Hello Fall

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Hello Fall – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

Adorable little collage of fall images that was harder than I thought it would be, but I got there in the end. I miss fall. Having lived in Michigan for the better part of my life I am used to actual seasons, not just shades of summer all year long like we have here in Florida. I miss the changing leaves, the nip in the air, the smell of fireplaces and woodstoves burning….sigh….I just miss it.

Now that the reminiscing is done, this was a challenging image but really fun too – and great quality to boot. As usual. Ho hum, how boring, I always say the same thing. But it’s important to know, I think, if a company is consistent with their quality or one of those hit or miss brands. If I know that when I buy this brand I don’t have to worry about the quality, then all I need to worry about is whether or not the image is pleasing.

I did this puzzle immediately after one of the MicroPuzzles Puzzle Packs because I wanted to show the difference in size and finished image. You already saw in my previous post Peacocks the actual difference in piece size, but I wanted you to see both puzzle sizes completed as well.

Even though the Puzzle Packs have almost half of the number of pieces, the finished puzzle is still quite a bit larger. They’re both still small, but it does make a difference when you see the puzzles next to each other.

Both quality puzzles, good enough even for *The Stacey Stance* (it still makes me laugh out loud when I type that). I still love both sizes, but it’s really nice to have a choice now when I want to work on a mini puzzle – they’re both excellent!

Monster Meet-Up

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Monster Meet-Up – MicroPuzzles (Puzzle Packs) – 80 pieces

I decided monsters would be another good fit for an October puzzle, and this image is just too cute for words! I’m really loving these puzzles packs from MicroPuzzles; the larger pieces, the larger finished puzzle, the great images to choose from, and the convenient packaging make these puzzles that I wouldn’t hesitate to buy again.

After this one I decided that a “regular” MicroPuzzles would be next, because I wanted to really give you a sense of the difference between the two products. They are both enjoyable to me, and both have very good quality. But as I’m getting on in years and everything seems to be slowly degrading with fine motor skills and eyesight it’s nice to have the option of getting great quality mini puzzles with both adult images and bigger pieces that are easier to work with.

See what I mean about great quality? How many mini puzzles do you think you could do that with?

Alice’s Adventures…In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Anna Stead – Gibsons – 1000 pieces

This was shipped to my home as an early birthday present, and knowing it was puzzles OF COURSE I didn’t wait until my birthday to open them. Duh. Thanks for the thoughtful gift Penny, I’m having a great time with this one!

The scrolls with the words were much more of a challenge than I thought; even though putting the quotes together was no problem at all, the rest of the scroll with no words and plenty of color changes were more difficult than I gave them credit for. At one point I’d assembled the words and pulled out what I thought to be most of the pieces with scroll on them – and it was just too difficult for me to place many pieces at all. I kinda gave up on that after a while and focused on filling in other sections first. After a bit I began to find a few pieces here and there and eventually sorted the scroll pieces by shape and only tried to place them when I could be sure of the shape or coloring I was looking for.

Sometimes I get it into my head how something should go together and I stick to it even though it takes way more time than it should and is obviously, eventually, the wrong way to go. That’s how I started out this puzzle, and even though I knew I was doing it and it was taking a ridiculous amount of time – I still continued to do it! Sometimes I’m a stubborn ol’ cow, and I just have to blunder through everything my enormously stupid way until I come to my senses.

I’m down to two trays of pieces left, which means I’m now sorting my next puzzle before I can finish this one. My next one will be section B of the big Disney puzzle, Alice in Wonderland. If things keep going the way they are it’s gonna take a while to sort; I’ve been sorting since yesterday but keep getting exhausted and start yawning and end up needing a nap.💤🛌💤

Then again, I’m so anxious to hurry up and get back to this gorgeous puzzle that maybe the sorting won’t take as long as I thought. Here’s hoping!

Whatever puzzle you’re working on today, happy puzzling my friends! 🧩💚

Flight of Creativity

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Flight of Creativity by Jena Dellagrottaglia – MasterPieces – 300 pieces

Gorgeous, colorful, bright, beautiful, quality – so many words to describe this stunner of a puzzle. Loved every piece from beginning to end.

This is one time where I think it was the perfect piece count. Many times I’ve wished for a puzzle that was great fun to be available in a larger size so that I could work on it longer and enjoy the process even more; and sometimes I’ve wished that a puzzle had fewer pieces because it was so challenging or frustrating. This one though, 300 seems like the exact right amount of pieces. I think in a higher count it would have been more difficult, perhaps so much so that it would have become frustrating and taken away from the joy of the assembly.

Assembling larger puzzles is difficult for me at times, especially when I’m having trouble with my chronic pain or depression. It’s so nice to have a choice of smaller piece counts here so that I can continue to puzzle even when puzzling is challenging for me.

Defence Against the Dark Arts

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Defence Against the Dark Arts – Wentworth Wooden Puzzles – 500 pieces

Is this not a fantastic image for the month of October? I think it is, so here we are. Honestly I wasn’t sure how this one was going to go for me, as there is a LOT of black in it even though it seems very colorful and I wasn’t sure how these aging eyes of mine would deal with all the darkness. Luckily with the help of some eyeglasses and an excellent light source it wasn’t too bad at all. 👓🕯

I cannot be held responsible for this puzzle purchase as every Harry Potter puzzle on the Wentworth website was 70% off back in June, and I was left unsupervised with access to my bank account. Consequently, of the fourteen puzzles that were available nine of them made it into my shopping cart. Getting a QUALITY 500 piece wooden puzzle for such a great price was just too good to pass up, so I didn’t! I bought many different sizes: two 500 pieces, a 450, a 225, a set of four 65 pieces, and several 250’s (which I consider to be the perfect size for a Wentworth). This is the second puzzle from this purchase that I’ve assembled, and it was an absolute joy.

If you read My Jigsaw Journal regularly you might remember this picture from the in progress post I did back in August when this puzzle was assembled. The whimsies in this puzzle are absolutely fabulous – with images of Dumbledore, Voldemort, Snape, and even Crookshanks, Scabbers, and Hedwig,. I love all of these figures, and truly appreciate all the work that must have gone into them.

I’m not sure what it is that I love so much about this little section, I just know that it makes me happy even just to look at it. It was a lot of fun to put together and still makes me smile even as I’m typing this up. 😍

Normally I show the entire back of a wooden puzzle, especially when the shapes are Victorian cut or just interesting to me. The shapes for most of these pieces were “normal” and so even though I took a picture of the back I decided to only show you this little part of it. You couldn’t tell unless you were really paying attention, but Scabbers’ whiskers extend into two of the pieces next to him. I didn’t notice at all until I flipped it over. There are a few of these extensions into surrounding pieces for a couple of the other whimsies as well. It makes me really appreciate all the work that went into these puzzles, even more than I already did!

For some reason I just dumped out all the pieces onto my board and flipped them over with no sorting, not even the edges. It was chaos! As the assembly went on I realized that 500 pieces is a bit too many for me to puzzle that way. It’s ok with a smaller piece count, but for this stuck-in-her-ways old lady, I think anything over 300 pieces will need to be sorted from now on. Lesson learned.

Chaos not withstanding, this puzzle made me tremendously happy. Buying it made me happy. Looking at the box made me happy. Finding all the whimsy pieces made me happy. And assembling it made me very happy. 😄