Blooming Books

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

Blooming Books by Ben Giles – Galison – 750 pieces

This puzzle was both a joy and a pain to assemble, but in the end it felt like an accomplishment to finish it and I was pretty proud of myself for not giving up. This was a gift (who from I do not remember) so of course I wanted to assemble it – if someone takes the time to pick out a puzzle for me, it is always appreciated, even if it’s a brand I don’t care for or an image I wouldn’t pick out for myself. Whoever gifted me this puzzle, thank you!

Galison is a brand that I don’t buy, new or used – for three reasons. First, their lack of variety in piece shape; their regular puzzles only have ballerina pieces (two male/two female ends), it’s boring to work with only one shape and when there are large areas of one color or pattern it makes assembly much more frustrating and difficult. Second, I’m a very tactile person and I don’t care for the “sharp” white backing they use on their chipboard, I don’t like the feel of it in my hands. Third, and most importantly for me, I had a terrible experience with Galison a while back and their customer service (or lack thereof) was almost non-existent. It really ticked me off, and I made a post called No More Galison Puzzles For Me…Ever.

But like I said in the beginning, this was a gift, and even though it’s been sitting in my house for years I wanted to finally assemble it and send it on to the thrift store – I need the room on my puzzle shelves! One good thing about Galison is that their shaped puzzles are truly a random cut, and it makes for a much more interesting assembly. I was actually looking forward to this one.

The pieces were quite thick and the fit was very good. Those are all the pros for this puzzle, unfortunately.

Most people don’t start with the edges on a shaped puzzle, but I do. I can usually find most or all of the edges and it helps me to begin where I normally do with a rectangular puzzle. Unfortunately the edge pieces didn’t always connect which made me have to revise my plan for the assembly. What I ended up doing was work on the border until I got to a place where the pieces just sat next to each other and then I stopped and went through all the pieces until I found enough inside ones to keep that section of the edge together; then I continued with the next part of the frame. It went on this way until the border was complete, and amazingly it wasn’t as frustrating as I thought it would be.

I’ve been much more laid back lately about how I assemble puzzles, just letting my weird brain take me where it wants to go. It’s been good, and I think that helped me with this assembly. I thought I knew how it was going to go, but had to take a detour and figure out another way to get to the end. It didn’t cause me anxiety or upset, I just went with it and it was nice.

You can see from this closeup that the image reproduction was not good on this puzzle, the flowers and butterflies looked like a a bad copy from an old mimeograph machine. On the poster included with the puzzle, however, although the flowers look like they were pasted onto the image of the books, they do not look pixelated like they do on the actual puzzle. It seems as though it’s just a bad reproduction.

Interestingly, I still enjoyed working on this puzzle. I took my time, let the puzzle take me where it wanted to go, and let myself appreciate the ride when I could.

Fresh Blooms In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling7 Comments

Fresh Blooms – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

I’m in a mood today and not feeling very much like doing anything, let alone working on a puzzle. But I know if I haul my butt over to the board and start touching pieces and moving things around it will inevitably improve my mood. And so on, and so on…

Hopefully just telling you about it will help. Whenever I need cheering up talking to my puzzle peeps makes me feel better; you all get it. 🧩💚

It’s down to the last three trays of pieces on this one, so it’s time to decide what puzzle is next and start sorting. I’ve found that because it’s the least enjoyable part of puzzling for me if I sort my next puzzle before the current one is finished it doesn’t seem as bad. If I get sick of sorting I can just move things out of my way and actually add pieces to the puzzle I’m working on to calm my nerves or anxiety; when things are feeling better I get back to the sorting. Once that’s done it’s on to finishing my puzzle and enjoying myself again. As soon as pictures are taken and it’s put away I can jump right into the next puzzle instead of worrying over what’s next and having to slog through laying out all the pieces and sorting it. That way there’s less chance of me curling up in bed for several days and not starting another puzzle, because the next one is ready to go! Gotta do what I can to keep the depression and anxiety at bay, whatever works.

As far as Fresh Blooms goes, it’s almost done and I’ve been having a great time with it. Another quality puzzle collage from Re-marks.

Rabbit Hole Town

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

Rabbit Hole Town – HUADADA – 1000 pieces

Sigh. I’ve done it again. Without realizing it I purchased another crap-tastic puzzle made in China that steals artwork and does not properly license it or credit the artist on the box. My sincere apologies. Another awful puzzle with letters on the back, a bad fit, no artist credit, and missing pieces.

After it happened the first time I vowed to take more care when buying thrift store puzzles, and I thought I had this time. When I looked at the box, it had an address in Madrid, Spain on the side and I – wrongly – assumed that meant it wasn’t one of those puzzles. I should have been more diligent and read the entire box, and will do that from now on. My only happy thought around this is that this company got exactly zero of my dollars, and what I spent went to a Goodwill store that helps out in my community.

There are three edge pieces missing, all together on one side. Normally I always choose to be positive about things like missing pieces. Not going to happen today. Today I am blaming the company, I bet this thing was missing pieces when it was brand new. I have no actual proof of that, but whatever.

Yep, I’ve got an attitude. Deal with it.

This puzzle was so tall that I decided to actually use the letters on the back to sort the puzzle and to do each half separately so I didn’t have to stand up or lean way over to reach the top and cause more pain. I’ve never done this with a puzzle before; once with a 2000 piece puzzle I laid the image sideways on my board and worked it that way but I’ve not separated a puzzle in half before.

