Glen Canyon – Bela Baliko (America’s Parks Collections) – 1000 pieces
Another new puzzle company we’ve tried! This isn’t our usual puzzle, mom and I prefer cartoon puzzles and collages, but this one was pretty, it was a thrift store purchase, and the pieces were so nice!
The Bela Baliko quality was good-ish. Beautiful image reproduction with nice, thick pieces and no hanging bits of paper or puzzle dust. On the downside, the fit was unusually loose, probably the loosest fit we’ve worked with. The slightest brush with your hand or arm and the pieces were upset. That seems to be happening a lot lately with the new companies we’ve tried. Perhaps it was just the end of the run, I’ve only worked the one puzzle from Bela Baliko so I can’t judge their entire catalog by this single puzzle. I’m just saying how this one was to assemble.
Mom and I assembled this puzzle over several days. It wasn’t too difficult, but could be tedious at times as there was quite a bit of rock that was the same color. Still, it makes for a lovely image and it was fun to try a new company. And you can’t beat the price – 69 cents! 😎
Old Woodland by Dominic Davison – E&L Corp. – 250 pieces
An interesting and beautiful image by Dominic Davison, and another new company I’ve tried out – E&L Corp. Unfortunately the quality was lacking.
I enjoy the artwork of Dominic Davison, this image is beautiful and calm and I love that it has a frame as part of the picture. I’ve chosen several of his puzzles without knowing he was the artist; his artwork makes for a great puzzle. If only the puzzle quality itself was as nice as the image. 😐
The pieces were extremely thin and easily bent, and there were a lot of pieces with image lift as well. On the positive side, there were a good variety of piece shapes and nice image reproduction. I’ve only done one puzzle, so I don’t want to say that this is representative of the quality of all their puzzles. This one wasn’t great, and hopefully when I find and work a few more of them I’ll be able to get an overview of their quality in general.
Lovely image though, and a nice quick puzzle at 250 pieces. 🙂
Festive Felines by Rachael Hale – Andrews + Blaine – 500 pieces
It’s been so unbearably hot here I’ve decided to celebrate Christmas in July! Once a week this month I’ll have a Christmas/holiday puzzle on the blog. It will be a nice reminder that it won’t always be so bleeping hot outside. 🙂
Festive Felines is our first Christmas in July puzzle, a fun thrift store find by Andrews + Blaine. Unopened! I wonder sometimes about unopened puzzles we find at the thrift stores. Was it a gift that someone really didn’t want? Was it put away and forgotten? Was it with a whole collection of puzzles in someone’s estate? I wonder about these things. Mom found an unopened 6000 piece Schmidt puzzle this week – for $1.99!!! 😮
Anyway, back to this puzzle. It was quite a fun assembly, I do love a collage! It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be with so much fur, white, and red – but it was enough of a challenge to be fun.
I’ve done several puzzles by this company, and this is the first puzzle of theirs that I’ve done that I had problems with the pieces themselves. The pieces are a good thickness, fit together very well, and had a nice variety of shapes – the problem is the shapes. In many places the “arms” of the pieces were so thin that even right out of the bag they were bending, and one of them had broken off already.
Many of the pieces had arms this thin or even thinner! That’s just too thin to be able to work with them without breaking pieces. The piece shapes are also a bit obvious in the finished image, making it more difficult to see the details. Andrews + Blaine usually has very nice pieces of a good thickness that fit together nicely. This is the first puzzle I’ve had this problem with, so I wouldn’t let it dissuade you from picking up one of their puzzles if you like the image or find one in a thrift store.
The kittens are adorable and make for a nice puzzle image. There was enough variety in the shades of fur and accessories that it wasn’t too difficult to assemble a section or two at a time. My favorite is the little guy peeking out from inside the gift box. So cute! Did I mention glitter? Glitter puzzle!! It doesn’t photograph well, or I don’t do photographs well – but every section has something glittery. Who doesn’t love a little sparkle?
Here’s an adorable puzzle for all the video game lovers out there. Mom and I had a great time assembling it with the help of my oldest son (who LOVES video games). Another new puzzle company to try too, which I always love. Who knew there were so many different companies out there producing jigsaw puzzles? I sure didn’t!
So, USAopoly, not bad! The pieces were thinner than premium puzzles but extremely sturdy, they fit together well and there was a nice variety of piece shapes. The image reproduction was very good with bright colors and no fuzziness, and there was no image lift on any of the pieces. Pretty darn good all the way around if you ask me.
We worked this puzzle from the bottom up, which is not how we usually do it but the layers of the image just made it so easy. It was a quick assembly with 3 people working on it, and we all enjoyed ourselves very much. My son, who doesn’t usually get involved with my puzzling just had to sit down and work on this one – he just can’t walk past Super Mario Bros. and not stop and see what’s going on. 🙂 When we were finished he wanted to take the puzzle to do again at home and have me glue when he’s assembled it all by himself.
This puzzle reminded my mother and me of playing Super Mario Bros. when I was pregnant with my daughter (over a quarter of a century ago 😮 ). Mom and I would sit and play it together a lot. When my daughter was born and very colicky, she was soothed by the music of the game. She heard it so often when she was in my belly that it was familiar and calming for her! I no longer had much time to sit and play Super Mario Bros., but I could turn the game on and let the background music play to keep her relaxed. This puzzle reminded me of that time so long ago.
All in all an excellent thrift store purchase and a good quality, entertaining puzzle – for 3 generations of my family!
Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs – Mega Puzzles – 100 pieces
Cute puzzle – thrift store purchase – and all of the pieces were there. That’s always a plus. 🙂
I haven’t really given any “bad” reviews on kids puzzles before that I can remember, but this one wasn’t great. As you can see the completed puzzle doesn’t lie flat and the pieces were extremely thin. I haven’t really gotten any Mega Puzzles that have been this lacking before, and I’m hoping this was a fluke. I haven’t done any adult puzzles from this company so I don’t have much to compare it to.
Puzzles don’t always have to be cream of the crop quality-wise (I’d love it if they were though 😉 ). I was having a bad day and resting in bed – and even though the quality is less than optimal it was an enjoyable distraction for a few minutes. The image is cute and any kid who is a fan of the Ice Age movies will enjoy this puzzle.
My Jigsaw Journal 