Keep On Dancing

On April 15, 2017May 18, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

So I finally broke down and ordered myself some new puzzles – I haven’t bought any new ones for myself since I bought the giant Disney puzzle. They arrived a few days ago and I was so excited! It was like Christmas morning!

Something about this image made me happy, and it was the puzzle I wanted to assemble first. It was an excellent assembly! It was fun to pull out pieces for a specific dress and assemble them, and before I knew it all the beautiful dresses were done and the dance floor was full! This is one of those puzzles you can’t seem to walk away from and it’s done in no time at all. I love puzzles like that!

I’ve only ever done one Gibsons puzzle before, and it was a 1000 piece. I love the feel of the pieces; they’re thick and sturdy and make the puzzling a tactile experience that I can’t properly put into words. The quality is exceptional! I wasn’t aware when I ordered it that it was a 500 piece with the extra large pieces, so the finished puzzle was 27 x 19. A nice big puzzle that feels like quite an accomplishment. 🙂

There’s something about a large piece puzzle for me, I’m not sure what it is, but it seems like the assembly always goes much faster. Perhaps it’s a perception thing? “These pieces are really big, it shouldn’t take any time at all to finish this entire puzzle.” And then I prove myself right by staying with it until the assembly is complete. I’m not sure if that’s it, but I enjoy the large piece puzzles whatever the reason.

I had a great time with this assembly, the only downside is that it’s over already!

Also, I wanted to wish my puzzle “dealer” a very happy birthday! Thanks for all the thrift store shopping for great puzzles and great puzzle deals. Who else would have found a 4000 piece puzzle for $1.99? But most of all, thanks for working on puzzles with me and being the only person who actually wants to hear me talk about jigsaw puzzles as much as I do, and in general just being your awesome self. Love you mom! 😉

What If #3 Home Makeover

On April 13, 2017May 18, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Another fun puzzle where I won’t show the entire image. You have to puzzle it out for yourself!

This What If shows what actually happens when the family tries to do all the home improvements themselves. Not good. You can tell by the cat’s face that he certainly isn’t impressed! They’re hoping for a great new room, but what if they get something else altogether? 😉

This one seemed more difficult for me than the other What If puzzles I’ve worked, or it may just be that my brain hasn’t been working properly lately. That’s a distinct possibility! Whatever the reason, it took a little extra brain power from me but it was still a super fun assembly. I enjoy the puzzles where I don’t have a picture – it adds an extra challenge and I feel quite proud when I’m done.

Usual great Ravensburger quality, although I think this puzzle may have been near the end of the run, because the fit was looser than normal for a Ravensburger and the piece shapes stand out in the final image more. But I’ve seen that several times with many different companies, it happens. It doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of the assembly much, and they still have great image reproduction, excellent artwork with clean lines, thick pieces – you know, the usual amazing Ravensburger puzzle. (I’m a fan, can you tell?)

I loved this puzzle and highly recommend it, even if it did require extra use of the brain cells. It’s always fun to figure out What If something else happened?!

Woodstock

On April 11, 2017May 18, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles1 Comment

Love this image, but oh my was this time consuming and difficult!

When the picture is fun I don’t usually mind if all the pieces are ballerinas, but that is NOT true when there is just flat color everywhere! There are about 200 pieces that are just red. No different shades, nothing to break up the color, just red. Yikes. The same was true for the blue, white and green pieces, but in much smaller amounts.

I love having words to assemble, even larger ones – so that was fun. Even the guitar, hand and bird weren’t too terrible even though they were are flat color with no shading. But oh my the red background 😮 I refused to give up on it though and I got it finished!

I like the quality of Andrews & Blaine puzzles, but from now on if there is a lot of flat color in the image I won’t be attempting it. I’m proud and it wasn’t horrid, but it took so long and sometimes I thought I’d never get it done. The fit was looser than I’m used to with the Andrews & Blaine puzzles, so I had to take care and sometimes had to really look closely to be sure whether or not a piece fit. It made it a bit more challenging and took a lot of time. But just like with any puzzle, the more you whittle down the pieces you have to choose from the faster it goes. It got going faster and faster and that was exciting; plus all the pieces were there – bonus! I worry with the thrift store puzzles sometimes, but no need to worry on this one.

I love the image and the blocks of color but I’ve learned my lesson and unless there are different piece shapes I’m staying away from artwork like this one. This is one puzzle I’m super proud of completing though, that’s for sure. 😎

King Dog

On April 9, 2017May 18, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Who couldn’t love a face like that? One look at this puzzle and we just had to get it and get it done!

300 piece puzzles are fun to put together in an afternoon, or even less time if you’re working with someone else. This puzzle was no different, and we just loved this adorable dog! The pieces weren’t too bad, and it was a large piece puzzle, so the finished product was much larger than we anticipated (18 x 24). That’s alright though, it seems like more of an accomplishment – look at this big puzzle we just finished!

Like I’ve said before, if you really love the image the puzzle is fun to put together even if the quality is less than amazing. The quality of this puzzle wasn’t too bad at all, so the assembly wasn’t a chore. I’m a bit of a puzzle snob, so when I see a puzzle I’ve had quality issues with before I tend to turn up my nose, but I also try to give every puzzle a chance. I’m not always successful, but I’m getting better at it.

It’s especially nice for me when I’m working on a puzzle that may be more difficult or time consuming to stop and work on a smaller or easier puzzle. I’m working on an extremely time consuming 1000 piece puzzle that I absolutely REFUSE to give up on – so it was very nice to spend the day over at mom’s where we were able to start and finish this puzzle in no time at all! This royal pup was too cute!

I love seeing all the different puzzles mom (black belt thrift shopper) finds at the thrift stores around here. They’re not all my cup of tea, but a lot of them I try anyway and find out that it was way more fun than I anticipated. 🙂

Halloween Town

On April 7, 2017May 18, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

My first puzzle from Vermont Christmas Company – thumbs up! I bought this for Christmas last year because I needed to buy enough puzzles to get free shipping on the Christmas present I bought for mom. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 😎

I like the quality of this company very much. The pieces are thick, and the cut is super interesting! I’m not sure you can call it a grid cut, but it isn’t completely random either. Whatever it’s called, I like it! The fit is quite nice and the pieces lie flat; the image quality is bright and colorful and I enjoyed the whole puzzle from start to finish. The coating on the pieces is somewhat shiny and can cause glare on the darker pieces when working under lights, but I don’t consider that too much of a problem at all.

I’m not sure why I decided that spring is the time to assemble this puzzle, but there ya go. I just follow my weird mind and do whatever puzzle I’m feeling at the moment. Halloween is my favorite holiday so this puzzle makes me happy no matter what time of year it is! It’s cute without being overly childish and all the spooky favorites are there – kids trick or treating, ghosts, pumpkins, spider and bats, etc. This was a great puzzle and I’m looking forward to working more!