Magical Jungle

On October 12, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

I love this image, it’s bright and cartoony and makes for fun puzzling. I had a great time assembling this one, it was quick and easy and took my mind off of stressful things. I definitely needed that!

I like the work of Johanna Basford, and think it is excellent puzzle material; she is a Scottish illustrator who has published many adult coloring books. This image feels like a coloring book, perhaps that’s why I like it so much. Even though my brain isn’t working properly enough for me to articulate why it is that certain images are appealing to me, I still try. 🙂

This puzzle also comes with a black and white poster of the image for you to color. Don’t like the purple elephant? Why not make him bright pink? I haven’t finished coloring it, but I sit and work on it every now and then. I worry about my color choices sometimes, which makes absolutely no sense at all. It’s my picture, who am I trying to please other than myself? If I want to color a sloth bright green, so what?!

Road Trip USA

On August 17, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

This was a quick assembly that was more fun than I thought it would be, and I love these kinds of puzzles!

This was a large piece puzzle by Buffalo, though the pieces were not quite as large as most other brands with “large pieces”. By Buffalo standards they are large, compared to their normal size pieces. I have said pieces so many times in this paragraph already that the word has ceased to make sense! 😐

I’ve lived in Michigan and Florida, and neither of those plates is familiar to me, they must be quite old. But they all work together to make a really nice image for puzzling, and it’s an entertaining assembly. The background isn’t too difficult to assemble, but enough of a challenge to make it fun. Click here to see this puzzle at Puzzle Warehouse. *I don’t get anything for you clicking or buying, they’re just my favorite puzzle store.

Definitely recommended, especially for those who need puzzles with larger pieces. The bright colors and large pieces would be great for anyone with aging eyes or fine motor issues. Great puzzle from Buffalo!

To the Barns

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

Another nice thrift store find and fun to assemble. Alas, 3 missing pieces. Oh well. Mom did the majority of this one, I only helped bring it home. 🙂

Buffalo usually has very good quality, but with this puzzle there was image lift on many of the pieces. You can see at the top of the puzzle there are several pieces with the image raised up on the tabs. I’ve worked enough of this brand to know that this isn’t typical, Buffalo makes very good quality puzzles. Perhaps it was well-loved before someone donated most of it to the thrift store?

What’s funny was we were working on it together and there were about 7 or 8 pieces we were CERTAIN were missing. They were definitely not there. Definitely not. Except they were! We missed them – over and over again. Guess this July heat is boiling our brain cells!

We haven’t had good luck with thrift store puzzles lately, many have been missing pieces. But perhaps that means that we’re about to find a whole bunch of excellent puzzles with all pieces present and accounted for! No matter, this puzzle was a fun assembly, even more fun because we worked on it together. 😊

What Word is That?

On July 15, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

This puzzle was SO MUCH FUN! It’s an older puzzle from Buffalo Games that mom found in a thrift store. And even though someone’s child or pet chewed on one of the pieces it was still an excellent find!

This puzzle has you join words or letters with their definitions. Some could be tricky – the letters especially. Which letter is the most used in written English? What is the 3rd most used word in spoken English? It was a blast and we loved every minute of it! The best part was that you could also assemble the puzzle using just the pictures, so even if you aren’t the most loquacious raconteur you could still put the puzzle together while learning some new vocabulary. 😉

I’ve looked it up and they also made What Movie is That?, What TV Show is That?, Who Said That? and others. I bet they’d be just as fun. Here’s hoping we make another thrift store discovery like this one!

This puzzle had the typical Buffalo quality, nice thick pieces that fit together well and feel good in your hand. The background picture of what I’m assuming is the Library of Congress makes for a gorgeous puzzle that brightened our afternoon. 🙂

An awesome puzzle and a very entertaining assembly – if you can find one of these puzzles, go for it!

Root Beer Break at the Butterfield’s

On June 19, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles1 Comment

This isn’t the typical Wysocki artwork in that there is only one building, but it’s still beautiful and has his wonderfully straight and symmetrical style in the beach house itself.

This was one of the few 300 piece Buffalo puzzles that I’ve assembled, and I love them. They fit together so nicely and the pieces are large enough for younger hands to work with or older eyes to see better. They are extremely sturdy as well, and there are a nice variety of piece shapes. They do not contain any zig zag pieces that a 1000 or 2000 piece Buffalo puzzle usually has, but still a good variety. Buffalo also includes a poster with all their puzzles which is nice, especially when working on the puzzle with more than one person so you don’t have to share the box for reference.

This puzzle was a lovely afternoon distraction for me when I was having a stressful day and needed a break from the world. I was able to sit for a bit and concentrate only on which piece went next. I wasn’t able to sit long enough to complete the entire puzzle at once, but it was completed in one day. 🙂

There are so many reasons that puzzling is an excellent activity – good for hand/eye coordination, memory, stress relief, spatial awareness, pattern recognition, fun, and too many more reasons to name. Buffalo has so many wonderful Wysocki images to choose from and many others as well, there’s something for everyone. The quality is excellent and the images are lovely – there’s no reason not to pick one up!