Review: Ravensburger Jigsaw Awesome Alphabet "A"

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I was sent a new 1000 piece jigsaw by Colin Thompson called Awesome Alphabet "A". This was perfect for occupying me during a week of Dry January!

Job number one was to try and find all the edge pieces to get the basic jigsaw in place:

Then I could begin to try and spot obvious pieces that went together:

#WordOfTheWeek Nostalgia - Jig-Map Jigsaws

We are having major sortings out and getting rid of lots of things at the moment and as always when you go rummaging in boxes you find old treasures that take you back... Before selling some jigsaws I thought it would be best to test them out to see if they were still intact. So my dad and I sat down to tackle one together - just like we used to do on Sundays in the days of black and white TV! We had a few of these Jig-Maps which combine puzzling and geography with their place name quiz:

I had forgotten how the pieces were all more unusual shapes than most jigsaws:

Some even abutted rather than connected to another piece which made it more complicated:

Review: Ravensburger The Brighton Belle 1000 piece jigsaw

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Once again I was pleased to be offered the chance to review a Ravensburger puzzle. This time it was a 1000 piece jigsaw called The Brighton Belle. This was the perfect puzzle for a soggy few days in the summer holidays:

Here is the official blurb on the jigsaw:

This wonderfully bright and vibrant jigsaw imagines a scene from the fascinating history of this very special train. If you weren’t lucky enough to have travelled on the Brighton Belle, or you haven’t yet booked your tickets for a trip on the rebuilt train, enjoy this puzzle instead and discover days of opulence and glamour on British tracks. The Brighton Belle ran daily between London Victoria and Brighton from 1 January 1932 until 30 April 1972. The all-Pullman Belle was unique, its sumptuous Art Deco décor comprising exquisite marquetry panels and furnishings and managed by white-jacketed Pullman stewards. The entire Royal Family was carried on it to observe the Spithead Review of 1953 and the Queen used it as a Royal Train on a number of occasions. In 2009 a charity, the 5BEL Trust, was formed to return the train to the mainline, thus filling an important gap in Britain’s railway heritage. The engineering challenge to meet modern safety standards and faster mainline speeds was so daunting that many thought it was an impossible dream, But after six years of work by professional rail engineers and craftsmen - and an expenditure of some £6 million - the public can once again experience authentic 1930’s rail travel. Includes in-box A4 colour leaflet showing puzzle image for reference, information about the image and the charity responsible for the train's restoration. Sales of this puzzle support the work of the 5BEL Trust.

This is traditional jigsaw to complete so I started with the edges and the obvious lines around the inset picture:

#Review Ravensburger What If? Puzzles No 8 The Racehorse

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I was sent a Ravensburger WHAT IF? No. 8 - The Racehorse 1000pc Jigsaw Puzzle (affiliate link) to review:

These puzzles are extra challenging as the picture on the box is not the jigsaw you have to make! Instead you have to use the clues from the picture to find out what happens next:

So the main characters are wearing the same outfits but doing something different but related to the box picture. It takes a lot longer to work it out without too much help:

The pieces have Softclick™ Technology so that the pieces go together really easily when you are putting the right ones together. Like all the Ravensburger cartoon style jigsaws it is full of fun little details like this:

The puzzle is lot more of a challenge than the last one we reviewed. It is something that is stretching my brain! I would recommend it to those who prefer not to have the picture as a guide.

Ravensburger Best of British - Fit 4 Nothing Gym - Puzzle Review

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Regular readers will know that our family are big fans of Ravensburger puzzles so when we were offered the chance to review one of the latest additions to the Best of British range we weren't going to turn it down! The puzzle that we were sent is of the Fit 4 Nothing Gym (highly suited to a family into sport and getting fit):

The artist is Geoff Tristram who has created this quirky range of cartoons to give you a laugh as you piece the puzzle together. I decided that the best time to do the puzzle was in the lull after Christmas when we were cooped up indoors due to the weather. Once I had found myself a flat surface (not an easy feat in our house - I had to use a cardboard box!) I set to finding all the edge pieces:

Well most of the edge pieces on my first trawl through! The great thing about the softclick technology is that you know straight away if you are putting the right pieces together as they go in without a fuss. 

Once I had got the border in place it didn't take a huge amount of time to complete the puzzle. Apart from being distracted by reading the sections of the picture as they appear that is! There weren't too many tricky parts as each part of the cartoon was pretty distinctive:

We have all had a hoot reading the gym instructors names and finding all the funny bits that are all over the puzzle. All in all a fun puzzle to do and it provides lots of entertainment once it is complete too. Now please excuse me I'm off to my Topless Scything Class with Paul Darke and Dee Melza..

