Orphaned Puzzles!

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment
Transit Graphics – Galison – 1000 pieces

After I finished reading through the entire blog recently, I decided to also read through all the completed puzzle pages for each year – just to see my shortened comments about each of the puzzles – it was very interesting for me. While I was there I found three orphaned puzzles that were shown on a completed page for a certain year but for whatever reason they never made it to a blog post of their own. Oh dear! They won’t each get their own post, but I’ve decided to show them here all together.

The first puzzle, shown above, was completed in August of 2016. As you can tell by the awful picture this was a puzzle that was assembled before this blog even started. My mother and I used to text each other pictures of our finished puzzles, and this was a quick picture just to send over text to show her it was complete; and I’ve rounded it off so you don’t see as much of my bed. Even though it’s been almost 10 years, I still remember this one if you can believe it. It was quite easy for me, and according to my little blurb it was started one day after my husband had left for work and was finished before he got home that night. Not bad for a 1000 pieces!

Krispy Kreme – Gibsons – 500 pieces

This puzzle was completed in December of 2017. The blog was well established by then, so I’m not certain why a full post was never done. Thankfully it’s a much better picture than the previous puzzle; by this time my puzzle boards had been made for me by my sweet hubby and I had figured out how to take a picture that doesn’t look like I was in the process of falling down when the photo was shot.

Unlike the Transit Graphics puzzle, I have no memory of this one. At all. According to the completed puzzles page this one made me hungry, but I was a bit disappointed in the quality. Apparently I had higher hopes for this brand but it didn’t measure up. Thankfully it was still entertaining, and that’s what it’s all about (and I do love a Krispy Kreme donut 🍩).

Victorian Letters – Springbok – 500 pieces

Victorian Letters was also completed in December of 2017. It must have been a crazy month for me to somehow forget to give these puzzles each a post of their own. Oh well, it’s being rectified now – better late than never, right?

It won’t surprise you to hear that I don’t remember this puzzle assembly either. It’s a very pretty image though, and it makes me wish I had typed up a full post. Apparently this was one of Springbok’s very tight fitting puzzles, and at the end my thumb was hurting from smashing together pieces that fit together much too snugly.

I enjoyed reading through all the pages to see all the puzzles completed and how I described them – it was a very entertaining exercise. I’ve read through the blog before, but never through all the completed puzzles pages. I enjoyed myself more than I though I would. 😎

*ps* It also made my OCD a little crazy, so I went back through and edited all the pages so that they should all have the right size images and there is a now a running total of puzzles completed, pieces assembled, and brands worked with for each month. It needed to be done so the part of my brain that craves order would calm the $@!% down!

Lilac Point Glen

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

Lilac Point Glen by Charles Wysocki – Buffalo – 300 pieces

After working on a 1000 piece puzzle that was quite a challenge, this 300 piece Wysocki was just what the doctor ordered to cleanse my puzzle palate. I always enjoy working an Americana puzzle, and Charles Wysocki’s images are some of the best around in my opinion.

This is one of the puzzles I bought during my trip to the thrift store a while back, and I was happy to find that not only was it complete but it was still in excellent condition. There aren’t many smaller piece count puzzles here for me (not counting my mini puzzles, of course) and it was so nice to find a few smaller ones to keep me occupied in between larger puzzles.

The oddest thing happened when I was assembling this puzzle, my youngest son got really involved with it. Most people wouldn’t think that’s out of the ordinary – but it most definitely is! My youngest has autism, and he has never been that interested in my puzzles unless it has an image of something he enjoys like comic books or particular movies. He doesn’t really engage much unless there’s something that interests him, but to my surprise he came in when I was working on this puzzle and helped me with it. But that’s not all, he actually stayed in the puzzle room working on the puzzle when I took a break and went to lie in bed to rest!

When my husband told me he was still working on the puzzle I snuck down the hall and took this picture of him (yes, he does wear a hoodie like that in the house). I was so shocked that he was working on this puzzle without me that I had to document it with a picture!

I have no idea why this puzzle in particular interested him so much, but I absolutely love that he engaged with it and with me while we were working on it together. I definitely got more than my money’s worth from this thrift store puzzle. 💕

Quilting Bee In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Thrift Store Puzzles8 Comments

Quilting Bee by Kay Lamb Shannon – Bits & Pieces – 300 pieces (Large Piece)

This one is coming along, yesterday was a pretty bad pain day for me so I didn’t get far on this puzzle before I stopped and took a nap. Naps are amazing. I love naps. Sorry, I got off track there. Apologies. Anyway, about this puzzle, it shouldn’t take me too long today to finish it up – it’s coming together quite nicely.

I’ve found that many companies whose quality I don’t necessarily care for have very nice large piece puzzles. The bigger pieces for easier handling seem as though they’re thicker and sturdier and they fit together well. These fit into that category and are nice quality puzzles, and I’m very happy with them so far.

After the border all the red pieces were pulled out and I put together all the red clothes and the tractor – didn’t pull barn pieces because they look much more orange, and I’m trying to save the quilt for last as I know it’s going to be fun to do. Next it’ll be grass, animals, a few people and some buildings until we get to the quilt at the end.

On my second visit to the thrift store this year I found two multipacks of Bits & Pieces puzzles; one was a set of four 300 large piece puzzles with images by Kay Lamb Shannon – including this one, the second was a set of four 500 piece puzzles with images by Larry Jones. Bits & Pieces is a company I don’t purchase new, but if there are good images and I can check out the pieces first I will buy them used. These were all good looking puzzles with not too much wear, they had images inside for each puzzle, and they were all bagged separately. Not every thrifted puzzle is that well taken care of, these were a bargain, and now I have several smaller piece count puzzles here to choose from when a larger puzzle isn’t what I want.

