P****d as a Newt

On June 6, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Alljigsawpuzzles.com is where I purchase most of my European made puzzles, you can click that link to check them out. Their prices are excellent, the shipping is VERY fast and shipping is free when you order $75 worth of puzzles. (Getting free shipping usually isn’t something I have to worry about 😉 )

Lately I’ve been trying to order at least one puzzle from a company I haven’t tried before every time I place an order. I’ve been looking at these Party Animals by Mike Jupp and wanting to try them but I didn’t have any idea what the quality would be like. I’ve never seen a puzzle store/distributor that also sells their own puzzles. Interesting! This Party Animals collection finally tipped the scales for me and I jumped in with both feet and just ordered them all – there was a special. Normally I would only order one from a new company so I can check out the quality before I lay down any more cash. But these puzzles were too adorable and funny (and on sale if you bought all 4) so I went for it. I make no apologies. 😎

I was very impressed with the quality! The image reproduction is gorgeous – bright and sharp with a matte finish that feels good in your hands. The pieces are about the same thickness as Heye puzzles, and sturdy too, with a nice variety of piece shapes. They fit together well and the piece shapes aren’t glaringly obvious in the finished puzzle. I’m glad I bought them all and can’t wait to do the other three Party Animals. They have Drunk as a Skunk, Blind as a Bat, and High as a Kite. Drunken animals everywhere!

I enjoyed this puzzle very much and I would definitely recommend it. Mike Jupp’s artwork is crisp and funny and detailed, and just a great puzzle image. Butterflies, lily pads and liquor bottles everywhere break up the water and greenery and the assembly was never tedious. Loved it! 🙂

Legendary Landmarks

On June 5, 2017June 5, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Another fun thrift store find! Circular puzzle with the top in the center and the bottom around the entire circumference , so every seat around the puzzle is a good one. 🙂

I like the concept of this puzzle brand, they make round table puzzles like this one and 4 fronts puzzles where the bottom is around the entire edge. According to their website “Now everyone gets the best seat around the puzzle”. They have some beautiful round and square puzzles, and a whole range of educational geography puzzles as well.

The quality was quite good – the pieces were sturdy and feel thick with a good variety of shapes, the image reproduction was very nice with no image lift, and the fit was excellent. I was pretty impressed with the quality and am always happy when I find another company whose puzzles I’m happy to do!

This was a fun puzzle that mom and I did together. It was easy to pick out pieces for one or two landmarks and turn the puzzle so that we were each working on the one in front of us. It took us only one afternoon to complete and it was very entertaining. I love it when a thrift store puzzle makes us happy and we get to spend time together working on a puzzle. ❤

A New Bad Boy In Town!

On June 2, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

the-new-biggest-puzzle-in-the-world-travel-around-the-world-jigsaw-puzzle-48000-pieces-59033-1-fs — The New World’s Largest Puzzle!

Well look what I found wandering the web looking at jigsaw puzzles! This new puzzle is manufactured by a French company – Grafika, will be available in September of 2017, and will be 48,000 pieces!! 😮 I was sure Educa would be the next world’s largest! It seems I’m rarely right about anything these days. If my math is correct the price of this bad boy is 510 US dollars (395.99 British Pounds) Oh my.

The new puzzle is called Travel Around the World, and represents countries on every continent. The completed puzzle will measure 26.77 x 6.30 feet (8.16 x 1.92 meters). Apparently the puzzle will be delivered in a wooden box with wheels to haul the 55 pounds (25kg) of puzzle pieces! There are 24 separate bags of 2000 pieces each. It also comes with 2 posters of the puzzle image, and a poster showing a map of the world with the locations of the individual puzzle images.

The purists will say it’s not really a 48,000 piece puzzle unless you mix all the bags. I’m sure the purists are lovely people, but they should also try not to stomp on the feelings of others who might enjoy doing large piece puzzles in sections. Just my opinion. I say, if it makes you happy to mix the bags, go for it. I also say, if you want to do the puzzle in sections and still say you’ve completed the puzzle, go for it, and way to go! When my 40,320 piece puzzle is all laid out and connected I would like for someone to try and say something snarky about how I didn’t REALLY put together a 40,320 piece puzzle. I walk with a cane. It’s sturdy, and metal. Just saying. 😇

I’ve never heard of or tried Grafika, and haven’t seen any reviews of their puzzles either. Makes me want to get at least one of their puzzles to try it out and see what I think of the brand. Has anyone else tried this brand? I’d love to hear from you if you have.

