Bask in the Glow of Good Company, 750-piece Foil Embellished Lantern Press Puzzle Review

Hi, everyone!

A quick personal update for why I haven’t post anything in the past two months. My husband had a medical emergency when he was out of town at a conference and I ended up needing to fly out to be with him. He was in the hospital for over three weeks and when we got home it took a while to get back into our normal routine. I had to decide which aspects of my business I would focus on and I decided that I would put the blog on hold until I got into a better rhythm with all the different projects I juggle.

Now, back to puzzle-related content!

Isn’t this a gorgeous puzzle? This is ‘Bask in the Glow of Good Company’ one of the Lantern Press Firelight Collection puzzles. It is a 750-piece shaped puzzle that has a lovely shimmery rainbow metallic foil detail across a good portion of it’s image. Lantern Press marked down the entire collection from $45 to $29 and I finally decided to buy one to see if these puzzles are as good as they look.

Now, buying puzzles brand new has a tendency to add up in cost. If you are a regular reader, you know that I love hitting my local thrifts stores and library sales to try to find second-hand puzzles for cheap. There is nothing I love more than a good puzzle find! Unfortunately, I haven’t come across any puzzles in this collection at any of my favorite puzzle shopping locations. I was really happy to see the price drop on the main collection because it does bring it into a much more reasonable budget range.

The day this collection came out, all of the designs immediately went onto my TBA list (To Be Assembled). I think they did such a lovely job designing this whole collection. The images are all bright and colorful (even this reasonably dark design). Several have foil details, and many have fun, shaped edges. The designs they created actually look enjoyable to puzzle with lots of variety of element shapes and smart usage of patterns and colors. The puzzle itself comes on a nice thick puzzle blue board. The image is printed with soy inks on FSC certified paper—this means that the paper comes from forests that are managed responsibly and sustainably. The finish on the pieces is smooth and thankfully, not glossy so lighting glares weren’t an issue. The foil detailing was done well, highlighting many of the stars and adding extra interest to the flowers and foliage. I especially liked the touches in the blue fur of the fox.

The packaging is beautiful, with an unusual tall, shaped box design. I will note, that if you are the type to pour the pieces into the box and pull from there, this might not be a plus to you. For me, it wasn’t an issue as I usually pour the pieces onto the table. The puzzle came with a letter-sized full color printout of the puzzle for referencing the image while you puzzle.

I really loved putting this puzzle together. I started, not with the edge, but with the lantern. I found the pattern around the flame to be the most distinct element as the pieces were so distinct. I was initially worried that the uppercase letters of the quote ‘Bask in the Glow of Good Company’ would be difficult, but the sizing of the letters and unique spacing actually made it rather easy. Oftentimes uppercase letters can be the hardest type to puzzle but as this font had a serif detail and was sized so that the letters really only took up one or two pieces it made each form reasonably easy to identify. If you remembered the quote, it was even easier. The majority of the details came together easily, the animals, the quote and the lantern. I did slow down once I started working on the flowers. The pink flowers ended up being the most challenging element besides the stars which I left to the end. Once the majority of details were assembled, I switched to the edge and when done, I finally I filled in the stars.

I found this to be a pretty relaxing puzzle to put together. It had elements that were at times easy and also elements that were challenging. Nothing was overly frustrating and that made this puzzle a winner in my book.

Let’s discuss the price. This puzzle clocks in at $44.99 at full-retail price. Luckily, at the time of this writing, Lantern Press has the entire collection of full-size puzzles marked down to $29.99. If you purchase on Amazon, several of the puzzles even have an additional 10% off brand promotion that you can opt into (note: I couldn’t find any details on how long that promotion would be running). When I consider my experience with this one puzzle, I found the puzzle image and packaging to be well designed. There was only one small production issue where a pair of pieces wasn’t fully cut apart. The foil detailing was correctly aligned on the artwork. None of the pieces were peeling and I had no false fits. The pieces held together reasonably well although you could lose a piece or two depending on how far the section needed to move. Honestly, it was about as good as a puzzle could get. The $44.99 price did seem fair but I’m a lot more comfortable and happy at the $29.99 price.

These are the type of beautiful puzzle that I think would make an excellent gift puzzle. It’s pretty and well packaged so it feels special, and the puzzle itself is a great quality. If the $29.99 price is out of your budget, Lantern Press also created a set of minis in this collection that retail for $12.99! They are small 140-piece treasures that have just as much character as their larger 750 and 1000-piece counterparts.

Want to buy this puzzle?

Find Bask in the Glow of Good Company here!

Interested in the rest of the Firelight Collection? Check out some of my favorites below!