Mom and I always carried something sharp in our purses, along with a small roll of tape when we went thrift store shopping. There are a few brands we won’t buy unless we can look at the pieces, and with our tools we could open up a box to look at it’s contents, and tape it back up if we decided not to buy it. I have gotten back into that habit, so I’m always ready to check things out if I need to take a peek inside. 😉

What I’ve Been Doing

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous6 Comments

Once I came back to the puzzle table after my two year hiatus, in addition to working on jigsaw puzzles I’ve been re-reading through the blog. Every. Single. Post.

I started at the beginning in September of 2016 when I received the enormous box containing the Memorable Disney Moments puzzle with 40,320 pieces and kept reading right on through. Of course it was way too many posts to read in one sitting, and when it was too painful to sit in a chair putting puzzles together I would take my computer and read through old posts in bed. It was nice to refamiliarize myself with all the puzzles I’ve done, read all about what fantastic puzzles mom would find at the thrift stores and how much fun we had working on them together, and to read through all the many moods of me. (Apparently when Stacey is p*ssed off she can be VERY funny!😈)

And even though I had just read through the entire blog my memory isn’t what it used to be. I was thinking about all my mini puzzles; which ones I had already done and which ones were yet to be assembled. So one very early morning when sleep eluded me I went through all my Wentworth mini puzzles and all my MicroPuzzles to see which ones had already been completed and which ones I had yet to do. My memory can’t be trusted so I used the blog to search for each image to be certain whether or not a particular title had been posted about. I was shocked to find that there were only five Wentworths that I haven’t done – but even more shocking there were FORTY MicroPuzzles that needed some puzzle love!

The picture above is just some of the MicroPuzzles that still need to be assembled. I was a member of the subscription service, and even when I stopped puzzling for a while the mini puzzles kept right on coming through the mail. At some point I had to replace my debit card and the subscription service stopped. (I’m kicking myself now that I didn’t take care of keeping the subscription going when that happened, because now MicroPuzzles has ended their subscription service and all those fantastic images that were unique to subscribers only are gone forever.😥)

Anyway, now all the mini puzzles that need assembling are back in the puzzle room where they belong. Hubby did some work in there while I was away from the blog, and moved all my puzzles around. I had a system, and he bleeped it up! I had shelves for puzzles that were yet to be assembled, piles and boxes of puzzles to be donated, some that were being sent to Penny, and now I don’t know what’s what anymore. All the puzzles are on new shelving units in my walk-in closet, and I’m going to end up having to take my computer in there to check which puzzles I’ve done and which still need putting together. Many of them I know for sure whether or not they’ve been done, but there are even MORE that I have no idea whether or not it’s been assembled yet and I’ll have to check the titles against the blog posts to see what’s what.

So in addition to assembling puzzles, writing up posts, and window shopping for new puzzles online I’ll have to slowly go through all the puzzles that are here and figure out which group they belong in. I’m actually looking forward to it though (just don’t tell hubby); it’s kind of nice to take a trip down memory lane every once in a while. And I’m certain I’ll find some great puzzles that I forgot I had!

Get Your Stitch Together

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles11 Comments

Unlike almost every other post I’ve done here at My Jigsaw Journal the picture of the completed puzzle will have to be a little farther down instead of at the top. There’s a LOT of cuss words in this puzzle, and I wanted to be sure to give anyone who wishes the option to decide whether or not to see the image.

This puzzle was a gift from my bestest puzzle buddy Penny, who was so excited that I finally got back to the puzzle board that she ordered a couple of naughty image puzzles to be delivered to my front door. You have no idea how hard I laughed when I saw the images that she choose for me – she knows me so well!

What The Puzzles is a new-to-me puzzle brand, and it was new to Penny as well. Luckily this brand seems to have very good quality. The pieces are a little thin but very sturdy, there are a good variety of piece shapes, the image reproduction was beautiful, and the fit is exceptional. I was impressed! It also comes with a large poster that you can use to help with the assembly; even the poster was impressive as the paper used was thick with a beautiful reproduction of the image. The one drawback for me is that it has that “sharp” white backing that I’m not overly fond of, but it wasn’t too bad to work with. I haven’t found too many puzzles “made in China” that were of such good quality, so this was a pleasant surprise. I try not to make quick judgements until I have at least assembled two or three puzzles by any brand, but so far this brand has done very well. I’ll let you know how I feel after I’ve put together the second puzzle Penny choose for me.

*Also, the legal-ish stuff included on the box was too funny! This puzzle is…zero carb, gluten free, dairy free, tobacco free, not tested on animals, gateway to knitting, and may cause extreme frustration. 😎

Ok, that’s enough yammering for now; if you’re interested in seeing my VERY naughty puzzle then all you have to do is scroll down…

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Get Your Stitch Together – What The Puzzles – 1000 pieces

There’s something about these very naughty sayings cross-stitched and embroidered into little samplers that I find absolutely hilarious. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I can have quite the potty mouth when I get upset, although I have never ever told anyone to deep throat a cactus.

Yet. 😈

I love this little section – just for us puzzle junkies!

The fit was so good that I got to take my favorite kind of picture – this 1000 piece puzzle stood up with no problems at all! I can usually only get this type of picture with smaller piece counts, it’s very rare that a 1000 piece puzzle is able to stand up. Impressive.

Overall I was very happy the quality of this puzzle, and even though it wasn’t an easy assembly I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Thanks again Penny, I loved this $%^&* !@#$ of a *+>@&% puzzle! 😇