Birthday Owls

On May 26, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Another adorable kids puzzle. It’s really very cute with bright colors and backgrounds that help with the assembly. The pieces fit together fairly well, but tended to come apart if you tried to move them or accidentally bumped them.

Overall the quality wasn’t too bad, the pieces were sturdy and the image reproduction is lovely. The fit was a bit too floppy for my taste, but again this is a children’s puzzle. I’m not always a fan of Mega Puzzles but this puzzle wasn’t bad.

I fear my “grandson” is going to run out of room for all his puzzles! I think we’ve given him around 30 or so by now, and I’ve got a few in my car that still have to be delivered! Mom just can’t stop herself from buying any interesting kids puzzles that she sees at the thrift store, and so we are stocking that boy up until he jumps up to 300 piece puzzles. 😎

Tarzan

On May 25, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Every time I saw this puzzle when I was “window” shopping I thought that this would be so much fun – I was so right! 🙂 This assembly was almost like assembling a collage puzzle, you could grab all of the blue moose and put that together, which leads to the orange rhino, etc. It was as much fun as I’d hoped!

Unfortunately this was a regular boxed puzzle and not one of Heye’s triangular boxes, so there was no poster. But that’s my only tiny complaint about this puzzle. With a regular box you don’t really need a poster, but I enjoy them so if given a choice I’d prefer to have one. Excellent Heye quality, the pieces feel thick and snap together satisfyingly. You can see from the picture that the pieces fit together well and the shapes are not glaringly obvious in the finished image.

Heye really does the cartoon puzzles extremely well, and I haven’t had one yet that hasn’t been great. This image from Mordillo is adorable and funny and made for a great puzzling experience. If you’re a fan of cartoon puzzles I definitely recommend this one, I absolutely loved it❣

Scooby-Doo!

On May 24, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

The quality of this kids puzzle impressed me! I hadn’t heard of Pressman Toys puzzles before, perhaps because I don’t have children to buy toys for anymore. This image makes me smile, who doesn’t like Scooby-Doo?

The pieces were quite thick and you can see that the fit is excellent. There are a variety of piece shapes and they are squared off more than rounded which makes it a little more interesting. The colors are bright and fun, and the background has just enough going on so that it’s not bland. I enjoyed assembling this puzzle, and a time or two I had to stop and think, which is good! My feeling is it needs to be a little bit of a challenge or it will be too boring.

I enjoy working these 100 piece puzzles, it’s nice to sit for 5 minutes or so and work a puzzle from start to finish. And I’m not ashamed to say there have been one or two puzzles that were quite a bit of a challenge for me! This was an excellent quality puzzle, and if you have kids you’re buying puzzles for I would say the quality of Pressman Toys puzzles is very good. I’ve only worked this one, but what I’ve seen impressed me. 🙂

Not Enough Time or Boards

On May 23, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Went to mom’s yesterday after a doctor’s appointment to see what she’d found at the thrift stores last week. All I can say is I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME OR BOARDS! I knew when I saw what she’d found that I’d want to do one or more of them right away. I’ve got a Wasgij going on my smaller board (that’s where the clock above comes from), and a Bits and Pieces going on my white board (I use the white board when I’m working in my room lying down), but there are more I want to be working on!

Mom found a Springbok octagonal puzzle from the early 70’s, a Jigsaw Puzzle for Dummies, an awesome looking puzzle from a company we’ve never heard of – and more! A couple of them that she found look like so much fun that I left them at her house cause I want to do them with her. She says looking for puzzles at the thrift stores is like a treasure hunt, she never knows what awesome gem she’s going to find. She’s found amazing puzzles at amazing prices and I just don’t have enough time or boards to work them all! Have I told you she found a 4000 piece Educa puzzle for $1.99?!?

I brought 3 adult puzzles home and all of the kids puzzles (I think 4 or 5). Unless they haven’t been opened I work the kids puzzles to be sure all the pieces are accounted for before giving them to my “grandson”; and also because even 100 piece puzzles are fun!

On the bright side, I have lots of incentive to finish the puzzles I’m already working on so I can start the new ones. I’m super excited to start the puzzles from companies we haven’t tried before, I always love trying new ones!

The thing is, she’s doing it all over again this week. Tuesday is one of the days she’s goes to the thrift stores in the evening – there’ll be more to look at and more that jump into the queue. 👍

I hope it doesn’t seem as if I’m complaining, because I’m not. I’m truly thankful for all that I have and I try not to take things for granted. I know I’m lucky to have the too many puzzles “problem”. This post isn’t really complaining about having so many puzzles to choose from, what it’s really about is that I have what I’m calling Menopausal A.D.D. My aging brain jumps from one thing to another, from one puzzle to another and I love everything so much that I want to be able to work on all of them at the same time. Ooh! Look! There’s something shiny on that puzzle! 😮

The Village Hall

On May 22, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

I was in the mood for a Ravensburger puzzle, and this one looked like fun – it was! Again, I don’t take a picture of the entire puzzle because I don’t want to ruin the fun for anyone. So much of the enjoyment I get from puzzles like this is working out what’s going on and who goes where. I don’t want to spoil someone else’s fun!

In this puzzle, the caretaker at Grimley Hall is certain his new booking system is foolproof. But what if he didn’t take enough care and what if the Hall were double booked, or worse? As usual the result is comical and makes for a great puzzle.

Sometimes I’m just in the mood for a puzzle with quality I know will be excellent and I can just chill out and have fun with the assembly. Ravensburger is always available for that! This puzzle was no different and it was nice to sit down and get lost in the puzzle and tune out the world, even if only for a few minutes at a time. The pieces just feel good in your hand and you can put your mind in puzzle gear and not think about anything else.

As usual the art of Geoff Tristam is excellent and funny with bright colors and clean lines, and humor that I love. Also if you’re not familiar with the What If puzzles, on the back of each box is a blurb about the artist and he’s dressed up for a picture relating to the puzzle. On the back of this box he’s dressed up like the caretaker and he even has a ledger for bookings! I adore cartoon puzzles, and Geoff Tristam’s artwork is some of the best. 🙂

I highly recommend trying the What If puzzles. The quality is exceptional, the artwork is excellent and it’s wonderful exercise for your brain.