Living in a Bird World In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous2 Comments

Living in a Bird World by Lisa Houck – Liberty Puzzles – 498 pieces

I’m having a bad day today, and this beautiful Liberty Puzzle has been helping me keep my mind off of things. That’s number 138 on the list of reasons why puzzling is good for your mental health. When you work on a puzzle it isn’t possible to multi-task, every part of your brain must be engaged with finding out what shape, cut, and color you’re looking for. The best puzzles can do that with ease, they keep you engrossed in what you’re doing, there’s no time to dwell on problems you may have or situations you can’t change, etc. It’s a mindful, peaceful meditation, and that’s just what I needed today.

I love to puzzle and being a dissectologist has been such a blessing in my life.🧩❤

The symmetrical section with many repeating pieces is where I started, that’s the top section shown; when that began to become more difficult and I needed something a bit easier I went with the darker section of dots in the bottom corner. It took a bit to reorient my brain to how all these pieces worked together, but from then on it’s been pretty smooth sailing. When that was finished I started on the smaller dots in the section above it and that’s where I am now. I’ve pulled out all the pieces (I hope) with the dots on the light background and am attempting to put everything into it’s place and hopefully connect these two sections together.

When I work a premium wooden puzzle like this one I normally put the box away where I cannot easily catch a glimpse of the image on the box. It makes the assembly last a little longer for me and I enjoy figuring out where each piece and whimsy fits into the overall picture. And when I’m finished it gives me a greater sense of accomplishment.

God Bless this puzzle for being here for me today, to keep my mind otherwise occupied when things that I can’t do anything about are happening and I don’t want to wallow (which I would definitely be doing right now). Puzzles have always been a cozy, warm hug for me when I’ve needed it, and I need many hugs today. 🤗🤗

Work In Progress

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

Work In Progress by Ken Zylla – SunsOut – 300 pieces

A thrift store puzzle! The first one I’ve worked since I came back, and it went together quickly. I don’t have many smaller piece puzzles here; combine that with me re-reading through my blog and seeing all the amazing puzzles mom used to find for us to do from the thrift stores – and I got a bee in my bonnet about going to find some “new” puzzles to do.

I was pleased to find some great deals, although if you ask me the price of some of the puzzles at the thrift store was ridiculous. $4.99 for a 100 piece kid’s puzzle? I don’t think so! So I was happy to find a couple of Ravensburger 1000 pieces for $2.99 each, a box of 8 Disney puzzles (Mega Puzzles brand) for $4.99 and a few other interesting images and brands I hadn’t heard of. Mom would be proud of me! 💖

Anyway, to the puzzle. The image jumped out at me for some reason I’m unable to articulate properly, which is why I bought it. SunsOut isn’t a brand I usually buy – and it’s one we (the puzzle posse) never purchase new. If it’s a great image and a good price at a thrift store then I’ll get it; luckily that’s what this one was. I enjoyed this one immensely and it went together quite quickly as it was only 300 pieces and an easy one to sort.

The quality wasn’t great, the fit was VERY loose. Two pieces put together couldn’t be picked up and moved without them coming apart. Annoying. But once I realized that I changed where I was putting pieces together – the trick is to only assemble pieces as close to where they belong as possible, that way I won’t have to pick them up to move them. I find that pretty darn annoying, but it doesn’t preclude me from actually assembling a puzzle that is otherwise entertaining.

I’m missing and remembering my beautiful momma a lot these days, and somehow this puzzle made me feel a little closer to her today. She loved a bargain, she loved jigsaw puzzles and finding puzzle treasures for the both of us to assemble; she loved stopping at my house on the way home from her puzzle hunting to show me what she found and maybe helping me out for a little bit on whatever puzzle was on my board. She loved me so much, we were truly best friends and talked to each other every single day, we loved spending time together and I loved her to puzzle pieces!

I miss you momma. So much. 😥💔

Dark Academia

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

Dark Academia – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

When this puzzle was started what I really wanted was a book cover collage, good thing I had just received a BIG order of mostly collage puzzles. This one jumped out as the one begging to be put together; thankfully it was highly entertaining and exactly what I was hoping for.

