Little Red Riding Hood

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Little Red Riding Hood – Milton Bradley – 60 pieces

This Milton Bradley puzzle was good quality, though the pieces seemed thin to me because I’d already assembled 6 Ravensburger kid’s puzzles that day – what puzzle company could compete with that? Not many!

This puzzle had good quality pieces with bright, fun colors and an excellent variety of piece shapes. It’s a cute image that was easy enough to assemble and fit together very well. Pretty darn good quality!

I enjoy working kid’s puzzles for several reasons. First, it’s nice to put together an entire puzzle in one sitting; it gives me a little ego boost and makes me feel like the puzzle goddess I think I am in my own mind. Second, I enjoy all puzzles no matter the piece count – even if they’re geared toward children. And lastly, I think most puzzle blogs are geared towards adults and kid’s puzzles deserve to be assembled and reviewed as much as adult puzzles are. If a company makes excellent puzzles for children people should hear about it, and parents need to know what company’s puzzles have good quality. (I’m trying to do my part ☺)

Assembling jigsaw puzzles is good for your brain no matter your age, but they are especially positive for the developing brains of children. They help promote spatial awareness, problem solving, fine motor skills and much, much more. Whether you find them at a thrift store or a retail outlet, a jigsaw puzzle is a fabulous gift for a child – you could be starting them out on a lifetime of puzzling!

Spider-Man 3

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Spider-Man 3 – Milton Bradley – 98 pieces

This was purchased from the thrift store the day mom spent the morning “Driving Miss Stacey”. I thought my younger son would enjoy it as he is a Spider-Man fan so we decided to take a chance. This puzzle is made of foam and the package said it fits together so well you don’t need glue, you can just hang it up when you’re done. While this is true, unfortunately I wasn’t impressed.

The fit of this puzzle is weird, and although it’s true that you can pick up the entire puzzle without glue I don’t think it would make a good hanging decoration. The pieces will not lay flat, not even close to flat. I tried to adjust them all so that it wouldn’t be so noticeable, but you can tell in the picture above that I was unsuccessful. Even if all the pieces had been there this isn’t a puzzle I would have kept.

Milton Bradley in my experience usually has good quality puzzles, but this one just didn’t pass muster. I will still enjoy their more traditional cardboard puzzles, but I don’t think we’ll be purchasing any more puzzles made of foam. It was fun to try out a new type of puzzle though. 🙂

Humpty Dumpty

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Humpty Dumpty – Milton Bradley – 60 pieces

This gorgeous puzzle was excellent quality and it has the most stunning colors! The pieces are thick and incredibly sturdy and fit together very well. It’s a really well made children’s puzzle from the late 90’s – if you can find one cheaply I would definitely recommend it for a little one in your life.

We don’t come across many Milton Bradley puzzles anymore. I remember when I was young and doing puzzles with my grandma she didn’t have much variety to choose from as far as brands go. Most of the puzzles she assembled (from what my aging brain can remember) were Big Ben puzzles from Milton Bradley. There wasn’t much variety in the images either, most were photographic puzzles of landscapes, cabins, lighthouses, etc. I wonder what she’d think of all the different brands I’ve tried and all the different types of artwork. I’m sad she isn’t here to try out all these wooden puzzles and brands from across the globe, but it also makes me appreciate that I have my mom to share them with. ❤

With the internet and our ability to shop puzzles from around the world we have so many more brands and images available to us now – I take it for granted most of the time, and I really shouldn’t. It’s amazing that I can get online and browse through puzzles from Germany, Japan, England, Australia, Holland, Turkey, France and too many more to name! I can “talk” to other puzzlers from around the world, translate any webpage to English with a click of the mouse, and order puzzles for myself from almost anywhere on the planet – amazing! We are truly blessed to have so much available to us and it barely fazes us anymore; we don’t really stop to think how awesome it is and how wonderfully lucky we are. I try to remember that when I’m feeling whiny.

I’m not sure how a children’s puzzle started me off on this tangent, but oh well. My brain takes me on wild adventures sometimes, and I’m not always able to trace them back to the starting point.  Oh yeah – Milton Bradley! Miss you Gram, love you mom. 💗

 

Church

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Church by Joseph Burgess – Milton Bradley – 1000 pieces

This is another of the premium Milton Bradley puzzles that we’ve found. Previously I assembled Train Station, Eden Central by Thelma Winter and enjoyed it very much. Click the link above to see that post. I was thrilled that mom was able to find another puzzle from this series, but a little bummed that it’s missing one piece. Oh well, it was still a lot of fun to assemble!

This was the first puzzle with artwork by Joseph Burgess that I’ve assembled, and I have to say his artwork is beautiful and makes for an excellent puzzle; I’d love to work more of his puzzles. I’ve looked through the puzzles with his artwork available at Puzzle Warehouse, and I recognize several that I’ve noticed before and had already added to my online wishlist (and the wishlist I keep in my head 🙂 )

The quality of these premium puzzles is excellent, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed assembling them. The images are gorgeous and make for great puzzles; the pieces feel almost soft, fit together very well, and have a beautiful matte finish. The series has 3 puzzles each from several artists including Royce McClure and Dominic Davison. I’m hoping we find more of them, I love the quality and the pictures are attractive and calming and make me happy while I’m puzzling them.

Train Station, Eden Central

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Train Station, Eden Central by Thelma Winter – Milton Bradley – 1000 pieces

This puzzle was excellent! The image is perfect for puzzling, the quality was amazing and it even came with a couple of extras – a resealable bag for the pieces and a box easel to set the lid on so you can easily see the picture. I don’t normally get all worked up over extras in the box, but I have to say the easel is the best quality one I have ever seen. It’s made from much thicker cardboard than the ones you get from other companies. Unfortunately for mom it lives at my house now. 😊

It went together pretty quickly, it was easy to pull out all the pieces for a section and assemble them without having to look at the box top for guidance – roof, building, train, etc. I enjoyed it immensely, although there was quite a bit of sky and that took more concentration. If nothing else, at least my brain cells are getting exercise.

This was one of those puzzles that was easy and fun and goes together well without too much checking the box top. Now and then it’s nice to puzzle a lovely, calm scene in the middle of our sometimes hectic lives.

The quality of this Milton Bradley puzzle was great, I’d love to find more of them. The pieces are thick with a nice variety of shapes and they fit together well. They feel almost soft, with a matte finish to prevent glare. They have a whole line of these puzzles with amazing artwork by Dominic Davison, Joseph Burgess, Royce B. McClure, Thelma Winter, and Bob Fair – 3 puzzles from each artist! The quality was exceptional, and the images are lovely; thumbs up to this line of puzzles. 👍