn’t mess anything up would have been stressful for me – so I chose to only assemble the puzzle.
If you were unsure about whether or not you placed a piece correctly on the front you could also use the line drawing on the back to make sure you had it right; which is handy when assembling the puzzle in a place with less than optimal lighting. 🛀
With my daughter really getting into these mini puzzles and working on them whenever she’s here they’ve been going rather quickly; at this rate I’ll be running out of them before too long – even with my subscription. That’s alright, we can always get more. I love that she wants to help me with them. 💛
If you’re a long-time reader you would probably think that this image is absolutely my pile of pieces – and it is. The problem here lies in the puzzle that it was attached to – the worst quality wooden puzzle I have ever come across.
There was/is a “going out of business sale” on Crafthub’s website, and I wanted to try them out so I bought 3 small puzzles (to make shipping worthwhile). Suffice it to say I was not looking forward to the other two after completing this one.
So let me tell you about the quality of this puzzle…
The pieces are way too small – they are hard to pick up, hold, and fit into the puzzle. With a detailed image like this one the small pieces make it extremely difficult to see if the patterns or colors match properly when trying to find the right piece.
The fit is too loose, and some pieces don’t even attach at all. Most wooden puzzles have a loose fit, but this was unbelievably, over the top loose; the slightest touch would move every piece already “attached”.
The wood has no heft to it, the pieces are light as a feather; when I was blowing on the sheet of paper on my tray to get rid of some dust all the pieces went flying because they were so light. I’ve never worked with a wooden puzzle that was so “delicate”.
Because the pieces are so small, the whimsy pieces are as well, and there are several shapes with the thinnest cuts I’ve ever seen. Some of those pieces had to be bent back into shape to fit into the puzzle correctly, and if it were assembled more than once they will most likely break off.
There were several pieces that weren’t cut all the way through, to separate them would have meant damaging them. If there was adequate quality control this should have been caught.
There was no name on the plastic box it came in and no piece count either, I had to count all the pieces myself to give you an accurate number. In addition, the size I chose said that there would be 70-80 pieces in the puzzle – there were 146 – either I got the wrong size or the website was just wrong.
The whimsies and the pieces that fit around them; uh…not great. Just because you can cut interesting shapes with a laser it doesn’t mean you should, especially when the pieces are so small. Several of the pieces that fit around these whimsies (mostly the ones that go underneath the animals) were bent almost to the point of breaking because they are so thin. These aren’t all the whimsy pieces, but once the puzzle was assembled I was so over working with it that I didn’t bother to find the others and take better pictures.
On the right is a piece from one of my MicroPuzzles and on the left is a piece of this puzzle; as you can see the pieces of this puzzle are smaller – too small for a wooden puzzle if you ask me. They’re hard to pick up, hard to place correctly, and in general just annoying to work with.
It also came with a poster bigger than the actual puzzle, and with colors much brighter than the puzzle itself. Because the colors were so different I found it easier to put the poster away and just work with the puzzle; when I was using the poster I ended up looking for brighter colors that weren’t anywhere on the puzzle I had. Frustrating and annoying.
I’ve done wooden puzzles whose pieces didn’t excite my imagination, puzzles that have had a bit of image break off at the edges, and puzzles with image alignment problems. I’ve worked with many brands from Artifact to Zen; but until now I’ve NEVER come across a wooden puzzle of poor all around quality – this was my first. I honestly have nothing good to say about this brand, this puzzle; and if you know me or have been a long-time reader you know that is something I rarely say. Even when there are problems with quality I normally find something positive; but that is not going to happen here. Crafthub has great images to choose from, but if they are attached to puzzles of such poor quality it is most definitely not worth the low, low prices on their website.
Please spend your puzzle budget elsewhere, Crafthub puzzles aren’t worth it – and we all deserve so much better.
Kuala Lumpur by Harimao Lee – Blanc Puzzles (Buffalo) – 300 pieces
There was something about this image that I couldn’t pass up, even though photographic puzzles aren’t usually my taste. Thankfully it was as much fun as I thought it would be and the assembly was truly entertaining.
Blanc Puzzles are very good quality, though this was a bit different than the previous puzzle by this brand that I assembled. The box was different (no clamshell lid or magnetic clasp) and the backing was different (no artist signature or brand name printed on the backing paper). Otherwise it seemed to be the same quality of chipboard, pieces, image reproduction, and fit.
There isn’t much that need focusing in on with this image, so I documented the assembly instead…
It wasn’t as challenging as I thought it would be, but in the end that was a good thing for me. Getting ready for our vacation was foremost in my mind, and it was nice to have an easy puzzle that didn’t require too much brain power.
I enjoyed this puzzle and it’s quality very much.💜
My Jigsaw Journal 