The Global Puzzle

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

The Global Puzzle – A Broader View – 600 pieces

Does this look like fun to any of you? I wasn’t so sure about it myself, but was intrigued by the box and that the pieces were shaped like countries, states, and provinces so I picked it up at the thrift store. For some reason I really wanted to do this puzzle at this moment, and I’m so glad I did because it was super annoying – but so fun at the same time!

I’ve done only two other puzzles from this brand, A Broader View, and both of those were circular puzzles; this one was a completely different beast. The fit was quite loose, but this puzzle is 13 years old and looks as if it’s been put together many, many times. The edges and all the ocean pieces interlock, but the countries themselves just sit next to each other as the pieces are shaped like the countries they represent. This is meant to be an educational puzzle, so if the pieces connected together you would have hints to which country is next to another – it’s better for learning the geography if there aren’t hints like that.

That the countries don’t interlock is what made working on this puzzle so annoying, but somehow it made me so happy to assemble it anyway. I sorted the pieces very generally at first; all the countries have colors so those all went together, the edge pieces of course, anything with the black or white border that wasn’t an edge, and finally ocean pieces. The number of very large pieces and very tiny pieces was amazing; here’s one of the largest shown with one of the smallest…

Nova Scotia looks teeny tiny next to India, and the difference in sizes between many large countries and smaller island countries for instance was amazing.

The back of the box tells you that it is recommended that you start with the outer black frame, move on to the oceans, and then finish with the land pieces. That was my plan, but as you know sometimes the puzzle leads you another way. The outer frame went together with no problems, but assembling the oceans was tedious.

You can see here that on the ocean pieces is a listing for each country that shows the capital city, the population, and the area in square miles. Putting all of these in alphabetical order and completing just the ocean first would be a giant slog – at least it seemed that way to me. So instead after the border I started at the top with Greenland and moved down to North America. Once those pieces were in place I then went through all the ocean pieces and picked out the countries from A-G that I could find and assembled the Pacific Ocean. I then continued with South America and repeated with country information in the Atlantic Ocean.

You can see here how none of the states connect and how it could be (and was) annoying that pieces moved around whenever a new one was found and inserted into the image.

The larger countries like Brazil, Russia, China, Australia, etc. did have some pieces that connected to each other but none that connected to other countries. This is the first half of the puzzle done, and I again had the help of my youngest son, which made me quite happy. He was intrigued by this puzzle, and helped me out by getting my magnifying glass, studying the box, and telling me the order of the countries alphabetically so that I could put the oceans together without having to consult the box myself. He also put together almost all of South America by himself while I was taking a break and resting in bed. I love that he seems to be more interested in puzzles lately!

There was something about this puzzle that my son and I absolutely loved and it was so hard to walk away from! I would have taken more breaks than I did, but my son would come back to the puzzle room and want to help some more and I just didn’t want to break the spell.

Also, this puzzle is quite large at 3 feet x 1.5 feet (91 cm x 46 cm), so be sure you have a large enough work space. It fit on my smaller puzzle board with only a few inches to spare on either side!

Unfortunately it was missing one piece, the small island nation of Tuvalu located in the South Pacific (the right side of the puzzle). But even though it was missing I did learn that Tuvalu is only 10 square miles in area, and has a population around 10,000 people; I just love an educational puzzle.💖

This would make a wonderful addition to a classroom as an excellent educational resource. I’m sending it back to the thrift store with a small note written on the box denoting a missing piece with the space circled showing where. Even with a missing piece this puzzle was entertaining, educational, and just plain ‘ol fun!

Downtown Freemont, Las Vegas, Nevada

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Downtown Freemont, Las Vegas, Nevada by Susanne Kremer – Cra-Z-Art (Kodak) – 350 pieces

Thankfully I had a really good time with this puzzle. I don’t usually go for photographic images, but this one was a great picture. You can tell it’s been manipulated, the car in the foreground is the same one as the one already driving down the street in front of it. The license plates are the same! I don’t know if most people would notice that or not, but I certainly did.

The quality was good. That’s as high as I’m willing to go on the rating, the fit was a bit wonky in addition to the shapes where you can tell immediately which way they’re oriented. But it was the kind of puzzle I needed to help get me out of my funk, so extra points for that.

This section stood out to me, why is the sign for check cashing upside down? Its one of those things that pops out of the image, you see the letters on a piece and think you know which way the piece goes but it doesn’t work that way. Normally I don’t use the box image or poster when I’m assembling a puzzle, so I didn’t know that this sign is upside down in the image.

Overall I enjoyed this puzzle just the right amount, which is exactly what I needed after three less than optimal puzzles. If this image speaks to you I can recommend this puzzle. It’s a Cra-Z-Art puzzle, so it isn’t premium quality, but you don’t always need that – you just need something fun.

This one was fun!

