Moose Crossing

On May 16, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

This puzzle was great fun, with beautiful colors and the right amount of challenge. I really am enjoying all of these smaller piece count puzzles – they’re perfect when a 1000 piece puzzle is just too overwhelming for me.

I’m finding that many brands with large or EZ grip pieces use excellent quality chipboard; it’s very thick and the pieces fit together extremely well. I’ve had 500 and 1000 piece Milton Bradley puzzles with thinner pieces that were easily bent, but all of their large piece puzzles have had wonderful quality.

I searched the entire box for the name of the artist, but it was nowhere to be found. I could only make out the first name Brooke, but I’ve done several of Brooke Faulder’s puzzles before and was able to confirm that this image was hers as well. She illustrates dogs in such an accurate and adorable way – they have personalities. 🐾

This puzzle was lovely to assemble and it was difficult to walk away from. I would love to find more puzzles from this artist to put together, I’m liking dogs more than people these days. 😕

Mr. Potato Head

On May 10, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

This is a cute 48 piece puzzle of Mr. Potato Head that comes with 20 clings that you can mix and match to create different faces. And to think that in the early 1950’s when the toy was first produced it was just separate plastic body parts with pushpins that you used on a real potato! What?!

I think the idea for this puzzle is excellent, but I was pretty disappointed with the quality. I really wanted to like this one too! The pieces were thin and easily bent, what I consider to be not sturdy enough for repeated play. If the object is to assemble and play with this multiple times I don’t think the pieces will hold up well. As you can see in the image above, the puzzle also doesn’t lay completely flat – not great. The clings themselves seem like good enough quality, but to comment on them specifically I would want to spend more time with them. All in all I was hoping for better from this puzzle, we found it new and unopened at the thrift store.

I wanted to make at least 2 different faces to show some of the clings that come with the puzzle. I had a good time choosing and trying to make a funny face. 🤓

Perhaps if this puzzle is something your little one would really enjoy you could glue it once it was assembled to keep the pieces from bending and wearing out from repeated use? I don’t have an answer. It’s a great idea, but not as well executed as I’d hoped for. This puzzle is unfortunately not recommended.

Pattern 4

On April 28, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

I am completely in LOVE with this image! It isn’t my best picture – it’s a bit fuzzy at the bottom, which I didn’t notice until I had already disassembled it. My apologies. 😪

This Milton Bradley puzzle was very good quality, I was impressed! The pieces have an excellent feel to them and are a good thickness. The fit was exceptional – you can barely see the piece shapes in the finished puzzle – it would be perfect to frame and hang as artwork. The colors are amazing as well, and it made for an all around wonderful assembly.

When I was a child my mom used to buy these extremely interesting “coloring books”. They weren’t your typical pictures for children; they were intricate patterns to fill in with color, very much like the patterns in this puzzle. We weren’t even allowed to color in the book itself (it was more like a pad of paper than a book), she would photocopy the pattern and we could color on the copies only.

For me it was much more fascinating to color these patterns than the average coloring book for children and I spent many an hour with my colored pencils or crayons designing new color palettes for my favorite patterns. Mom was a pretty smart cookie to copy the pages, it made only a couple of these books last us for years.

This puzzle was exactly what I was looking for and I had the best time putting it together! It was part of a recent group of smaller piece count puzzles that I purchased to keep me stocked up while waiting for my puzzle mojo to come back. I’m so glad that I found this one, because it was so entertaining to assemble and the image is absolutely gorgeous. Now I’m on the hunt for patterns 1-3!

Old Town Market, San Diego, CA

On April 11, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

I really didn’t think this image would be fun or easy to assemble, but it was 300 pieces and only 69 cents at the thrift store so why not give it a go? As usual I was absolutely wrong on every level – not only was it fun, I didn’t find it difficult at all!

Milton Bradley puzzles are usually pretty good quality, though I’ve had some good and some bad. Their 300 piece EZ grip puzzles are very thick and well made, but the “regular” size pieces can be hit or miss. The pieces of this particular puzzle were thin, but fit together very well. The image is quite dark (which is why I didn’t think I would enjoy it) but wasn’t difficult and I ended up really liking it. It’s funny how your opinion of the picture changes with the assembly itself. Entertaining assembly = I like the picture. If I start out really liking the picture and the assembly is tedious or frustrating I end up not so enamored with it after all. I change my mind a LOT. 😎

I highly recommend checking out your local thrift stores if you have any nearby. Most puzzles mom finds for us are complete, and even if they’re not we still have fun putting them together. I’m not holding my breath, but I have this daydream where mom stumbles across a Stave or any other good quality wooden puzzle at one of the thrift stores. Wouldn’t that be a find?!

Stuffed Animal Collection

On March 25, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

IMG_E4370 — Stuffed Animal Collection by Susan Rosenthal – Milton Bradley – 300 pieces

I didn’t enjoy this puzzle as much as I thought I would. The bears don’t seem very cute to me and the fit was pretty loose. Perhaps this puzzle was assembled many times – I’ve never had a large piece MB puzzle that fit this loosely.

The pieces were thick, but the image reproduction seemed a bit blurry. It’s difficult when you’ve got stuffed animals because they’re actually fluffy, but the pieces seemed a little more fuzzy than furry. Overall I wasn’t a fan of image, so that also plays into how I feel about the puzzle in general.

Whether it was the loose fit or the image I just wasn’t feeling this one and didn’t have as much fun as I’d hoped. As I sit here now typing up this post I’m struggling for things to say, either good or bad. I didn’t care for this puzzle, but in general Milton Bradley puzzles are very good quality – especially their 300 piece EZ grip puzzles.

Like this image? I say if you find this puzzle and it looks like fun, go for it! Everyone’s puzzle preferences are so different; the characteristics that I think make a good puzzle could be the one thing that you really can’t stand. The thing you love could be the one thing I can’t tolerate, but luckily there are so many brands and so many images that there’s always something for everyone.