Ancient Egypt

On February 12, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

IMG_E4208_LI — Ancient Egypt – Sassi Science – 200 pieces

This giant of a puzzle almost took up our entire board! Another new company for us to try – Sassi Science Puzzles. They make wonderful quality educational puzzles about a variety of subjects. I’m always interested in educational puzzles, I find them fascinating (and there are usually lots of words to assemble 🙂 )

This puzzle was great fun, lots of colorful clothing and hieroglyphics to assemble at the bottom; the pyramid and Sphinx were a little challenging but very entertaining. The pieces were very thick and fit together well, definitely excellent quality. And the puzzle pieces were quite large and made an impressively sized finished product. In addition, there was a 32 page book inside with all sorts of interesting information on ancient Egypt.

This was a great thrift store find, and we were happy that all pieces were present and accounted for. It has been donated to the school my daughter works for and I hope they’re enjoying it as much as mom and I did. (We’re both gray-haired old ladies who are extremely young at heart and enjoy putting together puzzles for any age)

If you find any Sassi Science puzzles that you like I would definitely recommend them. They’re wonderful quality, and I love a puzzle that can teach you something too!

Dinosaur

On February 10, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles5 Comments

Here’s another small children’s puzzle that mom and I assembled on our visit/puzzle day. Melissa & Doug make excellent puzzles for children and they have some really interesting educational and fun images.

The colors seem a bit muted here, but it was still a pretty puzzle and an entertaining assembly. The fit is almost seamless and the pieces were wonderfully thick. Melissa & Doug are primarily focused on children’s games and toys and they have a very nice selection for children of all ages.

They also carry a small line of adult puzzles, but I don’t believe I’ve assembled any of them yet. We’ve not found any of their larger piece count puzzles at the local thrift stores, but I’m hoping for the chance to try one someday.

Melissa & Doug, I wouldn’t say no to one of your adult puzzles to review; I love trying out new companies! 😉

The Ballet Class

On February 8, 2018February 8, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Very cute Ravensburger that we were hoping was complete, unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. Still Mom and I enjoyed ourselves assembling it, and isn’t that what counts the most?

I love working Ravensburger puzzles, they’re my favorite manufacturer. Their puzzles are excellent quality all around and are the best to work with in my opinion. And if I ever have a problem with one of their puzzles they have always made it right immediately with excellent customer service. The pieces are thick and feel good in your hand, there are always a nice variety of shapes to work with, the image reproduction is excellent, and they fit together very well. They’re the best in the biz!

Even with this puzzle being over 34 years old, it is still in excellent shape. I could tell by the condition of the box that it was a well loved puzzle, but I was pleased that the pieces themselves were still holding up wonderfully. If only all the pieces were there – bummer.

Still, it won’t deter us from continuing to shop at the thrift stores, there are too many fabulous puzzles there at such good prices. If you want to stop my mom from shopping the thrift stores you’re going to have to wrestle her car keys from her – good luck with that! 🙂

The Story of Heidi in the Alps

On February 7, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

I got a bee in my bonnet about getting all the children’s puzzles in my house assembled so I could donate them and get them out of here; so I spent some time in front of the tv catching up on my shows while assembling 9 puzzles one after another. It also helped me build my stockpile of posts back up, so I have a little cushion now in case I need it again. 😁

These two puzzles were only 12 pieces each and went together extremely quickly, but they’re beautifully made puzzles of excellent quality. Almost every puzzle I assembled this day (7 out of 9) were Ravensburger puzzles and every one of them was wonderful quality. I appreciate companies that put effort into their puzzles for kids, and the best that I’ve found are Ravensburger, Cobble Hill, and Eurographics.

When I assembled the second puzzle in the box I struggled to remember the name of the boy in the story. I know I read it as a child, and I remember the movie Heidi with Shirley Temple, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the boy’s name. (I’m sure I just dated myself with the Shirley Temple reference, but that’s mostly how I remember the story of Heidi) I had to give up on my memory and look it up online, his name is Peter.

Jigsaw puzzles are great for helping children develop problem solving skills, fine motor coordination, spatial awareness, pattern recognition and many other essential skills. I highly recommend puzzles as gifts for children, they’re fun and educational and might even start someone off on the road to enjoying jigsaw puzzles for the rest of their life!

Britain & Ireland

On February 3, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

This is the first kids puzzle I’ve purchased new; I don’t have an explanation why I wanted it so much, I just did. I love the idea of Mike Jupp’s artwork and humor added to a geography lesson in a high quality puzzle. I wasn’t disappointed!

This puzzle is a “Jig-Map” and has a “place name quiz”. There are 32 identically shaped pieces with the names of cities and towns in Britain and Ireland. Luckily you don’t have to know the geography to be able to complete the puzzle; the image behind each name will help you find it’s correct position. And as an added bonus it’s a lot of fun! Here are all the names…

The fun part was the different images by each name. The Beatles were next to Liverpool, there were sheep and a sweater in Cardigan, Robin Hood and Friar Tuck were in Nottingham, etc. What a great tool for teaching geography, it’s a lot of fun. 🙂

The quality was excellent with thick pieces, wonderfully crisp image reproduction, an excellent variety of shapes, and a very nice fit. I do love when a puzzle manufacturer puts effort into their children’s puzzles; kids need good quality puzzles that will stand up to being assembled many times and rougher than normal handling. Also, how cool is it that they got such a great image from such a great artist?

I looked up Jig-Maps, and they were a series of shaped geography puzzles that also had a place name quiz produced by Waddington’s in the 60’s. They were basically exactly the same as this Gibsons Jig Map, and a very cool idea in my opinion. I plan on donating this puzzle to my adopted grandson, I’m pretty sure he’ll love it as much as I did!