Review & Giveaway: Browsing & Butterflies on 5th Avenue

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews12 Comments
5th Avenue
Browsing & Butterflies on 5th Avenue by Charles Fazzino – Sure-Lox – 2000 pieces

Browsing & Butterflies on 5th Avenue is part of the new Art Gallery puzzle collection from TCG Toys’ Sure-Lox brand. I was happily surprised at the quality of this puzzle, and enjoyed it much more than anticipated. This is the first puzzle I’ve assembled with artwork by Charles Fazzino, and I loved the 3D Pop Art style – it made for a wonderfully entertaining assembly!

Sure-Lox puzzles haven’t also been on the nice list here at My Jigsaw Journal, but in the past few months I’ve assembled a couple of their puzzles in the newer packaging and was pleasantly surprised by the good quality. The chipboard is thicker, the fit is exceptional, and the image reproduction is excellent. It’s rare that a puzzle company makes significant improvement to their quality, but Sure-Lox seems to have done it. 5th Avenue makes the third Sure-Lox puzzle from the newer line that I’ve assembled, and they have all been very good quality. Well done Sure-Lox!

I was so impressed by the thicker pieces that I decided to compare them to Ravensburger to see how it held up …

5th Avenue 3

The Ravensburger piece is on the top, and you can see that the chipboard of the Sure-Lox puzzle is almost the same thickness. It may not be as well compressed, but all in all I was thoroughly impressed. The pieces feel good in your hand, and the fit is excellent. You can lift and hold up the finished puzzle with no problem at all. I picked mine up and handed it to my son (who wasn’t too keen on being photographed, but oh well)….

5th Avenue 4

Pretty darn nice fit if you ask me. Perhaps it could even be framed without having to use glue – not too shabby! Wonderful quality all around, and I am well and truly impressed by the new Sure-Lox line of puzzles.

The only criticism I have is that there is only one piece shape. With an image like this it isn’t too much of a problem, most of the puzzle is busy and the only large area of color is the sky. Luckily it’s broken up by quite a few butterflies, but there are a few sections where it can be somewhat tedious. But honestly, I was almost done with the assembly by then, and I was so excited to be finishing that I didn’t find it overly tiresome. Many puzzle companies are using just the one piece shape these days, and I find that I’m slowly getting used to it even if my preference is a puzzle with a variety of piece shapes.

The artwork is incredibly detailed and interesting, and the New York cityscape made for a fun assembly. I think I may be a new Charles Fazzino fan, and will definitely be looking for some more puzzles of his art. 🎨

Rockefeller Center
New York Public Library

Overall I was very happy with the quality of this puzzle – the image kept me entertained and smiling, and it’s one that is definitely recommended – instead of thumbs I’m giving it two Lady Liberties with their torches way up! 🗽🗽

Details:

  • Title:                  Browsing & Butterflies on 5th Avenue
  • Artist:                Charles Fazzino
  • Brand:               Sure-Lox
  • Piece count:     2000 pieces
  • Size:                  Approx. 39 x 27 in. (99 x 69 cm)
  • Purchased:      N/A, sent for review

Quality:

  • Board:               Very good
  • Cutting:             Very good
  • Image:               Excellent
  • Box:                   Good
  • Fit:                     Excellent
  • Puzzle Dust:     Moderate amount
  • Piece cut:          Grid cut
  • Piece shapes:   No variety, only one shape
  • Finish:               Slightly shiny finish, lays flat

Overall Rating:      Very good, highly recommended

*I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. Since this is the season of giving I’d like to lift someone’s spirits for the holidays; I wanted to give away my very gently used, autographed copy of Browsing & Butterflies on 5th Avenue to one of my readers. Since many of my readers are thrift store shopping puzzlers, I was sure they wouldn’t mind a secondhand puzzle. I when I contacted the company to inform them of my intent to hold a giveaway, they graciously offered to send a brand new autographed puzzle to the winner instead!

If you’d like this puzzle, signed by the artist, please leave a comment on this post to be entered in the giveaway. I will use a random number generator to decide on the winner, and will post the results one week from today – December 16, 2019. Good luck!

I received this product at no cost in order to facilitate this review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are truthful and 100% my own.

Dreaming of Puzzles

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling8 Comments
Dream
Dreams of puzzling….

The oddest thing happened to me yesterday. I was taking one of my many mini naps throughout the day and started to dream about a puzzle I assembled quite a few months ago. I remember feeling frustrated about the fit, and annoyed with myself for placing a few of the pieces incorrectly, and was in the process of switching them to their proper positions when I was startled awake by a loud noise in the other room. I opened my eyes and realized that I was holding my hands as if I had puzzle pieces in them, and my hands were moving as if to switch the pieces.

This story is peculiar for several reasons. First, I’m not a person who remembers my dreams. I wake knowing that I had a dream, but can never remember what they’re about or what happens – even when startled awake. So to remember not only exactly which puzzle I was working on but also how I was feeling in the dream is extremely unusual. Secondly, acting out a dream is not something that has ever happened to me before that I can remember (and hubby says in the 31 years we’ve been married he’s never seen me do it). This is especially true with the medications I’m currently taking. With these meds when I do sleep I wake in exactly the same position as when I nodded off; once in the past week I fell asleep holding a tv remote and woke 7 hours later with it still in my hand.