Re-marks is right up there with White Mountain as far as having an excellent catalog of collage images – I want almost all of them! The quality is quite good, and the interesting piece shapes and good fit make them great fun for me to assemble.

As I mentioned when I posted an in progress update on this puzzle, there’s only one book in this collection of 50 that I’ve read – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. There are a few classics here; Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wuthering Heights, etc., but many of them are much newer releases. Regardless, it was surprising that 49 of these I haven’t read. It doesn’t matter much though, what was most important to me was how the covers looked in the image and how much fun it was to assemble.

Being the only book in this whole image that I’ve read, it seemed a shame not to show the cover. Seeing this reminds me of the set of Harry Potter book cover mini puzzles my daughter gifted me one year for Christmas. They were so fun to assemble and makes me want to get them off the shelf and start putting them together again. ❤

I’ve never heard of this book, but in addition to it being a fun cover to assemble it’s got a quote from a favorite author at the top – Margaret Atwood. Maybe it’s one I should look into!

Isn’t this just a beautiful book cover? The colors are exquisite! It was one of the first ones I noticed when I was sorting, just stunning. 😍

This puzzle was such fun that I didn’t want it to end and found myself taking extra breaks so that it wouldn’t be over too soon. Even the sorting didn’t seem as tedious and endless as it usually does for me. An excellent puzzle all around that I would happily put together again. Loved it!

Hummingbird’s Treasure In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlingLeave a comment

Hummingbird’s Treasure – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

I haven’t gotten as far I would have liked on this one yet, usually these puzzles are finished in one sitting. They’re what I call “one coffee puzzles” – they can usually be completed in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. Having a bad time lately with being able to sit in a chair for any length of time though, so this one will hopefully be completed later on today.

There’s something about working on these little puzzles with little pieces; I can’t really explain why they make me so happy, but then again I don’t really need to understand it. I can just enjoy them, right? Of course right!

This image is beautiful, and obviously I love that the hummingbird’s treasure is a puzzle piece. This isn’t an easy one, and working with the somewhat shiny pieces under artificial lighting is proving difficult at times. I had to turn off the light over the puzzle board and just work with the room lighting. The blue color around the border is a bit darker than the image shows, but it’s gonna be stunning when it’s done and difficult or not I’m still enjoying it. 😊

Cozy Fireplace

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Cozy Fireplace by Olivia Gibbs – Playview Brands (Hugge collection) – 500 pieces

A new puzzle brand to try out, too bad it was a bit of a disappointment; I hadn’t seen the “Hugge” puzzles before and I was hoping they were good quality. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either – for myself that means I won’t be getting another of these puzzles unless I find them at the thrift store.

According to the box Hugge is a Danish term that describes a quality of coziness that makes a person feel content and comfortable. It’s also often used as an adjective meaning “cozy or comfortable”. There are also instructions on How to Hugge: get comfy and relax, create a cozy atmosphere, appreciate your surroundings, be present, light a candle and do a puzzle! Each puzzle comes with a candle to help you get cozy; the candle in my puzzle was wood sage and sea salt scented. Honestly, it doesn’t smell like much to me, but I’m not as interested in the candle as I am the puzzle itself.

Overall, the puzzle quality reminds me of some White Mountain puzzles – the kind that aren’t the best quality. I’ve had some great quality from WM and some questionable quality as well; this brand reminds me of the latter. The piece shapes even remind me of White Mountain puzzles, almost exactly the same shapes. Unfortunately there were extra hanging bits of backing paper on many pieces (what I lovingly call “hanging chads”), a spongy type of fit that isn’t always pleasant to work with, an extremely shiny finish, and some image lift on many tabs so that running your hands over the finished puzzle isn’t advised. In general it was disappointing.

Many of the edge pieces had an extra 1/8 of an inch or so of the blue backing paper which doesn’t sound like much of a big deal, but removing it without damaging the piece wasn’t easy and I had to use a razor blade to get rid of it. Probably around 25 pieces or so had this extra paper and it was a pain to deal with. Nothing life altering but an annoyance nonetheless.

I wish I had good things to say about this puzzle but I really don’t. The artwork by Olivia Gibbs is adorable, and made for a great puzzle image, but that’s about it for me on the positive side.