Reef Fish

On August 7, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

My son and I completed these 16 beautiful reef fish puzzles on the same day that we put together the teacups. He enjoyed them almost as much as I do! As a matter of fact, yesterday we put together a puzzle with 15 birds and we had a great time. 🙂

The sizes and shapes of these were all different, which added some to the challenge, but in the best way. The colors are bright and beautiful, and there were some very interesting looking fish. My son took one look at the clownfish and said “I found him!” It seems he’d been looking for Nemo for quite some time. 🐠

They were lots of fun, smallest fish had only 10 pieces, and the largest one (the clownfish and coral shown above) had 63! They were extremely entertaining to assemble, and I’m looking forward to doing the second fish puzzle waiting in the wings.

If you haven’t tried a shaped puzzle before and you’re not quite sure about them I would definitely recommend giving these a try. The quality is very good, and I can’t seem to put into words how much fun I find them – they’re jigsawrific! 😁

Red

On August 6, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Red by Guido Cecere – Ceaco – 550 pieces

This puzzle was a little more difficult than Yellow, the colors are deeper and made it a bit more challenging to discern the different shades. Still, it was very entertaining!

The quality was good, the pieces were about medium thickness with a few bent pieces but not a whole bunch. The fit and image reproduction were both very good, and there were a nice variety of piece shapes. This puzzle was actually one of the better Ceaco puzzles I’ve assembled in a while.

I love the Mobil Pegasus, and the vintage picture is gorgeous as well…

It really was a fun puzzle to put together, and thankfully it was one of the better quality Ceacos. There’s a blue one that I haven’t done yet, but if I come across it one of these days I’ll definitely be wanting to assemble it.

Cobble Hill has a whole rainbow series of puzzles that look challenging and interesting – I’m just not sure I’m up to working on those yet. Fingers crossed though, maybe soon!

Bright Red Barn

On August 5, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

An uninspired name for a puzzle, but an accurate one. It’s a great image for a puzzle, but unfortunately it was terrible quality – even though it was mostly fun to put together.

The image itself made for a pleasant assembly, the flowers were a bit of a challenge and kept me on my toes; the barn itself was very entertaining, and the windows and roof helped break up all the red. It was a great couple of hours putting it together, even with the quality issues.

This Milton Bradley puzzle was purchased new, and right out of the box there were problems. Many of the pieces had extremely bent tabs, so much so that when the edge was assembled one of the tabs broke off completely when the piece was connected. The tab stayed in the hole of the adjoining piece, but the image had lifted and remained on the original piece…

It was quite disappointing, the quality of this puzzle. Milton Bradley joins Ceaco on my list of companies who can’t seem to regulate their quality control. Some of their puzzles have been excellent, and some – like this one – have been less than stellar.

There are always occasional problems, even with the premium puzzle companies; no manufacturing process is perfect. But companies like Ravensburger, Jumbo, Heye, and Pomegranate have managed to produce excellent puzzles almost all of the time. I know you get what you pay for, but if a puzzle company is at least consistent with their quality then I know what I’m buying. If it’s a gamble, I’m less likely to take a chance unless I’m buying used.

Thus ends my rant for the day.

Pattern 1

On August 4, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

These puzzles make me so happy, they’re beautiful, fun to put together, and they remind me of the pattern/coloring books that mom used to get for us. For me they were so much more interesting to color than your “regular” coloring books for children.

I would love to do this pattern in a larger piece count, they are the perfect image for me; bright colors, fun patterns, and they’re a collage. The quality is excellent – thick pieces, good variety of shapes, excellent image, and a great fit. I’ve found and assembled all 3 of the 300 piece patterns that I could find. There’s a similar 500 piece puzzle available that I would definitely like to get my hands on.

If I could find these patterns in 1000 pieces or even more I might get over my issue with larger piece counts at the moment and dive in!

Review: Teacups

On August 3, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews10 Comments

Teacups – Lafayette Puzzle Factory – 500 pieces

Aren’t these the cutest puzzles? 12 separate teacup puzzles, perfect for the blog tea party being held by Blooms & Beautifuls today – I don’t drink tea, but I’d love to have some hot coffee in one of these beautiful teacups if I could!

These small, separate, shaped puzzles by Lafayette Puzzle Factory are so much fun to assemble that I just can’t seem to walk away once I start putting them together. Each one is quite small compared to a regular puzzle, and it doesn’t take very much time to put them together. Some can be tricky and require a little bit more brain power, but that’s part of the fun! The back of each puzzle is color-coded so you can separate them if you like before you begin; or if you’re feeling like tackling more of a challenge you can ignore the backing and work the puzzles with no extra help – it’s up to you.

The quality is very good; although with the colored backing there seems to be some difficulty with the die cutting all the way through the puzzles. At least a few pieces from each puzzle need to be separated before you begin. I don’t mind so much because I find them so entertaining to assemble that I can overlook the small quality issues.

My oldest son hasn’t been feeling well so he’s been hanging out with me during the day, watching M*A*S*H and assembling puzzles. He helped me with the teacups and he enjoyed them so much that we immediately started on another set. Stay tuned in the upcoming days for the Reef Fish that we assembled together – I’ve added another member to my puzzle posse! 😎

The teacups above are our 3 favorites out of the 12, but they are really all quite lovely in their own way. They were so much fun that they were all assembled in about an hour – we just couldn’t stop! That’s my kind of puzzle, it’s definitely recommended – two teacups way up (with pinkies out!) ☕☕

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