Among Friends

On June 16, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

This is such a cute puzzle, I didn’t expect it to be as much of a challenge as it was. At 200 pieces it was the perfect puzzle at the perfect time.

Ravensburger puzzles are such great quality, they’re always a joy to assemble. Even opening the box and seeing the pieces makes me happy. I’ve heard that their quality has been declining, but I haven’t actually seen any of that so far. This puzzle was a thrift store purchase and it was the usual excellent Ravensburger quality with wonderfully thick pieces, a gorgeous image, and exceptional fit.

I’ve done several puzzles with artwork by Howard Robinson, and they’ve all been “cute”. His images are usually adorable animals that seem to have a personality, and they always make me smile – this puzzle is an excellent example of that. Charming animals aren’t always the images I’m looking for, and sometimes they can be quite difficult to assemble, but they do make me happy.

Sometimes cute and easy is exactly what I need. These days the “easy” is pretty important; I’ve pretty much been in bed all day every day since the beginning of April. I haven’t been able to do many 1000 piece puzzles, or even many 500 pieces. Puzzles that are 300 pieces or less are mostly what I’ve been doing; I’ve been surprised at how much I’m enjoying them. Puzzles are great fun for me and excellent for helping me deal with stress, anxiety, and chronic pain – it doesn’t matter how many pieces there are or how big it is. Puzzles make me happy regardless of the piece count. ☺

Sometimes I worry that I’m doing too many small puzzles or too many wooden puzzles and that these aren’t always what people want to see on my blog. I have to remind myself that this blog is about the puzzles that I do, and whatever puzzles I assemble are the ones that I write about. I don’t do puzzles for other people’s enjoyment, I do them for me. You can’t please everyone, and you shouldn’t try. I struggle to remember that sometimes.

So when a cutesy puzzle comes along, if I want to put it together, I do. If I have a good time putting it together that’s what’s important. If you enjoy reading about it – even better! If it’s not really your cup of tea (or pile of pieces), that’s ok. Maybe tomorrow’s puzzle will be perfect for you. 😎

The Petting Zoo

On June 13, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

This was a quick puzzle that I decided to put together without looking at the box; I guess I needed a little bit of extra challenge. There were plenty of animals and little details to help out with the assembly, and lots of words to put together too!

The quality of this puzzle was quite good; the pieces were very thick and the fit was exceptional. I’ve found that the large EZ grip puzzles from MasterPieces have much better quality than their regular puzzles, the chipboard they use is thicker and more dense and makes for an excellent tactile experience. The cut is random, which makes for interesting piece shapes and also makes you look more closely at the pieces and colors to find what you’re looking for.

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I really enjoyed all the little details of this image, all the horse’s stalls have their names above them, and each of the pens had signs on them as well.

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I love the art of Art Poulin, I’ve done several of his puzzles and enjoy the Americana/Folk images he produces. They bring to mind images of simpler times, when none of the kids had cell phones or tablets and were happy to spend time at the petting zoo interacting with the animals and being in nature.

It seems as if I’m becoming one of those little old ladies talking about how great things used to be – and I haven’t even turned 50 yet! 👵

Robots

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

This cute kids puzzle is adorable to look at, but had disappointing quality. Puzzles are so good for the brain development of children, I wish all the makers of puzzles for kids put the effort in to making great quality puzzles for them.

The image itself reminds me of Birthday Owls that I assembled last year. The artwork is very similar, but that puzzle had better quality than this one. The collage-type image is an easy one to assemble, and is great for helping gain confidence when assembling a puzzle with a larger piece count.

Mega Puzzles have hit or miss quality from my experience, this one was a miss. You can see below that the pieces don’t lie flat because they’re on the thin side and easily bent.

Although the quality wasn’t the best it was still a fun little puzzle to put together. I do love a collage!

Old World Map Calendar

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

This puzzle is a very interesting concept; it’s a calendar within a puzzle, and you are supposed to be able to reassemble it every month. Cool idea, but not at all practical in my opinion.

I like vintage map puzzles, I find they can be intimidating and tough to put together, but I love the look of them and enjoy the challenge. This map was no exception, with beautiful colors and an interesting background.

The fit is extremely tight so that you can hang the finished puzzle with no glue or taping needed to keep it together. There are basically only 2 different shapes of pieces; this is so all the pieces can be interchangeable when you need to reconfigure the calendar each month. This is where the it becomes impractical; any puzzle made from cardboard isn’t going to be able to withstand multiple disassembling and reassembling – especially when the fit is so tight.

You can see below that the tabs are lifting and the image is coming off, and in some places the image is actually torn off. Perhaps a plastic puzzle would be a better way to go with this idea. With cardboard, no matter how sturdy it is, it will start to come apart after many assemblies.

I assembled it for this month, June. The 10th is a family birthday, the 17th is Father’s Day, and the full moon this month is on the 28th. The extra 160 pieces are for the major holidays, and extra days and spaces.

It was fun to put this together, and while I like the idea and the finished puzzle it just isn’t at all reasonable for a cardboard puzzle. Still it was an excellent thrift store find and I’m glad it was all there and I was able to try it out.

Seeing Double

On June 9, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

This is an interesting kid’s puzzle with a twist, you’re seeing double as one side of the attic looks like a mirror image of the other. But there are 14 differences between the two sides. Your job is to assemble the puzzle and then find what’s different.

The quality of this puzzle is very good. The pieces are a nice thickness and they fit together very well with a good variety of piece shapes. The image reproduction is good, but the finish is slightly shiny which caused a bit of glare and made working the top portion of the puzzle difficult under artificial lights.

This puzzle seems like it’s a bit old, but I wasn’t able to find any information about it online. Great American Puzzle Factory does have a series of these “puzzles within a puzzle”; some finding hidden images or like this one, finding differences.

My brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders when I put this one together, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to find all the differences on my own. I did find one of them right away, while assembling the edge, it’s right underneath the wording….

There’s a mustache on the man on the left, but not on the mirror image on the right. Basically it’s really the only difference I was able to find on my own, for the rest I just used the answer sheet.

It was a little difficult for a children’s puzzle, the top was quite dark which made it harder to see and put together. I think it’s a good thing when kids puzzles are a little challenging though, if they’re too easy they can become boring. The missing piece was a bummer, but it was still a good quality puzzle and a fun assembly.