Jazz Dance

On May 26, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

There’s something about the look of magazine cover puzzles that I absolutely love. The vintage covers are interesting and beautiful and make for a nice change from landscapes and other “usual” puzzle images.

This is my first NY Puzzle Company puzzle, and I enjoyed it very much. There was a large amount of puzzle dust, but otherwise I found the quality to be quite good. The random cut made it challenging and fun, the pieces were thick and fit together well, and the matte finish helped make sure that the darker areas weren’t too difficult to assemble under lights.

The Vogue covers by William Bolin are striking and beautiful, and any of them would make some challenging and wonderful puzzles. Here are a few of my favorite Vogue covers of his from the 1920’s and 1930’s – they’re stunning!

william-bolin-vogue-cover-october-1926_u-l-peql4i0

vogue-magazine-cover-featuring-a-woman-wearing-william-bolin

2-a-vintage-vogue-magazine-cover-of-a-woman-william-bolin

I had a great time with this assembly; the blocks of color, musical score, and darker areas made for a great balance of ease and challenge. The cut was much more random than some brands, and made for some excellent gray cell exercise. Many times you think you’re looking for a certain shape, and it turns out that you’re actually looking for 2 smaller pieces that are not shaped how you thought at all. It keeps you on your toes!

I’m looking forward to working more puzzles from this brand, this one was good quality – and a good time. What else could I ask for?

Meadow Cottage

On May 25, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Wentworth puzzles make me very happy; and since I bought wooden puzzles for both my mother and my daughter (and myself) this year for Mother’s Day I’ve been working with them quite a bit lately.

These micro puzzles are not as easy as they look, and are perfect for when you don’t have a lot of time or space but still want to get your puzzle on. They’re great for me when I’m feeling terrible and spending most of my time in bed; I can lay out and assemble the entire puzzle on a cookie sheet.

I love the artwork of Dominic Davison, his landscapes and cottages are absolutely gorgeous. Because he uses a mouse instead of a paintbrush to create his digital works of art I find them much easier to assemble than puzzles that use images of traditional paintings. His use of color and light in the composition makes for great puzzles that are appealing, charming, and fun to put together.

I’ve still got 16 of these micro puzzles left to assemble (and 3 that are done and waiting to be posted); I’m looking forward to each and every one of them. Even if the image or the cut is difficult I know that I’ll be able to get it done – they’re only about 40 pieces. Even I can do that!

Sunset Over a Busy Day

On May 24, 2018May 24, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

This puzzle was a pleasure to assemble, the gorgeous colors and exceptional fit made for a great time. Doesn’t this look like a great spot for a getaway?

The picture above doesn’t do this puzzle justice, the image is absolutely beautiful and the colors are stunning. I would have liked to have the artist’s name somewhere on the box; I searched every inch of it and nowhere is credit given to the artist. If I were an artist that licensed my work to be made into a puzzle I would definitely want credit for it! Thank goodness for the internet, with the name of the painting it was easy to find the name of the artist and I can at least give him credit here.

Most of the Milton Bradley puzzles I’ve assembled so far have been very good quality. Their pieces are a good thickness, they have a very good variety of piece shapes and the fit is excellent. The image reproduction is excellent as well and in general I’ve been thoroughly impressed with their puzzles.

I’m not always in the right frame of mind for an image like this one, but Sunset Over a Busy Day was just what I needed. The sky was easy to start with, and the dock and cabin offered enough of a challenge to keep it from being too easy. I find that my moods directly affect the type of puzzles I choose to assemble. I haven’t completely figured it out yet, which moods prefer which puzzles – all I know is some days I won’t even consider a certain puzzle and a few days later that same puzzle is exactly what I’m looking for.

Perhaps that means that it’s pretty important for me to have a very good variety of puzzles to choose from. So mom keep up that thrift store shopping, my ever-changing moods require a wide variety of interesting puzzles to choose from. ☺

Norman Rockwell Update

On May 23, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Yesterday’s post got so many comments about this puzzle in particular that I thought I would update it this morning – I made some excellent headway on it. 😎

This is hands down the absolute worst quality puzzle that I’ve ever worked on, but I am stubbornly determined to assemble the image itself at the very least. I will most likely not finish the top and bottom edges or fill in the blue, it will be too frustrating. Hubby wants to work on those, so I will absolutely leave that to him – he’s just as stubborn as I am. If the top and bottom sections don’t get done though, I don’t really care.

The only full image of the puzzle on the box is about 1 x 1.5 inches – way too small to give any assistance. Whoever designed this box obviously doesn’t assemble jigsaw puzzles, how in the world is such a tiny image supposed to help you? I had my laptop sitting next to the board yesterday and brought up the image on the screen – that was a huge help!

I’ll try and do a little more work on it today, but it’s obviously going to take several more days to put the whole thing together. Whenever it gets done is fine with me – I’m in no hurry at all.

Puzzles in Progress

On May 22, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling17 Comments

First Trip to the Beauty Shop by Norman Rockwell

I’ve got two puzzles in progress at the moment, I can’t seem to get my brain to settle on just one. This first one mom found unopened at the thrift store for 39 cents. The box is extremely small for a 500 piece puzzle which means the pieces are quite small as well. Once we opened the box, we saw that the quality was less than optimal – very thin pieces with an unbelievably loose fit. Ugh. I started assembling it at least 2 times before and put it away because I wasn’t in the right mood to deal with the poor quality.

I’m not sure why I’m in the mood for it now, but at the moment I really want to see this puzzle assembled; partly because nowhere on the box is a picture of the entire puzzle image – frustrating! And if I’ve got 2 puzzles going I can take a break from the horrible quality of this one and work on one that isn’t as annoying

The image on this puzzle is much brighter and easier to work with, and even though it’s a Ceaco puzzle the quality is many times better than the Norman Rockwell puzzle (which is made by Kappa Books Publisher). The fit is much nicer and the pieces aren’t nearly as thin.

So I’ve got 2 puzzles going, but for some reason neither of them is my newest wooden puzzle that was my anniversary present. I’m not sure when my weird old lady brain will be in the right mood for that one. I think it’s partly because I’m missing working on puzzles with mom; I haven’t been able to have any puzzle/visit days with her for the last 3 weeks. Every puzzle is much more fun when mom and I work together, and a new wooden puzzle is something we both love to assemble.

We won’t be able to have our visit day this week either, so perhaps I’m just too bummed about that to start on the new Liberty puzzle. We’ll have to wait and see I suppose.