Black Puzzle Mat Roll Up with Guiding Lines

Let me begin by saying I have never owned one of these mats before. My search for one was prompted by some immature resident in the Senior Housing Project I live in messing up (every single day) the puzzle I was working on in the community room. After finding puzzle pieces in the garbage, I decided to hunt for a solution. When pursuing options on Amazon, I was floored by the prices! Then I came across this one for $13.00. It does the trick!! I can roll up and take my puzzle up to my tiny apartment every time I am finished working on it and tuck it away.I like the foam inner roll supplied. I read some people don't like the blow-up ones. It lies fairly flat, flat enough to do my puzzle. I does seem to collect a bit of lint from the puzzle pieces, something that might bother some, but it is no big deal for me. I don't even need to put it in the bag provided because the three snap-on velcro straps hold it securely. I really am impressed. Thank you, Marbs Puzzle Mat!!

I chose this one because the "roll" was a foam cylinder instead of the kind you have to inflate. Overall I'm happy with it for the price point (I'm not ready to spend the "big bucks" for one of the really nice board system yet), but there is definitely room for improvement.Pros/Cons:+ The foam roll comes in two pieces, and you put it together using the included adhesive-backed hook-and-loop circle. This means you can later separate them again if you need to make them shorter to store when not in use, so that's nice.+ The three straps used as a closure work well. They snap onto one end of the mat, and then after you roll up the mat they wrap around it and close on themselves via hook-and-loop. They are placed well and seem like they will hold up with use over time. Depending on your table space and personal preference, you can leave them snapped to the mat while working on the puzzle or remove them.- The foam roll should have a larger diameter. Rolling the mat up that tightly buckles the puzzle and breaks it apart, so you have to roll it up very loosely... and manually slide the puzzle to smooth it back out every few inches of rolling. (Years ago I had a mat like this with a heavy cardboard tube for the roll, and the diameter was significantly larger. I didn't have a problem with the puzzle buckling when being rolled with that one.)- The bag is okay, but it isn't really big enough. Even when rolling the puzzle up too tightly, it's a struggle to get the roll back in the bag. It seems as though they forgot to include enough room for the closure straps and the puzzle inside the mat when designing the bag. It works well for keeping the mat, foam and bonus tray together when storing them "between puzzles" though. When I have the patience to re-roll enough times to get it into the bag, it's a great thing to have.

I chose this because I'm a sporadic jigsaw puzzler and I didn't want to spend a huge amount of money. The folds from the package were pretty easy to straighten, and they didn't impede my progress. Putting the rolling tube together was very easy. I was solving a 1000 piece puzzle and this was advertised as working for that size puzzle. The twist to my story is that I was working a 1000 piece round puzzle that happened to have a black background!😄 So about an inch on the top and bottom protruded but still worked fine and I could easily roll it I just needed to move it carefully. The black mat and the black puzzle was a challenge but I succeeded nonetheless!! This is a very serviceable puzzle mat but my next puzzle will be square and have a light-colored backround!!

This does what it’s supposed to do. But it never lays quite flat, and the “mat” is really just a giant piece of thick felt. The felt texture of it makes it hard to slide pieces and also makes it hard to get the puzzle to lay flat. It will do, but if I was choosing again I wouldn’t choose this.

This is an awesome way to clean up an unfinished puzzle. I hate when I take a while on a puzzle and the wife wants it cleaned up. There was never an easy way to do this but now I can just roll it up. Plus sometimes when puzzles are new they have some flakes of stuff in them that get all over the table, but they will just roll up with the rest of it, and after you are done you can just tilt in towards a trash can. The other thing I like are the different size borders which makes it easy to judge the size when first starting out with edges/corners.

I need to give it another try. The first time I rolled up my un-finish 1000 piece puzzle, it was just a little too loose. Pieces I had outside of the puzzle's square perimeter began to slip out between the felt base. I need to make sure I roll more like a sushi roll... tucked in snug between the felt base as I roll. Otherwise, I am so glad I bought it. I don't have much free surface space to spread out this puzzle. I have it on my dining table. Now I can just roll it up and put it aside for next time of relaxing puzzle work.