Puzzleworld

On June 21, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

In the mood for a puzzle that’s a bit of a challenge? Puzzleworld! I thought this puzzle would be interesting and fun, and it was – but I had no idea how challenging it would be! All the puzzle shapes obscuring other puzzle shapes, wow. It was a challenge but I did it. 🙂

This image caught my eye while I was putting together an order and needed to be sure I was spending enough money to get free shipping. Heye quality is excellent and the image was so different and compelling that I added it to my shopping cart without much thought at all. Super entertaining purchase!

It took me 4 or 5 days to finish this one, a bit longer than normal for a 1000 piece puzzle, but not too much. The background of puzzle shapes makes for an interesting assembly and makes you pay attention. I enjoyed it very much and was proud of myself when I finished it! You can see especially in the top right corner the puzzle shapes in the background, it looks like a jumble of squiggly lines – it’ll definitely keep you on your toes.

Heye puzzles have great quality in my experience, although I think this particular puzzle may have been at the end of a run. The piece shapes are a bit more obvious than normal (although with this image that actually seems pretty cool) and several pieces were not cut all the way through. It didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the puzzle much, and I’ve had enough experience with this brand to know that it’s not the norm. They still have an excellent catalog, the pieces are sturdy with a nice variety of piece shapes, they fit together well and have beautiful image reproduction. It’s gonna take more than one slightly sub-par puzzle to make me change my mind about this brand – I’m a fan!

Love To Sew

On June 20, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Another missing piece puzzle, but it was still fun to do! I was hoping all the pieces would be in this one because mom likes and collects buttons. I was wanting to glue and frame this one for her, but I guess I’ll just have to wait till we find another one that’s worthy.

I was surprised at the pieces of this puzzle, my previous experiences with Andrews + Blaine puzzles was that all the pieces were ballerinas, which doesn’t always make for the most fun assembly. But the previous puzzles worked were 1000 pieces and this one was 550. There were a very nice variety of piece shapes in this 550 piece, and they were slightly oversized which made for a nice large finished puzzle. They fit together quite well and the piece shape isn’t overly obvious in the finished image. The image reproduction seemed a bit fuzzy on this one, not as crisp and clean as I’ve seen with other A + B puzzles. Perhaps it was in the photograph itself, but it did seem a bit blurred in places.

I did this one over several days as I was having a tough time with sitting and standing, and it took me much longer than a 550 piece would normally take – partly because it was a bit challenging and partly because I wasn’t able to work on it as much as I would have liked. Then my daughter came to visit one day near the end and finished it up while I was on a phone call. I turned around and it was done!

This was a fun assembly that was about moderate difficulty and it looks great finished except for that darned missing piece. I enjoy the Andrews + Blaine puzzles, but for me with this brand the image is everything – especially when there is a 1000 piece puzzle and all the pieces are the same shape. You’ve got to have an image that doesn’t have a lot of sameness, with plenty of color changes/shades and textures to help find pieces. 😉

Root Beer Break at the Butterfield’s

On June 19, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles1 Comment

This isn’t the typical Wysocki artwork in that there is only one building, but it’s still beautiful and has his wonderfully straight and symmetrical style in the beach house itself.

This was one of the few 300 piece Buffalo puzzles that I’ve assembled, and I love them. They fit together so nicely and the pieces are large enough for younger hands to work with or older eyes to see better. They are extremely sturdy as well, and there are a nice variety of piece shapes. They do not contain any zig zag pieces that a 1000 or 2000 piece Buffalo puzzle usually has, but still a good variety. Buffalo also includes a poster with all their puzzles which is nice, especially when working on the puzzle with more than one person so you don’t have to share the box for reference.

This puzzle was a lovely afternoon distraction for me when I was having a stressful day and needed a break from the world. I was able to sit for a bit and concentrate only on which piece went next. I wasn’t able to sit long enough to complete the entire puzzle at once, but it was completed in one day. 🙂

There are so many reasons that puzzling is an excellent activity – good for hand/eye coordination, memory, stress relief, spatial awareness, pattern recognition, fun, and too many more reasons to name. Buffalo has so many wonderful Wysocki images to choose from and many others as well, there’s something for everyone. The quality is excellent and the images are lovely – there’s no reason not to pick one up!

