It’s MerMay! Let’s have Mermaids in Wonderland!

May 21, 2019 PuzzlePaws Leave a comment

If you are not familiar with MerMay, let me direct you here, and then note that while I am not an artist, I am a colorist. And I love mermaids, the odder the better! Finding a non-Disney type mermaid coloring book was a treat!

Mom found this glorious coloring book back in April, and I fell in love with it so badly that I hunted through every local Barnes & Noble store until I found my own copy. It is not often I feel the need to own a coloring book that badly!

Mermaids in Wonderland is a 10 by 10 inch book, with 96 pages of beautiful images of mermaids and other sea life. The paper is a really nice smooth midweight, that takes color with ease without too much bleed through. The pages are double-sided, so bleed-through was something of a worry until I experimented a little.

The first half of the book has white pages, while the second half is done with black pages. These make for some stunning pictures!

Mermaids in Wonderland isn’t just another coloring book, it is a puzzle-solving adventure! Throughout the pages, cleverly woven in are clues to riddles that need to be solved. These riddles work in concert, creating a story that you can be a part of. The only other coloring book I can compare this to is Johanna Basford’s Ivy and The Inky Butterfly.

I think the best parts of this book are the mermaids doing nonstandard mermaid things. There are mermaid (and mermen!) adventurers, acrobats, and warriors. There are salons, restaurants, and amusement parks! There are mermaids from almost every possible culture, from a Chinese Dragon Dance to Native American hunters to European nobility. Unlike most mermaids drawn, there are almost no clamshell bras! It seems to be a function of fashion rather than a statement of sexuality, which is refreshing! The Mermaids of Wonderland have amazingly details on both their clothing and their scales.

Marcos Chin is a new artist to me, Mermaids is one of his three coloring books so far. He has also drawn Fairies in Wonderland and Elves in Wonderland. If they are as good as Mermaids, I’ll be adding them to my collection at some point soon!

Disability Notes: Other than noting that some designs have more complicated linework than others, I have no complaints. Those pages are being set aside for a day when my hands don’t shake.

Where to buy: Mermaids in Wonderland is available on at the HarperCollins Publishers website, as well as Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The book’s MSRP is $15.99 but some locations are selling it for less.

Marcos Chin : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I bought this coloring book to use for this review. The opinions are my own. All art shown on this post is Copyright ©Marcos Chin and Harper Design 2017. The coloring is mine. All links are direct, I do not make money from them.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Status Update

Feeding the Troll, Blogging and Services Rendered.

May 17, 2019 PuzzlePaws 5 Comments

Spouse-Critter says “Arguing with a troll is like wrestling with a pig. Both of you will get dirty, but only the pig is having fun.” He is most likely right, but I need to post this.

Back in December, I received this comment on my Day 8 Christmas post. I didn’t see it until after December 22, as I’d been in New York on family business.

This person, hereafter referred to as Troll, chose not to leave a name or email so I could not contact them. Now, as a point of order, I have to, in fairness, point out that there is no reliable way to convey tone within text. So the little disapproving “church lady” tone I read this comment in is entirely in my own head.

I was hurt, and at the time did not have the words to explain. So I spent a few months being alternately angry/frustrated and depressed. Never a good combo. I fought my way to the surface, spoke to my representatives at various companies, and spoke to both professional writers and other bloggers. I was introduced to a novel concept. If I’m being trolled, then I’m doing something right!

So I started blogging again. I put myself out there, solicited new companies for reviews and worked out a schedule that worked for me.

Then I woke up this morning to this:

Sorry Troll 2.0, this time I have the words.

The thing is, every product I receive must be logged at either wholesale or retail value and I MUST pay taxes on them. The IRS doesn’t care; I cannot pay my taxes in puzzles and coloring books. I can and do sell some of the products I receive after doing my reviews, but that doesn’t generate enough income to pay taxes, much less regular bills. Other products I donate to my local VA, senior center, and children’s hospital; because I believe in sharing.

I am disabled, but I fall in that not-so-small category of people who are in the process of applying for benefits, but not receiving any yet. Spouse-Critter works a good job, but his job doesn’t include health care or much in the way of extras. If I want to buy products to review, like LEGO® or high-end wooden puzzles, I need income to do so. That is why I have both Patreon and Ko-fi set up. If you read my Patreon, you’d see that I have it set as a way to sponsor different projects.