I gotta admit, I’m super tempted! I still have 2 weeks to go before we assemble the current World’s Largest Jigsaw Puzzle and I know once I see it all laid out like that it’s gonna make me want to do the next one too! I should just cool my heels, find a Grafika puzzle and try it out and see how I feel about it, right?

I like the look of this one too! Help! I think I may have a problem. I still have no idea what’s going to happen to the Disney puzzle. *sigh*

Meet The Imaginaries

On June 1, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

I absolutely love this artwork! Mom found this one at the thrift store, and I couldn’t wait to get started on it. I love the artwork by Philip Straub, it grabbed me as soon as I saw it. A new company too, so I was extra excited to get started!

I wish I had good news to report about the quality, but I was underwhelmed by it. I was hoping for at least a fair quality puzzle because there are a couple other puzzles by the same artist that I would love to do. But unfortunately – not so much. There was quite a bit of image lift on the pieces, and also the image was actually scraping off in places. The pieces were thick enough, but they way they fit together was odd. The best way I can describe it was “spongy”. It was not always obvious when you got a piece connected wrong, and how they fit together was kind of soft and spongy. Sometimes it felt like the piece was where it was supposed to be when it wasn’t in the right place.

You can see that the bottom half of the puzzle is quite dark, and boy oh boy did it get difficult once the brighter parts were done! I actually had a great time assembling the top part of the puzzle in spite of the quality; but once all the brighter bits were finished the dark stuff took a while and I really had to concentrate. I still enjoyed the puzzle overall but the quality left a lot to be desired.

The title of this puzzle is Meet The Imaginaries, can you see them hiding in there? There are quite a few of them, and they look pretty shy – poor things! Interesting note, the name of the puzzle was nowhere on the box! The back of the box had a picture and small blurb about the artist, but nowhere did it tell me the name of the puzzle I was doing. It told me the name of the series of puzzles he’d done, but not the puzzle inside that box. I had to look it up online.

I enjoyed this puzzle, but wish the quality had been better. Still, I can’t really complain about a thrift store puzzle – what a blessing it is to be able to buy most of our puzzles that way! I really do appreciate everyone who donates puzzles, and most of the ones we buy we donate back once we’ve done them. Every now and then we find an amazing puzzle that was fun to do and we keep those. 🙂

Jigsaw Puzzle for Dummies – Noah’s Ark

On May 31, 2017July 14, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles1 Comment

Noah’s Ark by Eric Dowdle – TDC Games (Jigsaw Puzzles for Dummies) – 1000 pieces

It was purely coincidence that right after I finished Noah’s Ark by Jean-Jacques Loup that mom found this Noah’s Ark by Eric Dowdle at the thrift store. Maybe someone is trying to tell me something – I hope it means rain is coming because we’re having a bit of a drought down here!

Interesting concept for this puzzle, the box looks like the “For Dummies” books and each pieces is alphanumerically numbered on the back. There is also a small instruction booklet that comes in the box to explain the steps of how to assemble a jigsaw puzzle, along with a map on the back to show you where each piece should go.

There are plenty of ways for those people who haven’t done jigsaw puzzles before to get the instruction and help they need to complete a 1000 piece puzzle. Or, if you are already a puzzler you can disregard the map and the numbers and just assemble it as you would any other puzzle – the choice is yours! Like it says on the box “you decide the level of difficulty”.

The quality of this puzzle was very good. The pieces were thick and sturdy and fit together well; the image reproduction was very nice and there was no image lift on any of the pieces. Very good all around quality!

Eric Dowdle’s artwork is compelling to me. There’s something about the symmetry of his pieces and the clean lines – I can’t put my finger on exactly why I like it so much but I like it very much. 😍 It does make for a more difficult puzzle sometimes but there’s fun in the extra challenge. At least I think so. There’s a bit of humor in this puzzle too, you’ll find a pair of unicorns boycotting the ark with placards that say “heck no we won’t go”, a traffic cop for the large animals, and even a polar bear with sunglasses and a beverage!

I did attempt to assemble the puzzle the “dummies” way, first by only using the numbers to do all of a few rows, and then by using the numbers to pull all the pieces for one row but then flipping the pieces over and putting the row together without the numbers. For me it takes the sense of accomplishment away – I just read letters and numbers and put them in order. There’s no fun in that for me, but I wanted to try it that way to get a sense of the brand. If it helps you and you learn to do jigsaws that way I’m all for it; assemble it whichever way makes you happy!

If you find a for dummies puzzle that you like, don’t be put off by the dummies part; the quality is very good – I say go for it. 🙂