Happy New Year! Educa’s 42,000 piece puzzle now for sale in Europe

On January 1, 2018January 27, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

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I’m not sure the exact date it went on sale, but I’ve just now found it across the pond at Amazon.co.uk and Ebay.co.uk (Reference # 17570). I’m sure it’s on sale on other sites, but these are the only 2 I’ve found for the moment. The price is around £319 to £329 ($431 – $445) I don’t know when it will be on sale for those of us in the US, but it will be at some point.

I haven’t made a decision about this puzzle yet, it looks like fun but the last Educa puzzle I assembled was quite a challenge to work with; there wasn’t a whole lot of variety of piece shapes and pieces seemed to fit where they did not go. Yikes. I like the image very much, but I’m not bouncing up and down with excitement waiting for the chance to purchase it (which I guess is the answer to whether or not I’ll be buying it 😐 )

I am usually about 2 weeks ahead of the blog posts, which means at this moment there are 13 puzzles completed last year that I have yet to post. I like having a little cushion in case I encounter a difficult puzzle that takes several days or in case I’m not feeling well and cannot spend much time puzzling. It also helps that mom still buys kids puzzles from the thrift stores and I assemble them to make sure they’re complete before we donate them, I can do a BUNCH of kids puzzles in a day! (That always helps make sure I’ve always got a few puzzle posts ready to go 🙂 )

I’ve decided this year to keep a running total of the number of puzzles completed and pieces assembled, so I’ve added that information on the sidebar of my blog above the search bar ————> (If you’re viewing this on your phone or tablet it may be at the bottom of the page). I will try to make the piece count as accurate as I can; if there are pieces missing from a puzzle I will only total the number assembled. Piece counts aren’t always what they say on the box, so I will do my best to give a true accounting of assembled pieces. With grid cut puzzles it will be easy to get an accurate number, for randomly cut puzzles I will have to go with the piece count displayed on the box. I’m looking forward to seeing how quickly the pieces add up, and to seeing how many puzzles I complete in the year ahead!

🎇✨🎇 Happy New Year everyone! 🎇✨🎇

The Physical Impossibility of Sadness in the Mind of the Befriended

On December 31, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

That is quite the title! But let me tell you, this less than 300 piece puzzle is worthy of such a great big name. What a wonderful treat it was to assemble, it’s bright colorful image and interesting and challenging piece shapes made it a delight to put together.

Since the wooden puzzle experiment I can’t seem to stop myself from spending lots of time on the websites for Liberty, Artifact, Peaceful, and Wentworth puzzles; there are so many fabulous images and interesting piece shapes to look at! While looking through the Artifact website I found this puzzle with the most wonderful shaped pieces and I couldn’t help myself. In my defense, I was left unsupervised. 😇

They call this piece cut “split tendrils”, I call it amazing! It took a few minutes to wrap my brain around how the pieces fit together; it makes for a more challenging puzzle but it’s the best kind of challenging! The whimsies are so adorable and they fit in with the piece shapes rather seamlessly. I can’t recommend this company enough, they have so many different types of cuts to choose from!

This artwork shows a creature sitting at the table having a bowl of cereal with a wall full of memories of adventures with his friend. It’s so sweet, and I love the picture as much as I love the piece cut. It’s just a great puzzle all around and I’m sure it will be assembled many more times. Amazingly entertaining!

With the obvious piece shapes it’s a bit easier to see the image from farther away, so to speak. Adorable artwork, amazing pieces – so much fun!

I’ve never really made New Year’s Resolutions, but I’m going to do my best to treat myself to more awesome wooden puzzles in 2018! I hope everyone has a safe and fun New Year’s Eve, and may the next year be filled with love, laughter, kindness, and many, many fun puzzles! 🎇🎉🎇

Dance, Hug, Sing

On December 30, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Another cute kid’s puzzle from the thrift store, but we didn’t even know we had this one! It was bagged separately in the box of another puzzle purchased. Freebie! Free is my favorite price. 😉

Excellent quality kids puzzle from Cardinal, and it was fun putting this together without the picture. Nice, thick pieces that fit together well with bright, fun colors – basically everything you’d want in a kids puzzle. It’s very well made and should last through many, many assemblies.

This was much nicer than the Troll hair puzzle. Ick! This puzzle has since been donated to a school, I’m sure they’re having a great time with it. It’s always fun to assemble kid’s puzzles for me, makes me feel like an expert puzzler! 😎

Bright Eyes

On December 29, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Here’s an interesting puzzle from the mid 70’s, by a manufacturer that is no longer in business. From what I’ve been able to find, Built Rite puzzles were produced from the 1940’s to 1976. It’s a guess, but this looks like something from the 70’s to me. It’s so fun to try puzzles from companies we’ve never heard of!

The quality of this puzzle was fair, the pieces didn’t fit together well, and the fit was very loose. Not sure if I can blame that on the manufacturer, as this was a pre-loved puzzle from the thrift store. As you can see in the picture the tabs on the pieces aren’t rounded they are more geometric, which was interesting. The pieces themselves were a good thickness with an interesting variety of piece shapes, and the image reproduction was good with some blurriness.

This little girl is so cute I couldn’t wait to assemble it. This is another puzzle mom and I worked on together, and we had a very good time. Although the wallpaper and the little girl’s hair was a little bit of a challenge, and that is some BIG hair! It was a fun assembly; I always enjoy spending time with mom and working puzzles together. And every time I look at this picture I say “She’s so cute!” ❤

New York Times Front Page

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

Another fun find from the thrift store. This one is interesting because it was made for someone whose birthday was November 10, 1930 – that is the date on this newspaper. I’m sure everyone has seen the ads in catalogs, etc. that will show you what was happening on the day or year you were born. Well, someone had this puzzle made, very cool!

Interestingly this company is based in the UK, not the US. I suppose I assumed that because it was the New York Times that the company would be in the Us. It’s a global world now, I don’t know why I was surprised. Map Marketing makes personalized maps, puzzles, etc. I was pretty impressed with the quality of this puzzle, the pieces have the same sort of dry feel that All Jigsaw Puzzles brand has; perhaps they use the same manufacturer. All around a very nice quality puzzle with pieces that are thick and fit together well, and a nice variety of shapes. I can’t really comment on image reproduction, because it’s a copy of a newspaper that was printed a very long time ago, on very old machines. Most likely the image reproduction is very good, at least we were able to read the entire front page! 🙂

Mom and I assembled this together at her house, and we had a good time of course. This is the 2nd newspaper puzzle we’ve put together and we developed a strategy for it. It made the assembly go relatively quickly. We’re an awesome team!

It was a fun puzzle that we’re now donating to the senior center, wouldn’t it be excellent if someone there had a birthday on November 10, 1930? 🎂