I’m of the opinion that if professional authors and other bloggers have Patreon accounts, then there is no reason why I cannot as well. Patreon is a platform to pay for services rendered. I write and do projects, and I recieve money for services rendered. Effectively, it makes my hobbies into a job. As for the accusation of being shameless and asking for money? Have you read my disclaimer at the bottom of each post? I’m not begging. I ask you to consider it. Being a patron is a choice! You can choose to be one, or you can choose not to. Simple.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Diamond Painting

Lucky Timing and Diamond Art

May 15, 2019 PuzzlePaws 3 Comments

Have you ever made a split-second frivolous decision? I’m really glad I made this one!

Just after Christmas last year, My friend Sammi let me know that there were diamond art kits on clearance at our local Walmart. I was laid up due to the weather and SAD, so I asked her to pick one out for me.

This is a Dazz™ Dimensional Diamond Art™. Dazz™ is made by Horizon Group USA, an arts and crafts company. They were only available at Walmart for a limited amount of time before being discontinued by the company.

This is a partial drill diamond art, meaning that parts of the canvas are printed, and not meant to be covered by gems(AKA drills). Dazz™’s kit is amazingly well set out! The canvas is bright and large, the drills are well labeled, and the instruction sheet is the best I’ve seen!

I found the drill chart to be easy to read in daylight, though I struggled when my eyes tired. This is the largest diamond art kit I’ve done to date, measuring 16 by 20 inches. The surface is roughly ¾ covered by drills and so it took me almost 2 weeks to finish.

I’m incredibly happy with how this kit turned out! The colors are vibrant and the drills adhere amazingly well. I’ve done a few kits since being introduced to diamond painting last year, and Dazz™ is ranking right up there as one of the best. I’m going to be framing this, but that post will be on the Patreon.

Please, Horizon Group USA! Bring these back! Or at least send me your discards!

QUALITY:

Box: Small, thin and compact, Easy storage
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Glittery without the glitter!
Difficulty Level: Intermediate
Gem Shapes: Round
Gem Fit: Very Good.

Disability Notes: I can definitely recommend this for a person whose hands have good and bad days. I worked on a lapdesk on the couch, and other than my butt going numb, it was a very comfortable project to work on.

Where to buy: I’m sad to say you can’t, unless you get very lucky on Ebay. I’ve looked. If you were lucky enough to buy one of these last winter, congrats!!

Disclosure: I bought this diamond art kit for review. The opinions are my own. All links are direct, I do not make money from them. All images of Dazz™ Dimensional Diamond Art™ are ©Horizon Group USA 2018.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Puzzle Review

Sunny May Days and Baseball!

May 10, 2019 PuzzlePaws 1 Comment

Tonight my baseball team, the Boston Red Sox will play against the Seattle Mariners.

Team loyalty is a strong human trait. Most people “choose” their sports teams early in childhood and rarely switch them. I’m no different. My first baseball memory is my Grandpa Roy (maternal grandfather) taking my brother and I to a game when I was around 8 or 9. That was 30 years ago. Grandpa Roy was a diehard Mets fan, and while he failed to give me a love of the Mets, he did teach me to love baseball. At the time, I was living in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Naturally, I was a Red Sox girl. When we moved to Upstate NY, I found myself in enemy territory. The dread Yankees merchandise was everywhere! I clung to my beloved Sox fandom, throughout the long years of no Pennants or World Series wins. I celebrated with the rest of the Red Sox Nation when in 2004 we broke the Bambino’s Curse at last!

When I saw the new puzzles that MasterPieces and Major League Baseball had created, I knew I needed to do one! This is the Boston Red Sox 500 Piece Home Plate Shaped Jigsaw Puzzle, which is a mouthful to say! Thankfully, the title tells you all the pertinent details; it’s 500 pieces, is shaped like home plate, and features the Red Sox! This puzzle is officially licensed by the MLB.

I don’t have my usual frame picture, because I started to assemble the puzzle on my new puzzle board, not having checked to see if it would fit first! Ooops! I ended up having to slide my frame onto the puzzle board SC made me. Shaped puzzles can be tricky, as the nonstandard dimensions may not fit on your puzzling surface.

