Sunset Over a Busy Day

On May 24, 2018May 24, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

This puzzle was a pleasure to assemble, the gorgeous colors and exceptional fit made for a great time. Doesn’t this look like a great spot for a getaway?

The picture above doesn’t do this puzzle justice, the image is absolutely beautiful and the colors are stunning. I would have liked to have the artist’s name somewhere on the box; I searched every inch of it and nowhere is credit given to the artist. If I were an artist that licensed my work to be made into a puzzle I would definitely want credit for it! Thank goodness for the internet, with the name of the painting it was easy to find the name of the artist and I can at least give him credit here.

Most of the Milton Bradley puzzles I’ve assembled so far have been very good quality. Their pieces are a good thickness, they have a very good variety of piece shapes and the fit is excellent. The image reproduction is excellent as well and in general I’ve been thoroughly impressed with their puzzles.

I’m not always in the right frame of mind for an image like this one, but Sunset Over a Busy Day was just what I needed. The sky was easy to start with, and the dock and cabin offered enough of a challenge to keep it from being too easy. I find that my moods directly affect the type of puzzles I choose to assemble. I haven’t completely figured it out yet, which moods prefer which puzzles – all I know is some days I won’t even consider a certain puzzle and a few days later that same puzzle is exactly what I’m looking for.

Perhaps that means that it’s pretty important for me to have a very good variety of puzzles to choose from. So mom keep up that thrift store shopping, my ever-changing moods require a wide variety of interesting puzzles to choose from. ☺

Provence Market

On May 19, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

This was quite a difficult puzzle for only 300 pieces, but I was looking to keep my mind engaged and this image certainly did the trick! It’s a beautiful picture, but the style of the artwork makes it a bit of a challenge to assemble.

The quality of this Milton Bradley puzzle was exceptional, with very thick pieces that fit together beautifully. The image reproduction is lovely, and it never ceases to boggle the mind how the mottled looking colors on the pieces turn in to such a charming image. I love how almost all of the brands of 300 piece puzzles are such excellent quality. I’m enjoying all of these smaller piece count puzzles and their wonderful quality.

It’s interesting how my image choice depends so much on the piece count. I highly doubt that I would choose to assemble this image in anything larger than 500 pieces. The art style makes it quite a challenge and I think it would just be too frustrating for me. This was a fun assembly though, and the right amount of difficulty.

There are so many beautiful 300 or 500 piece puzzles out there, and I find that most of them with larger pieces are wonderful quality. I’m looking forward to finding more interesting and challenging puzzles!

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!