Defence… In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling6 Comments

Defence Against the Dark Arts – Wentworth Wooden Puzzles – 500 pieces

I don’t actually have any of this puzzle put together at all, but I did dump all the pieces out onto the puzzle board and have pulled out some whimsies (see above). It’s another puzzle for this Halloween season because when it’s done it’ll be posted in the beginning of October; that’s how far ahead in posts I am at the moment.

I hope to actually get started on this one today, and I hope it’s as much fun as it looks. This is one of my 70% off puzzles I bought a little bit ago. If a Harry Potter puzzle isn’t perfect for Halloween, I don’t know what is. 🎃👻🦇

The title of the puzzle is annoying my computer, because it doesn’t think defence should be spelled with a “c” instead of an “s”; there’s a wavy red line underneath every one letting me know it thinks I ought to change it. Guess what, computer? Not everyone spells everything the same way – deal with it!

So far I’m loving the whimsies, there’s some great ones in there, and probably more to find. I’m looking forward to finding them all and getting to work on this beautiful puzzle.

Happy puzzling today my friends!

**I literally just noticed that Crookshanks the cat is almost completely upside down, it looks like they’re hanging on to the ceiling. Oops. Sorry Crookshanks!**

Midnight in the Garden

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles7 Comments

Midnight in the Garden by Ute Thonissen – Ravensburger – 368 pieces

Um…..you may be shocked to hear this, but I didn’t like this Ravensburger puzzle at all. It’s one of the Escape series and it was my first time with these puzzles; I didn’t really understand the concept and I don’t think the instructions are helpful at all. I won’t be writing a lot about this. It’s another type of mystery puzzle and I don’t like to spoil things for others who may enjoy them, so I don’t discuss solutions or show the entire finished image.

This puzzle made me feel stupid because I don’t think that you are given enough information to begin with, and I found it extremely confusing.

If you just want to assemble the puzzle you can do that, but I have a warning for you – do not assemble the border first. It’s very dark, it’s hard to distinguish if you have the correct piece because all the pieces seem to be interchangeable. It’s frustrating if you try to start with the edges, so just don’t.

I really wanted a fun puzzle to play with today but this was not fun for me. 😥

Blooming Books

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Blooming Books by Ben Giles – Galison – 750 pieces

This puzzle was both a joy and a pain to assemble, but in the end it felt like an accomplishment to finish it and I was pretty proud of myself for not giving up. This was a gift (who from I do not remember) so of course I wanted to assemble it – if someone takes the time to pick out a puzzle for me, it is always appreciated, even if it’s a brand I don’t care for or an image I wouldn’t pick out for myself. Whoever gifted me this puzzle, thank you!

Galison is a brand that I don’t buy, new or used – for three reasons. First, their lack of variety in piece shape; their regular puzzles only have ballerina pieces (two male/two female ends), it’s boring to work with only one shape and when there are large areas of one color or pattern it makes assembly much more frustrating and difficult. Second, I’m a very tactile person and I don’t care for the “sharp” white backing they use on their chipboard, I don’t like the feel of it in my hands. Third, and most importantly for me, I had a terrible experience with Galison a while back and their customer service (or lack thereof) was almost non-existent. It really ticked me off, and I made a post called No More Galison Puzzles For Me…Ever.

But like I said in the beginning, this was a gift, and even though it’s been sitting in my house for years I wanted to finally assemble it and send it on to the thrift store – I need the room on my puzzle shelves! One good thing about Galison is that their shaped puzzles are truly a random cut, and it makes for a much more interesting assembly. I was actually looking forward to this one.

The pieces were quite thick and the fit was very good. Those are all the pros for this puzzle, unfortunately.

Most people don’t start with the edges on a shaped puzzle, but I do. I can usually find most or all of the edges and it helps me to begin where I normally do with a rectangular puzzle. Unfortunately the edge pieces didn’t always connect which made me have to revise my plan for the assembly. What I ended up doing was work on the border until I got to a place where the pieces just sat next to each other and then I stopped and went through all the pieces until I found enough inside ones to keep that section of the edge together; then I continued with the next part of the frame. It went on this way until the border was complete, and amazingly it wasn’t as frustrating as I thought it would be.

I’ve been much more laid back lately about how I assemble puzzles, just letting my weird brain take me where it wants to go. It’s been good, and I think that helped me with this assembly. I thought I knew how it was going to go, but had to take a detour and figure out another way to get to the end. It didn’t cause me anxiety or upset, I just went with it and it was nice.

You can see from this closeup that the image reproduction was not good on this puzzle, the flowers and butterflies looked like a a bad copy from an old mimeograph machine. On the poster included with the puzzle, however, although the flowers look like they were pasted onto the image of the books, they do not look pixelated like they do on the actual puzzle. It seems as though it’s just a bad reproduction.

Interestingly, I still enjoyed working on this puzzle. I took my time, let the puzzle take me where it wanted to go, and let myself appreciate the ride when I could.