This was a really fun, and challenging puzzle. Not only is it a shaped puzzle, but it has 5 shaped pieces, known as whimsies. The whimsies are larger than all the other pieces, and added to the difficulty. That being said, this is a random cut puzzle and the pieces fit together amazingly well.

Home plate, cleat, glove, cap, and jersey

I haven’t been to Fenway Park since I was a little girl. I live in Virginia now, but visit family and friends outside Boston often. Eventually, I’ll get a chance to cheer my Sox in their home stadium like I did as a kid. In the meantime, I watch from home and wear my colors proudly!

PUZZLE SPECS

Company: MasterPieces® Inc.
Title: Boston Red Sox 500 Piece Home Plate Shaped Jigsaw Puzzle
Artist: Not listed
Year released: Unknown
Pieces: 500
Cut-Style: Random
Finished size: 22x 22 in
Bonus poster: No
Made from recycled materials
Made in China

QUALITY:

Box: Sturdy but lightweight, 10.5 x 10.5 x 2 inches
Board: Medium thickness, recycled chipboard
Cut: Cut with a steelcut die
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Semi-gloss
Puzzle Dust: Minimal
Piece shapes: Irregular pieces and 5 whimsy pieces
Piece Fit: Very good, small clusters of pieces could be moved without falling apart

Where to buy: Boston Red Sox 500 Piece Home Plate Shaped Jigsaw Puzzle is available on the MasterPieces website for $19.99 USD.

MasterPieces Puzzles: Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I received a complimentary puzzle from the manufacturer in exchange for review. The opinions are my own. All links are direct, I do not make money from them.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Accessories, Puzzle Review

Puzzle Board as a Disabilty Aid?

May 7, 2019 PuzzlePaws 1 Comment

Living with a chronic disease sucks. When it is one that also happens to be invisible, life can be very hard indeed. Like many people, I have a ton of hobbies. Most of those hobbies form the basis of this blog and do double-duty as a way to keep my brain and body active. Puzzling and diamond art are wonderful mental exercises, but they are absolute murder on my back and neck.

Over the last few years, I’ve had to accept that mobility aids are a part of life. They help me expand my quality of life. So I’ve been looking at different products that other puzzlers use to help them. When I was at Toy Fair, I was intrigued by their puzzle board and the possibility that it could help me on bad days.

The board came in a rather intimidating box, but once the travel packing was removed it revealed a really nice traveling box.

I was really surprised to find that the puzzle board comes pre-assembled. This is already saving me spoons! The board is beechwood with a blue velour covering. It is 20 inches high by 27 inches long and somewhere between 15-20 lbs. Ravensburger says it can handle puzzles from 300 to 1000 pieces. It has 4 possible settings, so that you can adjust the tilt to your preferred angle.

I decided to test the puzzle board in my two main puzzling locations, on the coffee table in the living room as well as on my bed in the bedroom. The velour cloth that covers the puzzle board creates a slightly static environment that allows pieces to stay in place on the board, even when the board is at its most extreme tilt.

Hurricane resting under my puzzle and not on it!

I found that I liked the third notch position, and that my puzzling was much less painful after several hours. The non-slip velour kept my pieces on the board and the few that fell were caught by the ledge at the bottom. My back and neck didn’t cramp up from leaning over! The only issue I had it that the puzzle I started didn’t fit the board! this was my fault, because it was a specialty shaped puzzle and I forgot to check the dimensions before starting.

Yes, my messy bed. With SC out-of-town, I live in a nest of blankets.

I also tried puzzling on the bed. the puzzle board’s base is too long to fit my bedtable, but I found that I was equally comfortable balancing it on my legs or sitting cross-legged with it on the bed itself. Obviously, I couldn’t spend as long puzzling in bed; my legs have issues being stuck in the same position for long periods of time. However, I was able to assemble a 100 piece puzzle and not overstress myself. Due to the nature of my illness, I expect that the puzzle board and I will be great friends this next winter!

Because I live with cats, when not in use, I’ll be keeping the board in its travel box. I’ll also be investing in a really good lint roller! Overall, I think this will be a wonderful aid in my puzzling. At least now I have a way to assemble larger puzzles in bed on bad days!