Guest Post: Crafted with love

The final guest post from Squiff

I love the unique and personal feel of handmade items. I’m a keen cross-stitcher and spent my pregnancy frantically working on a bold, bright animal alphabet and matching numbers sampler that now hang above my son’s bed.

The next project I turned my hand to was a name jigsaw – I bought a chunky wooden jigsaw of my son’s name online and painted it in colours to match his room. It stands on the bookshelf and is a great tool for starting to explore phonics with him.

My latest project is a word cloud poster of his likes. I listed his favourite things now (aged two) and those when he was six months old. I then used different sizes and colours of font to make them into pictures , printed them on photo paper and popped them into coloured frames. As well as an attractive decoration for his bedroom they are a great record of his development and will give us a permanent record of those often fleeting childhood passions.

What a talented lady!

Jigsaws For Family Fun

We have all just got into jigsaws and thanks to a jigsaw roll we can now do the, without clearing a table first. It's been great doing them side by side with everyone working to their own level:

I will have to train my daughter not to finish my puzzle whilst I'm putting her brother to bed though:

It's interesting trying to teach a child jigsaw skills. To me it's totally logical to do all the straight bits round the edge first when possible. Neither of my children agree with me! For my 5 year old he starts with a recognisable section and works on one part at a time. My daughter has a gungho attitude and doesn't work on any particular section at once.


I worked on an 8 plus jigsaw with my son and together we worked it out quite quickly:

Shame a piece was missing from previous attempt...


My daughter has gone for an advanced grown up puzzle of 500 pieces many of which are a similar colour to each other. I have a feeling it could take us some time to complete:

Posted with Blogsy

Family Fun: Across the Generations

Welcome to week 3 of the Family Fun blog hop. For more details please read the launch page. In the words of a classic 1970s children's TV programme this is about switching off the television and doing something more useful instead!


This week we are looking at the fun you have had with more than 2 generations of your family together. Whether its something with your children's grandparents or its you with your grandchildren. Come in and share (you can grab the code here get the InLinkz code).


I am very lucky that having moved to Cumbria we have 4 generations of the family close by. This means that we are often doing things with at least 3 generations together. This Sunday we had great granny around too and tried to make sure she felt involved with the little ones. Obviously this is harder than it used to be but we had fun doing a magnetic jigsaw together:

There was also a highly competitive game of Super Scrabble. Even my 5 year old joined in and even if he only knows words like C-A-T it means we can all play together.

Obviously when its just 3 generations we can be a bit more active and regularly go hiking or something outdoors. You can see quite a few of these on my blog. If you have done some family fun activities with lots of your family than please join in the blog hop:

Haba Toys: Discovery Puzzle - Knight's Castle

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This is my second post as one of the UK Ambassadors for Haba Toys. It's such a pleasure to be able to try out such lovely toys with my children.Today's review centres around the Knight's Castle Discovery Puzzle. This is a jigsaw with a difference and says that it encourages:

• Close observation
• Fine motor skills
• Eye-hand co-ordination

As it is aimed at the 4+ age group I tested it out with my 4 year old son. Sometimes he likes jigsaws and others not but luckily he was keen on this occasion! Once again there is minimal packaging with the puzzle being hard cardboard which is placed inside a cardboard frame to complete it. It was wrapped in plastic to protect it on the shelf and has a paper insert with the look-closely story written on it.

The pieces come out easily and I noticed that the cardboard frame has the shape of the pieces on the base to make it not too difficult for younger children to complete:

Around the edges there are also shapes to assist the children in getting the right pieces in the right places. This made it easier for my son to work out which piece he needed to choose next:

He did some help and encouragement with completing the puzzle but that is partly because he hadn't noticed the shapes on the base of the frame! When his big sister had a go afterwards she used this to complete the puzzle much more quickly. Knights and castles are some of my son's favourite things so he was very pleased when it became more obvious as to what the final picture was going to be:

Once completed I then persuaded him to try and solve the puzzles from the story on the insert. He didn't want me to read the actual story but was good at finding the answers in the puzzle. It does say in the story that your child may not be ready for some of the questions and to just miss them out. He wasn't keen on spotting too many of the picture clues from around the frame on the actual puzzle but I'm sure at a future stage he would do.

One problem with the puzzle was that when I picked it up the puzzle pieces fall out when tilted too far. This could be a bit of a problem when storing it and I may need to get a little bag for the pieces before they go missing.

I will let my daughter properly try out the puzzle and write up her own review for an older child's perspective.