 I feel like this one might not be too bad. Today's video, we are going to be stepping away a little bit from our traditional flat jigsaw puzzles and kind of taking a little trip back into the realms of 3D puzzling and to France. Hit that like button if you're a fan of 3D puzzles and let me know down below what sets have you completed and what other brands have you tried. And this 3D puzzle is of Notre Dame. It is 128 pieces and it is 14 by 7 by 9.4 inches when it's completed and this puzzle was also sent to me by the company Cubic Fund and this is from their National Geographic series. The back of the box does provide you a little quick snippet of what the assembly steps are like and some other products from this series. I kind of feel like with this puzzle, now where I kind of have a taste of the experience with my first one, I feel like this one might not be too bad. Now like my Neuschfenstein castle set, this Notre Dame model does come with a book. It does not require tools and there's no gluing and it does actually give you an average completion time for this set. So that'll be interesting. I kind of want to compare my actual time to this and see if it's correct. Now one of the reasons why I chose the Notre Dame Paris set was because well for one, I would love to go to Paris and a big highlight for me would be to see Notre Dame and of course you know it's gonna give me some kind of Disney vibe because you know the hunchback of Notre Dame movie from Disney and of course I gotta give kudos to the original novel by Victor Hugo, which if you haven't read that book, you need to read that book. It's absolutely amazing. But anyways, this building is absolutely beautiful. I mean just look at this architecture. I think this model is gonna look fantastic but I mean I can only imagine what the actual building must look like. I would just totally plan to sit inside for hours with a cup of coffee you know as long as drinks are allowed and just take it all in. Definitely a bucket list item for me. Now in terms of completion process for this set, now that I kind of have that prior experience with my Neuschwanstein castle set, I kind of feel like this is not gonna feel as intimidating and really it shouldn't because I believe this has less pieces than that set. I don't know why but I kind of feel like this model is gonna have a lot of little tiny pieces but the initial setup of it itself looks a little bit more straightforward and this one does not have LED lights so that's like kind of a whole step that I don't need to kind of stress and worry about. Even though it looked fantastic on the castle but you know I don't mind having a little break from that and kind of just focusing on the whole process of bending and folding and putting these pieces together. I'm gonna be honest as challenging as it was and really it was only a challenge because it was my first time ever doing it. Completing that castle was so exciting and kind of fulfilling and because you know I achieved something that I've never done before and it was a lot of fun at the same time and to be honest the cubic fun sets was a great quality so I'm really feeling good about this one. I think it's gonna be okay. If you've never tried products from cubic fun or if you want to pick up more sets I'm gonna leave their link down below to their store and also a promo code so you can get a discount on your next purchase. You know I don't feel like I have anything more to say aside from the fact that we just need to open this up and get started because I can't wait to get a little taste of what it's gonna feel like to actually walk in this building. So let's get started. All right let's open this one up. We got some tape on the side here so let's get that out. I can't find my scissors so this will have to do. All right let's see what we've got here. Huh the box opens up a little differently than noise fence time but that's all right. It'll seal up nicely when we're all done. We have here looks to be some tape. I guess we'll figure that out when we get to that right. All right and here is our booklet. Oh one of our booklets. This is the assembly booklet here. Yep there we go. All right so this looks to be the double-sided adhesive tape so we gotta make sure we don't lose that in the process but it looks like we're gonna be using that right away because that's basically the second page to our setup and everything just looks to be exactly just the way our first 3D set was. We're just adding double-sided tape to this one so that'll be interesting. At least we don't have to worry about lighting right? Which wasn't too hard anyways but it'll be nice to just focus on the actual build. That's the instruction booklet. We'll keep that on the side and the set also includes a National Geographic photography booklet. Oh wow check this out guys. This is beautiful. We got beautiful images of the outside and inside of Notre Dame as well as Eiffel Tower. Basically the big landmarks in France. This is a beautiful booklet. That's a nice little touch that they add into this. Wow keep that on the slide as well and here you have your puzzle pieces. So let's open this up. All right so we have our pieces on foam boards just like before. Everything has a number on the actual piece as well as on the side here so in case you mismatch your pieces you have the number but that's only for the bigger pieces. The smaller ones don't tend to have them so just be careful with that and make sure you keep note of the smaller pieces and what their numbers are. So yeah basically the same setup as before. Oh and then here we have our... I can't tell if this is stickers or what. They're not really peeling but I guess we'll find out won't we? We gotta get the puzzle started to finally figure that out. Now one thing that I have noticed now that I've looked through all these sheets is that this particular set does not include the hole puncher like Neuschwenstein did and I'm sure I still have it in the box because you need it to kind of push out these little bits that come out so that you can connect the pieces together. I mean you could really use anything for that maybe a set of tweezers or a bobby pin or something like that something thin to just kind of push the pieces out. You could use your nail too or the tip of your finger but the hole puncher that they provided in the last set was much easier to use but anyways we'll get through it. It's not a big deal. This is gonna be fun. This may be what you need the double-sided tape for but we'll see when we get there. Alright we have everything in place. We are all set. Now let's get started. Now I'm gonna go over a few tips that I kind of came up with during my first 3D puzzle review. One of