QUALITY:

Box: Sturdy cardboard with a plastic travel handle
Board: Lightweight Beechwood, sturdy wooden pieces, blue velour surface
Finish: Semi-gloss
Weight: Estimated 15-20 lbs
Dimensions: 20 x 27 inches

Disability Notes: Obviously, there is the weight of the board if you have any weight restrictions. If you cannot lift 20 lbs, have someone help you move the puzzle board to your preferred puzzling location. Like most Ravensburger products, you will pay for the quality. That being said, saving up for a puzzle board is much like saving up for any upgrade to a mobility aid. I don’t need the shiny glow-in-the-dark cane tips. But I like them and they make my life easier.

Where to buy: At the moment, the only place you can buy a Ravensburger Puzzle Board is at one of their physical store locations. The price of the Puzzle Board is not listed on the website, but I did a bit of research and found that it retails for $149.99 USD on EBay and Amazon.

Ravensburger : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I received a complimentary puzzle board from the manufacturer in exchange for review. The opinions are my own.All links are direct, I do not make money from them.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Puzzle Review

Traveling From My Couch, and Happy Birthday Eric Dowdle!

May 3, 2019 PuzzlePaws 1 Comment

Okay, to explain my title for this post… Yesterday, May 2nd, was Eric Dowdle’s 51st birthday. I’m incredibly fond of Eric’s artwork, which is the basis of Dowdle Puzzles. For his birthday, Dowdle puzzles is having a 51% off sale that ends today, May 3rd. Code: ERICBIRTHDAY

What? you’re still reading?!? Scroll to the bottom of my post, hit the link to the Dowdle website and get shopping! I’ll wait…

You’re back? Ok. So the other part of my title has to do with the fact that SC has been out-of-town for a week now, and I’ve been busting butt and stressing more than usual. So of course, my body decided I needed a few days of pain flares and unbelievable fatigue. No matter how much I wanted to be active and do a ton of chores, I just didn’t have the spoons. Thankfully, SC reminded me I’d received a wooden travel puzzle at Toy Fair.

Dowdle’s Travel Puzzles were not what I expected! Most travel puzzles are either magnetic or have too small a piece count to be a challenge. This is a wooden puzzle where the image is giclee-printed directly unto the wood before being laser cut. At 150 pieces, there is enough complexity to keep my fuzzy brain engaged.

As you can see in the above picture, the pieces fit snugly in the frame, which works just as well on my lapdesk as it would in a car, train, or hotel room! Like the other wooden puzzles I’ve done, to connect the pieces, you have to slide one piece on top of another. Due to the precision of laser cutting, this makes for a really tight fit. While I was assembling this puzzle, I watched a documentary on Roman Catacombs, just so I’d have the full “travel experience”.

I really love the sheer number of animals that Eric has managed to fit into one image! There are the usual suspects: lion, elephants, giraffes and hippos. But there are some real surprises as well. I found a fennec fox, African painted dogs, a rhinoceros beetle and even a tortoise!

The best part of this puzzle? It’s so easy to store! It is only a quarter-inch high, and a little bigger than a sheet of paper. If you travel a lot, space can be at a premium. Or, if you’re like me, my puzzles war with the cats for space on the bookshelves. Collecting all of the travel puzzles currently available would take the same space as a standard puzzle box from one of the other puzzle brands.

About the Company: Dowdle Puzzles is a part of Dowdle Folk Arts. The artist and owner is Eric Dowdle, who has over 200 folk art paintings, mostly focusing on American cities and national parks.

PUZZLE SPECS

Company: Dowdle Puzzles
Title: Wild Africa
Artist: Eric Dowdle
Year released: Unknown
Pieces: 150
Cut-Style: Random
Finished size: 9 by 11 inches
Bonus poster: No
Made in USA

QUALITY:

Box: N/A Plastic sleeve
Board: Lightweight , sturdy wooden pieces
Cut: Laser Die
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Semi-gloss, with great color saturation
Puzzle Dust: None
Piece shapes: A good mix of traditionally cut and irregular pieces
Piece Fit: Very tight! Some of the irregular pieces make it so that pieces can only be moved in small groups.

Disability Notes: The smaller piece count and wooden pieces are wonderful for someone traveling or trapped in bed! I can recommend this for people with mild arthritis or good to excellent hand/eye coordination.

Where to buy: The Wild Africa Travel Puzzle is not listed on the Dowdle website, making me think it is a Toy Fair/Vendor Exclusive. However, there are currently 5 different designs available on the Dowdle Puzzles website for $34.95 usd.

