Slumber Party!

On May 29, 2017December 29, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Why can’t grandpa get some rest? What in the world is going on while everyone else is asleep? You’ll be surprised when you puzzle the answer. 🙂

Another awesome Wasgij by Jumbo, with excellent artwork by Neil Easton. The box shows a crazy evening at home with everyone getting ready for bed, crying children, barking dog, etc. You must imagine what the scene looks like a couple of hours from then – what is going on and what has woken grandpa? I thought I had it figured out pretty quickly, but it turns out I was only half right. 😦 I usually get it early, but this one stumped me a little bit!

Jumbo quality is some of the best there is. It’s right up there with Ravensburger in my opinion; and in some areas I think Jumbo beats Ravensburger. They’re both at the top of my list, we’ll call it a tie.

This puzzle was quite fun, and I really enjoyed the assembly which is no surprise. Cartoon puzzle?- check, Jumbo quality? – check, Mystery picture? – check, Awesome puzzle play time? – double check!

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❣

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.

Colours of Asia

On May 13, 2017May 18, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

My first Educa puzzle! Not bad at all – I liked it very much. 👍

From what I’ve read online I was expecting a puzzle with a very loose fit, I was happy to find out that this was not the case. It was slightly loose fitting but not at all what I’d imagined. Good piece thickness and image reproduction, and the pieces lie flat in the finished puzzle. The only issue I had was with similarly shaped pieces and sometimes thinking you’d placed a piece properly when you didn’t. It didn’t cause too much problem in this puzzle, but I’d be careful if there were a puzzle with a large amount of the same color. Otherwise I have no problem with their quality and wouldn’t hesitate to order a puzzle. Note to self: No big blue skies if ordering an Educa puzzle!

It’s nice to order a brand and find out for yourself what YOU think of the quality. Everyone has different qualities that are most important to them – piece shape, thickness, how the pieces fit together, grid cut, random cut, etc. You have to find out what is important to you in a puzzle and which brands are the ones you prefer. Everyone is different and you can use other’s reviews as a guide, but only you can decide which is best for you. I’m trying when I order puzzles to find a company I haven’t tried before and see if there’s a puzzle that looks like fun for me to assemble. This is the puzzle I choose to try out Educa; cool picture, right?

This image is beautiful, and it’s always fun to have several little pictures in the bigger puzzle (well, it is for me anyway). When I was assembling this puzzle there were several extremely stressful things going on, and this puzzle was a welcome respite. I could sit, even if only for a few minutes , and pull out pieces for one small section and just be absorbed in the puzzle and fitting pieces together. Too bad there weren’t more than 1000 pieces, the stress is still here but the puzzle is done! 🙂

Fountain Pens

On May 5, 2017May 18, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

This puzzle was more difficult than it looked, and we sure were proud of ourselves when it was finished! It’s a beautiful puzzle, and the pieces were quite large for a 1000 piece puzzle, it makes an impressive statement when it’s assembled.

Mom loves fountain pens, so this puzzle was her Christmas present last year. We finally got around to assembling it and it took us much longer than we anticipated. We’ve also learned that while we appreciate a semi-random cut puzzle, we prefer a grid or ribbon cut. We’re used to judging the shape of the piece we’re looking for by the shape of the piece it attaches to – not a wise move when the cut is offset! Your brain has to work differently when the cut is random or offset and you can’t prejudge the size or shape of the piece you need. It’s good to give your brain a workout by changing things up every once in a while, but when you pair that challenge with a challenging puzzle image – WOW!

I did enjoy the quality of this puzzle as well – the pieces were pleasantly thick and fit together well, there are a variety of piece shapes and the image reproduction was beautiful! This was the first 1000 piece by Vermont Christmas Company that mom and I have assembled and we enjoyed the challenge. The assembly was fun, difficult at times, but overall a very nice puzzle.

Vermont Christmas Company has more than just Christmas puzzles, there’s a lot to choose from – including this challenging but gorgeous puzzle!