So my puzzle friends, I’m wondering if that dream meant something. I don’t know that dream interpretation is something I put much stock in, but the fact that I was dreaming of a puzzle completed almost 6 months ago and acting it out seems quite bizarre to me.

Have you ever dreamed of working on a jigsaw puzzle? Have you ever mimed your dream while you were having it?

Frosty Treats

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments
Frosty Treats
Frosty Treats – Buffalo – 300 pieces

This 300 piece puzzle was great fun, more difficult and time consuming than expected, but still entertaining and beautiful to look at.

When my daughter found the Doug the Pug puzzles, she also brought me this and another 300 piece collage of dogs. She really is an enabler, and she’s quite good at it too! Do I have an awesome daughter or what!? I’ve only got the dog collage left, and my supply of smaller piece count puzzles is dwindling quite low. I may have to send her out on a puzzle finding mission very soon, she seems to know what puzzles I’ll enjoy even better than I do. 😎

Buffalo does a good job with their 300 piece puzzles, these were all excellent quality. The pieces are thick, the images are gorgeous and sharp, and the fit is very, very good. The colors on this puzzle are amazing and make for some delicious looking popsicles. They look absolutely luscious.

It makes me hungry for some frozen treats, we old ladies with hot flashes love frosty treats! When my inner child is playing with matches I’d love to dive headfirst into the freezer and cover myself with anything that would cool me down – but it’s nice to eat popsicles too I suppose.

Frosty Treats 1

Perhaps I need to get out more; I’ve never seen popsicles with kiwi or oranges in them! The colors are beautiful, and it looks like they would taste lovely. Mmmm. 🍧

YEAH In Progress

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling6 Comments

Yeah IP

YEAH is finally back in progress. I started it at the beginning of the week, but trying to assemble all the edges first through the fog of some serious pain medications was just too much for this poor old lady’s aging brain.

Luckily, though I’m still peering through the fog, it finally came to me this morning to try to assemble each letter separately and stop trying to make this puzzle conform to how I usually do things. Normally the edge is where most puzzles begin, but this puzzle is a rebel and doesn’t wish to fit into any boxes of how a puzzle is supposed to be. Stop trying to change her! Just let her be herself!

*Now that I think about it, this medication may be just a bit TOO strong. 🥴

Ok, back to the puzzle. Once the decision was made to assemble it letter by letter the progress is going along much more quickly. THIS (or the other spelling) was a 400 piece puzzle, YEAH is 500 pieces; so it may take me a little longer. But who knows? One letter at a time seems to be speeding up the process, so perhaps it’ll be done sooner than you think.

Enjoy your Friday everyone, and happy puzzling! 🧩

London In Snow

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles3 Comments
London In Snow
London In Snow by Richard Macneil – Wentworth – 40 pieces

It’s my first Christmas puzzle of the season, completed the day after Thanksgiving. Not because I was in any rush to do Christmas puzzles, which regular readers know are definitely NOT my thing; but because I’ve been in a slump lately and need to get some puzzles done and ready to post. Luckily I had 4 Wentworth micro puzzles here, and they’re not only going to be part of the holiday season here on My Jigsaw Journal, but they’re going to save me with some quick and easy completions. 🙂

Wentworth Wooden Puzzles are beautifully made with excellent quality, and I absolutely adore their micro puzzles. They are tiny little puzzles (30-40 pieces) that are easy to carry and quick to put together when you’re in need of a puzzle fix. All PADS sufferers know that feeling when all you want to do is be left alone for 10 minutes so you can get your hands on some puzzle pieces and be swept up in which piece fits here and where does that color go – it’s puzzle bliss. We are all in search of a few minutes of meditation with a puzzle, and these micro puzzles are the perfect thing for it!

This image is perfect for a micro puzzle, because it looks like it would be quite difficult in a larger piece count. The top half is all shades of white and grey, and the bottom is a sea of reds and yellows. I don’t know that it would be one I’d choose to assemble if it were anything larger than a 300 piece cardboard puzzle. That said, it’s truly beautiful artwork by Richard Macneil, and it made for a excellent micro assembly.

London whimsies

My favorite here is the whimsy of the Queen, the extra detail that Wentworth adds to their whimsies makes all the difference; you know exactly who that is with all the added lines, it’s lovely!

All Grinchy-ness aside, I enjoyed this assembly, as I do for all Wentworth puzzles. It has beautiful artwork, is well crafted, and gave me a few minutes of uninterrupted puzzle time that ended with a completed puzzle. Heavenly!

*There is one coming up that I’m dreading a little bit though, it’s a micro puzzle – one of their extra difficult ones with tessellating pieces – that I’ve attempted to assemble before and had to give up on. It brings back memories of Winter Aspen – YIKES! I’m determined to master it though; but I’m not sure if I want to save it until last or just do it and get it over with. Whichever one I choose, wish me luck!