Dowdle Puzzles : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I received a complimentary puzzle from the manufacturer in exchange for review. The opinions are my own.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page.To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Book Reviews

A Parliament of Bodies – Reviewing the Latest Installment of the Maradaine Series!

April 30, 2019 PuzzlePaws Leave a comment

I’m a reader. Unashamedly. My parents wanted their kids to love books, and I’m sure that at some point, they deeply regretted it when the floorboards groaned and creaked, and the bookshelves overflowed. I’d read and enjoyed the first of the Maradaine Constabulary books, A Murder of Mages. But 2015 was a crazy year, and I never kept track of the subsequent books. It was a surprise to chance across Mr. Maresca’s Twitter feed as he was promoting A Parliament of Bodies. I reached out, and was beyond grateful that he was kind enough to ask DAW Books, his publisher to send me an ARC.

I started reading in fantasy, only later branching into science-fiction, mystery, nonfiction, and true crime. Marshall Ryan Maresca’s Maradaine Constabulary series manages to combine all of these genres. This is the third book in the series and the ninth of the Maradaine world. Yeah, you read that right, Maradaine World. Maresca’s Maradaine is a loom upon which he interweaves the four different stories (Thorn, Constabulary, Elite & Streets) into a comprehensive tapestry. You can read just one series, and get the basic story just fine, but if you expand into the greater world, you can see the whole of the panorama.

A Parliament of Bodies is a wild ride. It has only been a few months since the events in An Import of Intrigues, and Inspector Welling is under Investigation as to his continued fitness to serve as a member of the Constabulary. There is a fiendish serial killer who has kidnapped dozens of people and strapped them into clockwork death machines (think the Saw movies). Inspectors Welling and Rainey are joined by Dayne Heldrin and Jerinne Fendall of the Taurian Order to stop the man Dayne is convinced is the killer.

Some books are comfortable to read, they cradle your mind as you wander their pages. Others are a veritable battle, where like Bastian Balthazar Bux in the NeverEnding Story; you are drawn in and are as much a part of the story’s energy as the characters are. You can guess which A Parliament of Bodies is. After the first hundred pages I had to break out the 2 lb bag of jelly beans my mom gave me for Easter. It was either jelly beans or cannibalism as I chewed my fingernails to nubs.

This book had me laughing, crying, cursing out loud, when I wasn’t gasping and spluttering in inarticulate wonder. There are side adventures, and new revelations on past events that build both the world and make the cast more “real”. A Parliament of Bodies has so much of an edge-of-your-seat quality that by the end you are both winded and desperately craving the next book!

Title: A Parliament of Bodies
Author: Marshall Ryan Maresca
Series: Maradaine Constabulary
Publisher: DAW Books
Released: March 26, 2019
Language: English
Pages: 389

About the Author:

Marshall Ryan Maresca is a fantasy and science-fiction writer, author of the Maradaine Saga: Four parallel series set amid the bustling streets and crime-ridden districts of the exotic city called Maradaine. This includes The Thorn of Dentonhill, A Murder of Mages, The Holver Alley Crew and The Way of the Shield. His work also appeared in Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction and Rick Klaw’s anthology Rayguns Over Texas. He also has had several short plays produced. He grew up in upstate New York, studied film production at Penn State. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.

For more information, visit Marshall’s website at www.mrmaresca.com.

Where to buy: A Parliament of Bodies is available on Amazon in Kindle, and paperback. There is not currently an Audiobook version, although the first two Maradaine novels will be available on Audible on May 28th, 2019.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary book from the publisher in exchange for review. The opinions are my own. All links are direct, I do not make money from them.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Coloring Book

Rainy Days, Whimsical Worlds, and Spring, So Much Spring!

April 26, 2019 PuzzlePaws Leave a comment

It’s raining today. Not surprising, being the tail end of April in Virginia. But the rain is not unwelcome, it is warm, and will intermittently stop to let the sun shine through. I’ve always been a pluviophile. Rainy days are peaceful, so long as my body doesn’t protest; and I spend them happily curled up reading a book or coloring.

Today’s treat is on loan from Mom. I inherited my coloring habit from her, and I tend to suggest coloring books and artists to her that I think she’d like. I’ve been following Molly Harrison on Facebook for a year or so now. When she released Whimsical World #4 – Fairies, Mermaids, Animals, Flowers and Cuteness Galore!: Fantasy themed Adult Coloring Book for the Young at Heart! (That’s a mouthful! I’m calling it WhimWorld4 from now on.) I poked it at Mom. She bought the book and brought it down when she visited this last week for Easter.

