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!

Arctic Kiss

On January 6, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

This was a cute kids puzzle that I only assembled because I wanted to see how it glows. Unfortunately there wasn’t much as far as glow was concerned, so I wasn’t able to get a good “glow picture”. Oh well, it’s still a cute image.

The puzzle wasn’t the greatest quality, it’s a Ceaco puzzle, but we had hopes that because it was a specialty (Glow Zone) that it might be a little better quality. We’ve worked several special Ceaco puzzles with really nice quality – some with cork backing, one with velvet backing, and some with long strips of pieces instead of the average piece. The odd ones seem to have much better quality than the average Ceaco puzzles – at least that’s been our experience so far.

This puzzle, even though it was a glow zone puzzle, was about average Ceaco quality. The pieces are thinner, and although they fit together well the finished puzzle doesn’t lie completely flat. You can see in the picture above that some of the pieces stick up a bit. Still, the image is nice, and even though it’s not a premium quality puzzle, it was still entertaining to assemble.

I used to say I didn’t want to do any puzzles under 1000 pieces, and was pretty snobby about the brands of puzzles I would buy. I don’t buy new puzzles from companies whose quality isn’t up to my standards, but used puzzles are a whole different story. Now, as long as I can assemble the puzzle and enjoy myself doing it – that’s what counts. Who cares if the quality isn’t perfect? If we can buy 20 puzzles for the price of 1 at the thrift store, and we can enjoy ourselves assembling them, isn’t that what’s really important? I think so.

Dear God, You Thought of Everything!

On January 3, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

This is the last of 3 Dear God kids puzzles mom got at the thrift store. They were all complete, and all much more difficult than we bargained for. The line drawing quality of the artwork makes this puzzle a bit of a challenge. All 3 tested us a bit, and all 3 were completely adorable!

The pieces were a little thin and there was some image lift, but they fit together well and were relatively sturdy. We enjoyed these puzzles very much, and laughed at how difficult they were for us. We put together 2000 piece puzzles, how does a little 100 piece kids puzzle give us such grief?

It’s much more fun working on a difficult puzzle with someone, well I think so anyway. You can talk and laugh and help each other out, and even if it’s challenging you’re not as frustrated because there’s someone else to take off some of the pressure. That’s been my experience anyway. I love assembling puzzles with my mom, there’s lots of laughing and teasing – even some cussing, which is adorable coming from a “little old lady’s” mouth! We know how the other assembles puzzles and we’re used to working together. It’s the best!

Dance, Hug, Sing

On December 30, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Another cute kid’s puzzle from the thrift store, but we didn’t even know we had this one! It was bagged separately in the box of another puzzle purchased. Freebie! Free is my favorite price. 😉

Excellent quality kids puzzle from Cardinal, and it was fun putting this together without the picture. Nice, thick pieces that fit together well with bright, fun colors – basically everything you’d want in a kids puzzle. It’s very well made and should last through many, many assemblies.

This was much nicer than the Troll hair puzzle. Ick! This puzzle has since been donated to a school, I’m sure they’re having a great time with it. It’s always fun to assemble kid’s puzzles for me, makes me feel like an expert puzzler! 😎

Review: Teachers

On December 27, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Teachers (Girl Power) – Eurographics – 100 pieces

Another interesting thrift store find from my resident thrift store ninja shopper. Way to go mom!

The is from the Girl Power series of puzzles by Eurographics, the motto is “girls can do anything”. Love it! They have puzzles of the many different jobs girls can do, such as an engineer, pilot, firefighter, mechanic, and many more. Although teacher seems like a job girls have always done, it’s still a part of this series and something girls can do. 🙂

The quality of this kids puzzle was excellent. Very thick pieces that fit together well, with bright and colorful image reproduction. There were also a good variety of piece shapes, which you don’t always see in a child’s puzzle. It is an all around wonderful quality puzzle. I love it when manufacturers put effort into making good quality puzzles for children!

Even though I’m a “grownup” and do adult puzzles, I still enjoy working a kids puzzle. Mom still can’t stop herself from buying them, although we mostly just give them away to friends with kids or the special needs school my daughter works for. We put them together to be sure the puzzles are complete before we give them away. Puzzling is puzzling, no matter the piece count and I’m not ashamed to say I have a good time assembling puzzles meant for children. I’m just a fun-loving kid in a old person’s body. 👧=👵

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