Secrets of the Deep

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

Secrets of the Deep by Steve Read – MasterPieces – 500 pieces

This puzzle was a joy – random shapes, beautiful colors, excellent fit – I absolutely adored it! Ocean images aren’t really my thing, but I wanted to clear out some of the older thrift store puzzles and this had the right piece count so I gave it a go. I’m so glad I did.

MasterPieces puzzles have always had good quality in my opinion, and this was one of the best quality puzzles of theirs that I can ever remember doing. The image reproduction is stunning, the fit was exceptional, the random shapes made the assembly wonderfully interesting, it was just an all around great puzzle. 💙

It can be interesting putting together a random cut like this where the “corners” of the pieces don’t meet – it can be all over the place. In my case it makes me slow down a bit and really pay attention to the connections and be sure to grab the right piece no matter if it’s tall or short or long or thin.

In addition to being an all around great puzzle this was also a glow in the dark puzzle with hidden images to find; Steve Read likes to hide things in his artwork. I found myself going back through the blog and looking at past puzzles with his artwork, and quite a few of them were ones with hidden images – there were hidden animals, hidden fairies, etc. Anyway, back to this puzzle, there are 16 hidden dolphins to find; can you see a pink dolphin in this coral (or whatever it is)?

The fit was very good, and I was able to get this stand up picture, but just barely. You can see the pieces are moving a bit, and immediately after I took this picture a piece fell out. I almost feel as though I shouldn’t be posting this picture because it wasn’t as good as previous puzzles that stood tall and proud with no pieces moving around. But I did capture the image, so why not?

As I mentioned before this was also a glow in the dark puzzle, and a thrift store purchase. Once it was finished and pictures were taken I took it outside to “charge” for 10 minutes or so in the sun. You can never tell with a thrift store puzzle if you’re gonna still be able to get a good glow out of it and I’ve found that putting it in direct sunlight for a few minutes helps.

Let me tell you, I got the best glow on a puzzle I have EVER seen, and the absolute best glow picture I have ever taken. Ready?….

It’s a little blurry on one side, I think I was so amazed by how well it was glowing that I moved a little when I was taking it. There was absolutely no manipulation of the image other than to crop it, this is actually what it looked like in the darkened room. Isn’t that a glorious GITD picture? I was so excited to capture such an excellent glow on this puzzle – I still am!

This was a fabulous puzzle with hidden images inside beautiful artwork on a puzzle with excellent quality. I absolutely recommend it; it made this little old puzzle lady very happy indeed. 👵

Life’s A Beach In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

Life’s A Beach by Lars Stewart – Buffalo (Night & Day series) – 1000 pieces

This little beauty’s already been more difficult than I thought it might be, but I like that – it keeps me on my toes. When I chose this puzzle it was one of those days where you’re looking for something VERY specific, but you aren’t really sure what that is. Does that make sense to anyone other than myself? I knew I wanted something, but what that was wasn’t very defined in my brain, it was one of those “you know it when you see it” things. Luckily my eyes came to rest on this gorgeous image and here we are!

On the box it says © LARS, but those of us in the know can see just by the image that this is Lars Stewart, Aimee’s boo! (Do the kids even say boo anymore? Whatever. I’m old.) I checked MGL Art just to be sure, and this is most definitely one of his images. I adore the colors, and how everything seems to fit together so seamlessly, it’s just stunning.

The picture above is just one section at the bottom, a little more than halfway across; I’ve also got most of the moon and the mountain on the night side completed, along with the lighthouse and rainbow on the day side. There’s quite a bit of empty space still waiting to be filled up and for some reason the picture looked really odd to me with so much open area, so for right now all you get to see is just this little bit at the bottom.

I’m having a great time and very much enjoying the challenge. What are you puzzling today?

Life is a Box of Colors

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Life is a Box of Colors – Cra-Z-Art (Kodak) – 350 pieces

I had a really good time with this puzzle. And since I don’t remember the last Kodak puzzle that was put together, I didn’t know what kind of quality this might be; I was happy to find that it was a very good quality puzzle that was also truly a joy to assemble.

For some reason I decided I was going to pick puzzles based on piece count and go upwards to 1000 pieces. One day I did both 150 and 200 piece puzzles, so of course the next one had to be 300 pieces. I thought I’d jump to 500 pieces after that, but when I looked through the shelves in my closet I was surprised to see I had a couple of 350 piece puzzles, and obviously this one jumped right out at me with it’s bright, beautiful colors.

The pieces were thick with a good variety of shapes. It’s one of those puzzles that has fat pieces and thin pieces, you can tell when you start assembling the border; the thinner, shorter pieces make up the side borders and the fatter, taller ones are the top and bottom borders. The finish was quite shiny, and I did most of the assembly without my overhead light on because there was just too much glare to deal with. The image reproduction was gorgeous, of course, look at those “kodak colors”! The fit was quite tight, almost like a Springbok or certain Sunsout puzzles – I’m not a fan of this type of fit, but at least it wasn’t loose, right?

Assembling words makes me so happy, of course this was the first section to be completed. Isn’t it a stunningly gorgeous image? Love it!

Did I mention something about an extremely tight fit? Oh yeah, I did! In fact, I was so sure that this was going to work that I stood the puzzle on it’s edge first, before I got any pictures of the completed puzzle. That can be a risk if you’re not sure, but I knew there wouldn’t be any problems with this one.

I absolutely loved this assembly. Much of it was put together when I was on the phone with my daughter, I just sat talking and absentmindedly finding pieces and putting them in. When I look at this puzzle that will be what I remember, talking to my baby girl and putting together a beautiful puzzle. 💖

Old Friends

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Old Friends by Anthony Kleem – Rose Art – 300 pieces

This went together quite quickly, but unfortunately the quality wasn’t quite up to snuff. It was brand new, but there were several problems with the chipboard and the image coming up at the corners of the pieces. It’s a lovely bit of Americana artwork by Anthony Kleem, I just wish it had been sitting on top of a better puzzle.

Rose Art puzzles can be hit or miss, and I was hoping with this being an unopened one that the quality would be better. The chipboard however was starting to split on several pieces and although it seems sturdy there were one or two tabs that had to be bent back into place before they would fit properly. In addition the image was lifting on the corners of many pieces, it was a bit disappointing to be honest.

I wish I had better things to report, but the quality was lacking on this one. It’s a great image though, and it made for fun puzzling too.

Currently In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling8 Comments

How to Live with an Idiot by Lucia Heffernan – Buffalo – 300 pieces

I wasn’t feeling much like puzzling yesterday, but I got up out of bed and puzzled a bit because I needed something to post today. I had decided on another puzzle by another company, but when I opened the box and saw all the pieces were ballerinas I put it away for another day. Then I saw this little cutie pie and got going.

I love Lucia Heffernan’s images, all the ones I’ve done so far were dogs; this one is mainly cat, but it’s about dogs. Love that fat little pup sitting on a cushion taking a nap! It’s so nice to do an image by an actual artist isn’t it?

Hopefully I’ll be motivated to do more puzzling today, but for now I’m going back to bed.

Happy puzzling today my friends!