Final Assembly Day!

On June 18, 2017April 21, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, World's Largest Puzzle Progress23 Comments

The World’s Largest Jigsaw Puzzle is finally put together! It was amazing to see the entire puzzle assembled, all 10 sections completed and connected. WOW! You can know the measurements in your head, but then seeing it in person is another thing altogether. It’s a beautiful puzzle, and it fit together perfectly; it was stunning in it’s enormity – I can hardly believe I did all that!

This is myself, mom, and my 3 children. Not the best picture, but at least it gives you scale, that’s one enormous puzzle! When you look back at the pictures I took along the way, the every day updates, each section looks like your average size puzzle, nothing too extraordinary. This picture gives you a much better appreciation for just how large each section actually is!

TQON8736

So everyone there who was taking pictures was supposed to send them to me too, so I could pick the best ones for the blog. Of course no one has so far, so unfortunately the pictures I have aren’t the best ones from the day. The one above is a good one taken by a friend of my parents (although I’m unclear why my oldest son is crouched like a frog – he’s just got to be himself I guess!)

My husband arranged for a professional photographer to come and take pics of the puzzle, so I’m hoping when I get those they’ll be awesome pictures to share. 😎 We left the puzzle at the church Saturday night, and are going back to get more pictures today and to package it back up into it’s 10 sections. Hopefully in a day or so everyone will have forwarded me all the pictures and I can pick the best ones to show.

I was so nervous and anxious all morning! I can’t explain exactly why, but I was worried that a section would fall apart or something would go wrong. (I’m a worrier – an almost Olympic level, award winning worrier) But everything went smoothly thank goodness! It’s hard to believe that this puzzle took up 6 months of my life! 😮

I have to say I’m pretty darn proud of myself! This is quite the accomplishment, and not a lot of people can say they’ve actually assembled the world’s largest commercially available jigsaw puzzle! I can – I did it!!

Again, tons of thanks to my dad and husband for doing all the heavy lifting and carting things around for the big day. And to mom for helping me make cookies and refreshments for everyone who came out to see the puzzle; to my 3 wonderful kids for showing up for mom’s weird puzzle day and being good sports about it. Thanks also to everyone who showed up to share my accomplishment today, it meant so much to me!

I’m hoping to have more pictures of the completed puzzle in the next few days to share with everyone, but at the very least I wanted to get a few of them in today’s post – because I promised I would.

I’m wiped out! Exhaustion has set in, I overdid it getting all of this set up and accomplished and will definitely be paying for it for the next few days – but it was worth it! This is not something that happens every day, so I wanted to enjoy it, and I did. I completed the Guinness World Record Largest Jigsaw Puzzle! I’m proud of myself, grateful to all my family and friends for their help, support, and encouragement; and thankful that I have this blog where I can share my puzzles with you.

I may be posting lots more pictures of the puzzle in the next few days, bear with me. I’m a proud momma who wants to show off her adorable overly large baby to everyone! 😉

Snow White

On June 17, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

The colors on this puzzle are gorgeous! The image reproduction is crisp and clean and the colors are bright and beautiful. I saved this one for last because Snow White was the first section of Memorable Disney Moments that I did, so it seemed fitting for the last day of Disney week on the blog.

The pieces for the 300 piece puzzles in this box were actually bigger than the ones for the 150 piece puzzles. Odd, it’s usually the other way around, the more pieces the smaller they are. This puzzle measures approximately 11 x 16, still a bit small for a 300 piece puzzle but a good size.

The pieces fit together a little more snugly for this puzzle than the previous ones from this box, which was nice. It makes for a better tactile experience, at least I think so anyway. It didn’t take long to assemble either, and I was very impressed with the image reproduction, it was just beautiful! This was the best puzzle in the box, in my opinion, with the best quality of them all. It’s interesting that they were all from the same manufacturer but had such variation in quality, especially between the sizes.

Today is the day we complete the final assembly of the world’s largest puzzle! It’s going to be a long exhausting day for me, so I will post pictures and info about it tomorrow. Wish me luck – it’s so exciting! 😎