Trick or Treat! In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

Trick or Treat! by Dean MacAdam – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

This absolutely fantastic Dean MacAdam artwork is my Halloween puzzle this year. You won’t see a post about it until then, but it has been so fun! The colors, the entire image basically, everything makes me so happy. I’m no longer young enough to trick or treat for real, or even take my kids out as they’re all in their 30’s now, but this holiday always makes me feel younger if not young. 🎃🧡

In addition to how happy the image makes me, the quality of this puzzle is phenomenal. Truly, one of the best Ravensburger puzzles I’ve assembled in quite a while. The fit is fantastic, the reproduction is stunning, and in general it feels like joy in my hands.

Holding a piece, contemplating it’s placement, absentmindedly rubbing my thumb over the top to enjoy the hand-feel, Ravensburger puzzles feel like happiness for me. I remember how many of their puzzles mom and I have assembled together, how many I’ve done on my own; the 40,320 piece behemoth that was mainly me – but my momma came to my house 10 different times specifically to help with every single section. Ravensburger is puzzle love for me.

Assembling this gorgeous puzzle for my favorite holiday has cheered me up like nothing else could. I’m loving what I’m puzzling today – how about you? Puzzling something fun? Challenging? Beautiful?

Life’s A Beach

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

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

This puzzle was MUCH more enjoyable than it looks, and it looks like so much fun! It was more of a challenge than I thought, but I enjoyed that; easy puzzles can be pretty boring sometimes. This was the perfect amount of difficulty for me, and as an added bonus my son helped me along the way, and at the very end he put in a lot of pieces. I love that he helps me out lately, it does an old lady’s heart good.

Great quality Buffalo puzzle, as usual. The image reproduction was gorgeous, and I was surprised at how my picture of the completed image looks pretty much exactly like the box top. Most times they don’t, the colors are a little different or duller, but this one looks like a mirror image. The fit was very nice on this puzzle as well, almost good enough to stand up but not quite there.

Is that not a gorgeous view? I loved this section and it was the very first thing I assembled after the border. I just can’t stop looking at it. 😍

Looks like a great place to spend an afternoon, doesn’t it? Drinks, pillows, a roof so the sun isn’t beating down on you – lovely. All it needs is a massage therapist (my brain doesn’t want to let me spell mah-soose at the moment – I swear I’m not an idiot, truly, I’m just old).

It isn’t an easy puzzle, but it isn’t too difficult either – it’s Goldilocks.

Great Old Ads

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Great Old Ads by Lois B. Sutton – White Mountain – 1000 pieces

I had such a good time with this puzzle! I chose it because even though it is a collage, it doesn’t immediately look like it’ll be an easy one – this image has more intricate sections and some softer colors and is a little bit of a challenge – but completely worth it.

This was a very good quality White Mountain, and if I was very careful I could have gotten a picture of it standing up. The most surprising to me was the image reproduction; when there is an image with older products, ads, etc. the reproduction can many times be fuzzy and difficult to work with. The reproduction on this puzzle, however, was excellent! There were one or two sections where it seemed much less crisp than others, but that was the artwork on the ad itself rather that the reproduction. On the ads with lots of small printed text you can read every word! (If your eyes are good enough that is).

Um, do you remember hamburgers in a can?? I certainly don’t! Of course my mom made as much from scratch as she could, for no other reason than it was less expensive to make things yourself. She would take ground beef, add a package of onion soup mix, cut up green peppers and mix it all up. She made them into patties with a hamburger press she got from Tupperware or something and those were our burgers. Even though I was NOT a fan of the peppers in my burger, it seems 100 times more palatable than one out of a can!

(Thankfully mom always used green peppers, so the color was easy to spot in my burger and I picked out as many of those little buggers as I could find! Yes, I was and am THAT picky.😋)

I like this section for some reason I can’t really articulate, other than it makes me think of my childhood. We didn’t drink Borden milk, or really use any of their products that I can remember; but it still makes me smile to see this.

How adorable is this? I love the matching aprons on mom and daughter, the little candle holders on the cake that also remind me of my childhood, and the dish itself on top of the image. I have several of my mother’s Pyrex dishes and I think of her every single time they get used.

Even though this was a more challenging image than many of White Mountain’s collages, it was so entertaining that it went together in less than 24 hours. When I know there’s a fun puzzle on the board I can’t help myself and keep sneaking back to it to put in just a few more pieces…

just one more section…

just empty this one tray…

just….

Check Please! In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Check Please! – Re-marks – 500 pieces

Things have been slow going for me lately, but I’ve got a good start on this one and it shouldn’t be long now. I love all the bright colors and big (but not too big) words to assemble. It’s a great image and it’s been so much fun so far.

Re-marks puzzles have always been in my favorites because they, like White Mountain, have so many fantastic collage images to choose from. And like WM there have been at times quality issues that I just have to deal with if I wanted to play with their puzzles. Thankfully, though, that hasn’t been the case recently. The Re-marks puzzles I’ve done since I came back earlier this year have been excellent, and other than a sometimes loose fit I have had no quality problems at all. Their cuts are random and fun for me to work, and this puzzle specifically has imaginative cuts that I’ve really enjoyed. I’m looking forward to finishing this puzzle, it’s been great so far.

Hope whatever puzzle you’re working on is as fun as this one is!

How to Live with an Idiot

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles12 Comments

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

Adorable image that was more fun to assemble than I’d anticipated, don’t you just love it when that happens? I do! You can always count on a 300 piece Buffalo (at least I think so) to be good quality and fun to put together.

I just love all these descriptors! Although I highly doubt that intense looking kitty would think of any dog as a frenemy, a cat with a look like that on it’s face thinks all dogs are the enemy – at least in my mind.

There was no desire to puzzle at all when I started this one, but as I went along it became more and more entertaining and I was happy to keep working on it even when I should have gone and taken a break. Loved this one!