Life is an Open Book – Paris

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Life is an Open Book – Paris by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

What a stunningly beautiful image, I had the best time with this puzzle! Of course we know that Aimee Stewart is my favorite puzzle artist, her images make for the most interesting, challenging, wonderful assembly experiences. I absolutely adore them, and this was even more fabulous than expected.

The Life is an Open Book series of puzzles has been out in the world for many years now, but I just got my hands on one of them very recently. What on Earth I was thinking waiting so long to try these out I have no idea – I can’t have been thinking very much at all. I want every single city in this series. Immediately! The quality was excellent, the image was fantastic, and the assembly was so challenging and relaxing at the same time. My little old lady’s puzzling heart is going pitter patter at the thought of collecting the remaining three cities. 💓

When I first saw this tiny little section of the puzzle, it made me smile. Of course I remember the horrible Chat Noir puzzle that mom and I put together – it was not much fun at all; but seeing this tiny representation of it made me think of her, which is lovely. We HATED this puzzle, and after assembling it we vowed to be more discerning before jumping in feet first whenever there was an image we loved; because they don’t all make for fun puzzling. Still, I have the memory of this puzzle intertwined with memories of mom and I working on it together, cussing and laughing and cheering each other on – of course it brings a smile to my face.

Fine Art puzzles are not really images I enjoy putting together, so this is most likely the last time you’ll see Ms. Lisa here on the blog. Still, I can now honestly say that I assembled an image of the Mona Lisa. 🖼

All the books, posters, and knick-knacks made for such entertaining assembling; lots of words, beautiful colors, many small things to discover and place in the image.

This artwork shows off the best of Aimee Stewart in my very humble opinion. You’ve got her shelves, lots of books, posters, bright colors, a collection of many disparate objects that all seem to work together perfectly to make a stunning piece of art. And it all fits together on a beautiful puzzle that is a joy to assemble – I couldn’t ask for more.

Other than the remaining cities in this series, of course.😉

Frenchie In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Frenchie by Karen Burke – MasterPieces – 1000 pieces

There isn’t much to tell today unfortunately. Yesterday was a bad day for me in the pain department, so there wasn’t much work completed on today’s puzzle. In fact I didn’t get out of bed to actual put puzzle pieces together until almost two in the afternoon!

That’s ok, the little guy in the puzzle knows I love him, and that it will be great fun putting together every last bit of him. Adore this image.😍

Family Dinner

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles6 Comments

Family Dinner by Ed Wargo – Rose Art (Back to the Past) – 750 pieces

The Back to the Past series from Rose Art has some amazing artwork, and if this puzzle is any indication they make for challenging and wonderfully entertaining puzzling. This puzzle was a great time, and I don’t know where else a person can pay $2.99 and get hours and hours worth of amusement, enjoyment, relaxation, and distraction out of it. Adored this one!

Rose Art puzzles can be hit or miss in the quality department, and luckily this one was a hit. The very blocky grid cut pieces made for some false fits, but if I’d really been paying attention maybe I’d have realized my mistakes more quickly. The image reproduction is lovely, but the painterly style made some pieces look like blotchy blobs of color – it was the image itself though, not the reproduction. There were a good variety of pieces that fit together well and the chipboard was relatively thick and sturdy. Overall this was a good quality puzzle, and I was quite happy with it.

If any of you grew up in the 60s and 70s this might be a familiar looking thing – all the side dishes and casseroles. My mother had sooooo many casserole dishes, it was quite a thing at the time; the number of beautiful Corning Ware dishes she had was amazing, and I wish I had more of them here. We never had a giant roast like the one in this oven, we weren’t that well off (and honestly the number of little side dishes shown here for a family dinner seems a bit excessive to me) but the first thing I noticed in the oven were the two casserole dishes in the smaller left-hand oven. They immediately made me think of my mom. 💜

The first thing I put together was this refrigerator with all the wonderful little drawings on it. They were easy to pick out during the sorting, and it’s always fun to have something to assemble immediately after you put together the border.

I really had a good time with this assembly, and it’s making me want to get my butt back to the thrift store to see what other treasures I can find. This beauty has been sent on to Penny soon so she can assemble it too; when I texted her a picture of the puzzle I was doing she immediately asked if she could have it after I was done. Hope you love it my friend! 📦🧩

Secrets of the Deep

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles10 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?