Suess Street

On February 18, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Finally I was able to get a 1000 piece puzzle done, my first since the beginning of January. Yikes! Luckily I was able to make a quick trip to get myself a few puzzles last weekend, and this is one of the puzzles I chose. I love this image, and it’s a Ravensburger so it’s wonderful quality. 🙂

I may have to make a change to the way I sort and assemble puzzles, I find these past few weeks that I have little tolerance for laying out all the pieces, etc. It may just be an attitude problem on my part; I guess I’ll wait and see. For the most part I sorted these by colors, with the brick background pieces sorted by shape. It seemed amazingly tedious, but again I have a bit of a ‘tude lately, so surely that didn’t help. And, it’s the first 1000 piece puzzle for me in more than a month, so there’s that to consider as well.

I love Dr. Suess, and I have many of his books completely memorized because I read them to my kids so often that after a while I didn’t even need to look at the pages. My daughter loved Fox in Socks, and my boys loved Cat in the Hat and One Fish, Two Fish; I was always partial to Dr. Suess’s ABC. This puzzle image makes me smile and remember that time spent reading with my little ones when they were still small.

If you’re a fan of Dr. Suess or Ravensburger, or just enjoy a very fun puzzle I highly recommend this one. Excellent quality with a wonderful image – what more could you ask for?

Busy Airport

On February 17, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

This very small piece count puzzle didn’t take much time at all, but it was done on a day where I sat in front of the tv assembling all the kid’s puzzles I had in the house. I wanted to make sure all pieces were there before donating them to the school my daughter works for.

Another wonderful quality Ravensburger puzzle, although I think this one may have been well loved before it was donated to our local thrift store. The box showed quite a bit of wear and tear, but the pieces seem to have held up very well. There was one slightly bent piece that you can see in the picture above (the tab is slightly raised), but otherwise the puzzle remains in very good condition.

Many puzzlers say they only do 1000 piece puzzles or more, but I love puzzles no matter the size. I’ve had quite a bit of fun doing puzzles geared towards children, perhaps because I may be an adult but I refuse to “grow up”. I can enjoy myself doing a puzzle no matter how many pieces it has, and as long as there’s enjoyment that’s all that matters!

Besides, parents need to see reviews of puzzles for children; they deserve information about quality and difficulty of assembly as much as adults do. 🙂

Review: Flower Kaleidoscope

On February 16, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Flower Kaleidoscope by Lori Schory – Ravensburger – 300 pieces

This puzzle is even more beautiful than the picture, and the picture is pretty darn gorgeous! As soon as I saw this image I couldn’t wait to get assembling, it’s just such a lovely puzzle.

This is a large piece Ravensburger, and though it’s only 300 pieces it’s the size of the average 1000 piece puzzle. I enjoy the larger pieces lately, as I can’t sit and puzzle as long as I used to; putting only a few pieces together seems like I made great progress in a short amount of time. 🙂

The quality was wonderful, and I can’t say enough about the image reproduction – just stunning! The colors are bright and beautiful with no fuzziness. I adored assembling this puzzle, and I look forward to finding more beautiful nature puzzles from Lori Schory.

Details:

Title: Flower Kaleidoscope
Artist: Lori Schory
Brand: Ravensburger
Piece count: 300 pieces
Size: Approx. 20 x 27 in. (51 x 69 cm)
Purchased: Used, thrift store

Quality:

Board: Excellent
Cutting: Excellent
Image: Excellent
Box: Average, quite large for a 300 piece puzzle
Fit: Excellent
Puzzle Dust: Small amount
Piece cut: Grid cut
Piece shapes: Very good variety
Finish: Matte finish, lays flat

Overall Rating: Excellent, highly recommended

American Puppy

On February 15, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

I had never worked a Lang puzzle before, and I really love this image so I decided to give this one a try. I might purchase a Lang again if it had an exceptional image that I just had to have, but otherwise I don’t think this is a brand I’ll be purchasing much.

The pieces were on the thin side, and unfortunately there was no variety in the piece shape either. Without a selection of shapes to choose from, large areas of the same color or pattern become even more difficult. The finish was slightly shiny, but not too bad. Overall though, just a little sub-par for me.

I usually like to try at least 2 or 3 puzzles from one brand before making any pronouncements about the overall quality, but this one was purchased new which makes it a bit easier for me to assess it’s quality. Still, if we’re able to find any Lang puzzles at the thrift stores that have good images I’d be willing to give them a try; if for no other reason than to get more information on this brand and it’s quality.

I’m not a great fan of cat puzzles; puppies and dogs are more my style. A quick search of the artist brought up only puppy puzzles, I guess he’s a dog person too! There are still so many brands I have yet to work with, and when an image is sweet like this one I just can’t help myself and I want to give it a try. I’m not sorry I bought this puzzle, even though at times the assembly felt a bit tedious it is still a great image and I was able to check off another brand from my list. There are so many still left to try! 🙂

Panda Family

On February 14, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

This is such a sweet image, it’s hard to resist those adorable faces! I love the pop of color at the bottom too; it’s just a lovely picture all around.

Ravensburger puzzles are excellent quality premium puzzles, no matter what age group they’re geared towards. The puzzles for both children and adults are made from high quality chipboard and have a beautiful finish. They fit together very well, and sometimes I might even say the children’s puzzles fit even better than the adult ones. After giving a few Ravensburger puzzles to my adopted grandson, his mother tells me that he prefers this brand over all his other puzzles. He will assemble pretty much any puzzle he can find, but he always goes back to the Ravensburgers, even the ones that may be missing a piece or two. He’s become a bit of a puzzle snob like me!

This image isn’t too simple, the bright colors at the bottom are easy enough to assemble quickly, but the pandas themselves and the forest in the background take a little bit more time. It was fun to assemble, even for a “grownup”, and was the usual wonderful Ravensburger quality. Highly recommended! 🐼