Monday’s Child

On May 28, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Springbok octagonal puzzle from 1973! Cool, right? Precious Moments characters for each day of the week with the nursery rhyme Monday’s Child. It’s very cute, but also very pale and made for a moderately difficult assembly!

This puzzle was pretty difficult with the paleness of everything as well as a random cut. In addition, I believe the puzzle must have been stored for many years; there was discoloration on many of the pieces which helped in making the assembly a bit more challenging.

The image was adorably cute, and was for the most part a fun assembly. I will say that after all the words and kids finding the right piece became quite a task! Everything is so pale, there are small flowers here and there but otherwise the pieces were white/cream colored. With a random cut it’s difficult to know what shape piece you’re looking for if you don’t have color or pattern to guide you. With everything mostly white I didn’t know if I was looking for a large piece, or 2 smaller pieces. And when I thought I was looking for a small piece it would turn out to be the end of a great big piece! Random cut isn’t bad when there is something to guide you, but when the pieces are all the same color – it blows!

The Springbok quality wasn’t bad. Good piece thickness and they fit together well. I can’t speak to the image reproduction because of the discoloration and age of the puzzle. My only issue with this puzzle is that the piece shape is extremely obvious in the finished puzzle and you can’t see the artwork very well at all. Otherwise I didn’t have any problems with it.

I don’t usually take more than one picture, but I wanted to show a closeup of one of the kids, they’re so cute!

Noah’s Ark

On May 27, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

After the rocky start with the all white border it was fun and challenging (but not too much) and I ended up as I usually do – proud of myself! It looks amazing and I really enjoyed it.

As with the Emergency Room puzzle it is slightly overwhelming when the border is assembled, and I have a few minutes of doubt about where to start and how difficult it will be, etc. But once I forget all that and jump in and start working and it all ends up flowing together wonderfully. I’m not sure why I keep trying to psych myself out, perhaps my brain is slowly being cooked by hot flashes and becoming damaged? Next I’ll probably forget the number 12 or that underwear goes on the inside of my clothes. 😐

There are lots of interesting goings on in the inner workings of this ark, and Noah certainly has his work cut out for him. There’s a skeleton in with the tigers, and they look alarmingly quite satisfied. 😮 The beavers are chewing through the wood, the monkeys are everywhere, and the camels have gotten into the wine! There is also an interesting guest bunking with the cheetahs…..

It’s nice that we live in a time where knowledge is so readily available – I had to google the difference between cheetahs and leopards to be sure which one was sharing space with the pink panther. I had it right, I just wanted to be certain.

As always the artwork by Loup is detailed and amusing and makes for an excellent puzzle image. And as usual the quality of the Heye puzzle is very good, with the only small problem being the slightly loose fit.

I love the Heye puzzles and they have the best catalog of cartoon puzzles around; there are always plenty of Heye cartoons on my wishlist. I’ve still got the 2000 piece Apocalypse to assemble, another Loup puzzle that will mostly likely be just as much fun as this one!

If you’ve got the room to work a 2000 piece puzzle I would definitely recommend this one, just don’t talk yourself out of it like some people – that’s just crazy! 😉

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. 🙂