Molly Harrison has a rather distinctive style. It’s a little Precious Moments©, and a little Selena Fenech, and a bit of adorable magic all her own. Honestly, I loved all 26 images in WhimWorld4, and choosing a handful to color was hard.

The only complaint I have with this coloring book is that the pages, which are single-sided, are not perforated. I can understand why, perforated pages add to printing costs. I just dislike the page wrinkling that happens when I use my craft knife to cut pages out. Other than that, the pages are lightweight, good quality paper. I colored with watercolor markers and fineline markers with no bleed through. Alcohol markers require a cardstock backing page.

Colored with Staedtler finelinerpens and UBrands gel pens.

The reason I recommended WhimWorld4 for Mom was that Molly makes sure there is a nice mix of simple and complex images. All are cute, but their differing complexities lends to differing coloring styles. Mom likes colored pencils and gel pens, I prefer markers. Every once in a while, I like to break out the crayons.

Colored with Hoolanda watercolor pens, Windsor&Newton Promarkers and Gelly Roll gel pens.

Molly has a great Facebook page where her fans can post their coloring and she does freebie pages for download. Molly Harrison does watercolors that are amazing, but that I’m not at a skill level to attempt. I have to remind myself that I color for stress relief and that my level of coloring cannot be compared to others. As SC tells me, “Everyone who colors is a colorist.”

Disability Notes: Other than needing a craft knife if you want to remove pages, I can’t think of any negatives. The images in Whimsical World 4 are all G-rated, and at the simplest, can be colored with crayons. I can recommend this book for people with both eye and coordination issues that are mild to moderate, depending on your ability. I had horrible eye strain while working my tree-fairy and was still able to keep to my lines.

Where to buy: Whimsical World #4 is available on Amazon, and currently on sale for $8.99 USD. Molly Harrison has coloring books in a multitude of styles, all are affordable, and there is bound to be something for everyone’s interest!

Molly Harrison Art : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: My Mom bought this coloring book and allowed me several pages to use for this review. The opinions are my own. All art shown on this post is Copyright ©Molly Harrison 2019. The coloring is mine. All links are direct, I do not make money from them.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Puzzle Review

Earth Day, Yesterday, and All Year Long!

April 23, 2019 PuzzlePaws 1 Comment

Yesterday was Earth Day, a holiday started in 1970 that focuses on environmental reform and the human impact on this world we inhabit. Yesterday was also the day after Easter, and my mom and little sister headed home. I was wiped. Chronic illness means that I “hit the wall” and can’t push myself any further. Last week was a whirlwind, and by Monday, I was very much done. I spent Earth Day in bed.

Today, I’m still tired, but I wanted to bring up a thought. Earth Day was yesterday. Yesterday is over. Does that mean I can just put Earth Day and all it means on the shelf until next year?

Earth Day isn’t like most other holidays… It’s a way of life.

This year, I managed to convince White Mountain Puzzles to allow me to do a few reviews. I immediately fell in love with Amazing Sea Turtles. It reminded me of the Earth Day commercials and shows I watched as a kid in the 80s and 90s.

I’ve never done a White Mountain puzzle, so I was surprised by the box stand that was included. Made of recycled cardstock, it holds the box lid so that you can have the puzzle image at hand. As this puzzle didn’t come with a separate poster, the box stand came in handy.

My work space, border set up and ready to go!

I found this to be a delightful puzzle. It’s advertised as an E-Z Hold 300, which means it is made with slightly larger than normal sized pieces, on recycled blue chipboard. The grid-style cut was not challenging, but I don’t want a challenging 300 piece. I do 300 pieces to relax and let me think.

Back to my original point. Earth Day as a way of life. It’s daunting, isn’t it? especially as a person with disabilities. I love my straws, as they keep my hands from spilling drinks down my front, I like modern conveniences. But even I can do small things all year-round to help the planet. I can and do choose to buy puzzles made with recycled materials. I recycle and reuse items. SC and I have furnished our home in furniture that had been discarded but was still serviceable. I use public transit often, and I donate to earth-friendly charities when I can afford to. I have in the past, planted trees. Small things, sure, but small things, like puzzle pieces add up.