The posted included with this puzzle is RIDICULOUSLY large. It’s exactly the size of the completed puzzle – and that’s too big to be helpful honestly. The only way to use it effectively would be to hang it up on the wall, but not everyone puzzles in a place where that’s a viable option.

The artwork is absolutely adorable, and if I knew how to find who the artist is I would give them credit. It is nowhere on the box, obviously, they can’t really advertise that they stole someone’s work and put it on their sh*t puzzle. If you know who the original artist is, please let me know in the comments so that I can at the very least credit them here on my tiny little blog.

These companies that popped up during the pandemic to take advantage of the puzzle craze that was happening don’t seem to be going anywhere, and there are more of them than ever. I would never knowingly give any of these companies my hard-earned money. It disgusts me that they steal from artists, it ticks me off that their puzzles are so popular these days and that many puzzlers think they are good quality and have no problems at all buying their products. In general it is depressing, frustrating, and enraging.

I can’t tell you what puzzles to buy, it’s really none of my business. But I can tell you how I feel about this disturbing trend and let you see it from hopefully more than one side. I understand both sides, or at least I think I do. I know that I’m lucky to be able to afford the puzzles I buy, and I also know that not everyone is able to spend as much and does their best to get as much bang for their buck as they can. I really do understand, that was me in my younger days when I didn’t have extra to spend on anything. But spending money on these puzzles keeps these trashy places in business, places that steal artwork to make a quick buck. And if the artists whose work we enjoy can’t make enough money licensing their artwork to legitimate puzzle companies then it may end up that we won’t have their work any more. If they can’t make a living at it, why continue to do it; especially when others are profiting from your creations but you aren’t.

This company needs a VERY BIG STRAW. Cause it sucks.

Musicals

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles9 Comments

Musicals – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

Musicals went together VERY quickly, even after I tried to slow myself down a bit by taking more breaks; but in the end it was just too entertaining and was finished the day I started it. Oh well, having fun was the point, right? (If you answered yes to that question, go and get yourself a treat – that was the correct answer!)

This was an excellent quality Re-marks puzzle, the fit was very good, the image reproduction was lovely and everything “worked” the way it should. The only thing that was a drawback was the shiny finish, when I was working on the darker sections I had to turn my overhead light off so that I could see what was what. I’ve only got two more Re-marks collages here in the to-do pile, perhaps a shopping trip is in order sometime soon.😇

With these types of collages I usually let you know how many of the books or movies shown I have read or seen, this one was an impressive 24/50! My parents loved music and musicals so I grew up on those wonderful old movies, plus there are quite a few I’ve watched with my kids. Anyone feel like reminiscing?

This is the first musical that I can ever remember seeing. My parents loved this movie and whenever it was showing as a matinee somewhere they would pile us all into the car and off we’d go to see the movie – again. My father, who was and is a big softie, would always cry when they sang Edelweiss, and it took me a long time to understand why. Now I know, and if I saw the movie again now I would probably cry at that scene as well.

Grease was an excellent movie and I have seen it many, many, many times. I also had the double album of the soundtrack, on vinyl of course, and could still sing every song without missing a word, and also tell you which song comes next. I wasn’t in love with John Travolta as many girls were at the time; I identified with Rizzo played by Stockard Channing, she was my favorite character in the movie. She looked a little like me, we both had freckles, and I thought she was the coolest of the cool even if she was a little mean sometimes. I still love this movie, hubby even bought me a 40th anniversary edition of the dvd that came with a little leather jacket for the dvd case.

Grease came out in theaters when I was 10 years old. Oh my gosh, how in the world is this movie 48 years old? Oh my gosh, how in the world is this woman in the mirror almost 58 years old? 👵

Prince was one of my favorite musicians back in the day, his music got me through some tough angsty teenage years. I watched this movie a lot back then, but mostly fast-forwarded to the musical parts (we had a copy on VHS). A few years ago my husband wanted to do something nice for me so he got me a copy of this movie because I was looking for it on the streaming services and I couldn’t find it. Isn’t that sweet of him? Well, it had been some time since I’d last seen the movie, so I watched it from beginning to end – then I remembered how I used to fast-forward through most of it, because the movie is TERRIBLE! The music is great, don’t get me wrong, and Prince Rogers Nelson was a musical genius, but that movie was just awful. It makes me laugh to think of it now; I knew back when I was only a stupid teenager with wildly fluctuating hormones and a not-yet-fully-formed brain that this movie was bad and the only parts worth watching were the songs.😂

So there it is, singing nuns and Austrian families, greasers and female “gangs”, and a horrid movie with great songs. What a collection, huh?

Olde Buck’s County In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Olde Buck’s County by Charles Wysocki – Buffalo – 300 pieces

Unfortunately I didn’t puzzle at all yesterday. Fortunately, my daughter came over to visit and hang out with me all day! Totally worth it!

Therefore, all I had time to do this morning before 8 am was put together a few of the pieces with words and take a picture so that I could get this post out into the world on schedule. And I’ll do my best to make up for it with lots of puzzle time today to be sure. It won’t be difficult, a Wysocki puzzle is almost always fun to assemble. There are usually plenty of little signs all around, lots of beautiful scenery, great old buildings, etc.

I’m pretty sure it’ll be hard to walk away from and it might even be done before you know it!