the most important things I realized while 3D puzzling is that you really have to stay organized. I really wouldn't recommend starting out by punching out every single piece out of all the foam boards. You really should just start on page 1 in your instruction booklet, punch out exactly what you need from that page, then punch out all the little holes within the pieces, assemble, and then move on to the next page. And I know this may seem pretty obvious but really if you scroll through the other pages it does look like you can kind of complete certain areas whenever you want during the process. But again it is really important to stay organized. If you have everything punched out you're gonna end up with the pile of garbage on one side and these kind of puzzles really do produce quite a bit of garbage. And then on the other side you're gonna have all your pieces in a pile and we're talking about 128 pieces here for this particular set. And remember most of the smaller pieces are not actually numbered so you don't want to lose track of anything or even end up with a small piece in the garbage pile by accident. Just follow each page into completion in order and then continue to the next page because obviously the sections are all gonna end up connecting to each other anyways but the instructions are laid out in a way so that it is much easier to do. So take it slow and enjoy the process. Well guess what I damaged the first piece because I went into beast mode and I got hasty. I was able to repair it with tape but that was annoying. Now with this set you have to use the double sided tape that they provide you and that is to attach the paper print of the windows onto the actual foam piece. And honestly this process was a bit challenging and a little frustrating at times. First you would have to cut up the double sided tape into little itty bitty pieces at times, place it on the foam board piece, peel the paper side of the tape off the foam board and then line up the paper print of the windows onto the foam board piece as best as you can. And honestly it was it was a bit tedious at times. Now honestly I didn't really care for this step in the beginning but I got more in the hang of it later on as I went through the completion process. You really have to be patient with this step. Now as I thought earlier this set did not provide a hill puncher and of course I thought I still had my last one but I must have lost it or threw it out at some point so I kind of had to improvise and ended up using the end of a safety pin. But if you use something like this please do make sure it's closed because you know you don't want any accidents in the process but obviously I'm sure you can come up with a much safer idea than I did like a small paper clip or something. I just pulled whatever I had close by to me at the time. So again some areas did damage my fault but there were some foam board pieces that didn't sit properly or kind of had an issue locking in at times. And if I remember correctly I think I had this issue mostly with the flying buttresses which wasn't a huge deal. For the damaged areas I kind of just added a little tape just to kind of secure it in place and it still looked good in the end. In a way I kind of feel like the foam board itself could be a little bit thicker to kind of avoid any damage or bending in the wrong places. You know for people like me who tend to go into beast mode because they get too excited to start and finish a puzzle. But yeah just just be gentle. Now I know I did mention before that there were some areas that did not sit properly or lock in place but really it was only like three or four pieces where that occurred. Honestly 3D puzzles do give a satisfying pop snapping sound as it locks into place. That's when you know when everything just lines up and sets in properly. Just check out this sound real quick. Now that is good stuff. Now overall this puzzle experience was pretty simple and I think mainly that was because it was my second time completing a 3D puzzle. Aside from having to work with the double sided tape it really was a much smoother easier process in terms of folding and bending the actual foam pieces compared to my first 3D puzzle. And in regards to the double sided tape I see why they kind of use the paper print of the windows because it does kind of give it a little more dimension when you look at it. And that extra process is pretty much an extra challenge or step that this set gives you instead of just having to pop holes and pieces out of the foam board the whole time. It gives you some variety. It's something else to do. You don't have the LEDs in this one so it's kind of like an extra step to kind of spice up the whole process and the experience. Now the print on the foam board and the paper print of the windows is very clear and it's excellent. Especially the paper print of the windows it really gives you that pop of color for the stained glass. And overall in regards to the actual foam board pieces you can really see the details in the structure. It looks great. This 3D puzzle took me about three and a half hours to complete. And I actually did this in one sitting which was a huge first for me. And I feel like the most time consuming thing was the cutting and pasting of the double sided tape and the windows because I wanted to make sure that the windows lined up almost perfectly but you don't have to go that crazy with it. But anyways I feel like if you're new to 3D puzzling and you're searching for a quick and easy set this Notre Dame model from Cubicfun is a great way to kickstart your 3D puzzling journey. The assembly is pretty straightforward and although I feel like the foam board could be a little thicker the overall quality is really good. Just don't be a beast folding the pieces so that you don't damage them like me. Just take your time and enjoy the process. Well now it's finally time for me to enter this beautiful medieval work of art and take it all in while sipping some coffee. In my dreams of course. This really is a great representation of Notre Dame and Cubicfun really took the time to make sure they produced an accurate model of this great structure that resides in the busy old streets of Paris. Hmm as I admire this it really does make me look forward to visiting this piece of history one day. It'll happen and when it does I'll share a picture with you all. Anyways guys be sure to subscribe if you're new here and want to follow me on my next puzzle adventure. Hopefully I can inspire you to try different types of puzzles and brands and even try out a few different tips and tricks for your completion process. Well I hope all is going well with you and I will see you in the next one.