This puzzle features a handful of sea turtles swimming through a busy coral reef. It’s a great image to show what we could lose, and what we need to protect. More importantly, it makes me happy. I love sea life and aquatic scenes.

PUZZLE SPECS

Company: White Mountain Puzzles
Title: Amazing Sea Turtles
Artist: Gerald Newton
Year released: 2017
Pieces: 300
Cut-Style: Grid
Finished size: 18 x 24 inches
Bonus poster: No
Made from recycled materials
Made in USA

QUALITY:

Box: Sturdy, Light-weight, 10 x 12 x2 inches, Glossy Finish
Board: Thin and sturdy pieces
Cut: Steel-cut Die
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Glossy
Puzzle Dust: A bit more than I prefer, but not too much
Piece shapes: Grid style, 4 shapes
Piece Fit: Excellent, nice tight fit that if careful, I could pick up

Disability Notes: The E-Z Hold pieces are really nice. They fit my hands well and I had no difficulties in assembly. I can recommend this size puzzle for kids and adults, and I think that people with hand or eye difficulties will enjoy it as the colors are amazingly bright!

Where to buy: Amazing Sea Turtles is available on the white Mountain website for $13.99 USD.

White Mountain Puzzles : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I received a complimentary puzzle from the manufacturer in exchange for review. The opinions are my own. All links are direct, I do not make money from them.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Puzzle Review, Uncategorized

Easter Bunnies and Easter Eggs!

April 19, 2019 PuzzlePaws 1 Comment

I don’t know about you guys, but Easter is one of the few holidays that I get excited about the food. As a kid, I loved my Easter basket filled with marshmallow Peeps, jellybeans, and chocolate bunnies. The best part wasn’t Easter supper with its ham and fixings, but Easter breakfast; where after searching the whole of the house for hidden eggs, I got to crack those colorful shells and roll my hard-boiled eggs in salt and pepper.

This Saturday, I’ll be helping my younger sister Hime and my god-daughter Bug fill my kitchen with the scent of vinegar and a veritable army of brightly colored eggs! Lucky for me, one of my favorite puzzle companies, Cobble Hill, unveiled a perfect Easter puzzle for the 2019 year.

Easter Bunnies by Donna Race is a springtime delight! It’s a 500 piece random-cut puzzle that has three sweet bunnies guarding a nest of colored eggs among a field of early Spring flowers.

The included mini poster! A super helpful puzzling tool!

Ignore the cat hair, check out these weird shapes!!

I had help assembling this puzzle. My sister Hime is in town for the holidays, and she and Mom helped sort the border and started work on the bunnies. My Bestie Angel came by the other day and helped finish the bunnies and made a serious dent in all the flowers.

I can’t express how happy this puzzle made me. It really brought home the fact that Spring is here, and that while my neighborhood flowers haven’t bloomed, they will soon!

I know that only some of my readers celebrate Easter, because some are observing Passover or Ostara this week. To all of you, I wish the best of holidays and I’ll see you on Monday, which is both Earth Day and Half-priced candy sales!

PUZZLE SPECS

Company: Cobble Hill
Title: Easter Bunnies
Artist: Donna Race
Year released: 2019
Pieces: 500
Cut-Style: Random
Finished size: 19.25 x 26.625
Bonus poster: Yes
Made from recycled materials
Made in USA

QUALITY:

Box: Sturdy, Medium-weight, 10″x14’x2.5″ Matte-Linen Finish
Board: Thick and sturdy pieces
Cut: Steel-cut Die
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Satin, linen texture
Puzzle Dust: Almost none
Piece shapes: Random
Piece Fit: Very Good, nice tight fit that if careful, I could lift it up completely

Disability Notes: I can definitely recommend this for a teen, an adult, or for a person whose hands have good and bad days. I had fun. My hands didn’t ache after assembly, and the difficulty level was certainly up to adult standard. I can happily recommend a large piece puzzle for people with fine motor skill issues, or arthritis.

Where to buy: Easter Bunnies is available on the Cobble Hill website for $15.99 USD. It is still in stock, so I suggest ordering in advance for next Easter!

Cobble Hill Puzzle Company : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I received a complimentary puzzle from the manufacturer in exchange for review. The opinions are my own. All links are direct, I do not make money from them.

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Little pieces make a bigger picture