We invite you to read Roberta Shore's review on the following jigsaw puzzle. Since she has discovered the advantages of jigsaw puzzling, she has reviewed/journaled several that will be available on this website. |
Buffalo Games |
My Confident Puzzler Difficulty Rating: Moderate to Easy
Yes, another pretty much perfect Buffalo Games Puzzle. It boggles my mind. This is one off the most competitively priced brands on the market (aka inexpensive) and, unlike other more highly coveted brands, the quality is consistently outstanding. Let me review . . .
Quality: The only downfall may be if a pristine box is important. All Buffalo Games puzzles are packaged with the environment in mind. The sturdy, small, square box has no shrink wrap. Inside the pieces are loose, no plastic bag. To keep them contained, the top and bottom sides of the box are glued together. Even splitting that apart with care, some of the cardboard is damaged; it does not show when the box is closed. Otherwise, the quality is excellent. A partial illustration covers the box top but a full size poster is included. Color match illustrations to pieces is great! There was no puzzle dust. The pieces are solid; this one was fairly glossy, others have a modest sheen.
None were damaged or together uncut, and none were missing. Piece fit was pick up off the table tight.
Getting started: Find the edge pieces and sort by color. For this puzzle, sorting by color was the best option. I did also sort out the pieces of the five butterflies.
Construction: This is where my puzzling experience and this puzzle went wonky. I so wanted to piece it together by color — what was I thinking? A rainbow puzzle is not a gradient puzzle! Sure, most pieces of each color were grouped together, but even with 300 pieces, recognizing how these pieces went together was a strain. But, after building the frame and finding the few clearly recognizable pieces to fit on it, I started with the butterflies anyway. I found pieces by color that connected to them. Still, there was a lot of dead time finding more. I used the poster, looked for the larger flowers, matched some up. I was not really liking this puzzle at all. Blame myself — of course not! This was, after all, only 300 pieces, so even doing it the hard way there were fewer pieces to deal with after a while. Finally, the lightbulb went on. I lined the pieces up by color and shape. Bingo! When the puzzle was complete I said to myself, “Gee, that could have been fun from the beginning!”
Final thoughts: To sum it all up, sort by color, build the frame, piece together by shape, have fun! So simple!
If you want more of a challenge try this one on the left. Clearly the same build strategy would apply. It is the Clementoni 1000 piece Whirl of Flowers, from their Color Boom Collection. In a way, the illustration looks easier to construct as the color sections are more clearly defined. For the little one I reviewed, I will stay with my difficulty rating. As 300 piece puzzles go, this was not as easy as some others, even without brain freeze.
My grades: Quality A+ (I’m not bothered by the box issue), Fun Factor: shoulda, woulda, coulda been A+
![]() ABOUT THE AUTHOR - With her self-published book and over 300 jigsaw puzzle reviews, Linda has established herself as a prominent social media marketing influencer and jigsaw puzzle-preneur. If you want to send Linda a quick message, visit her contact page here. |
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