They’ve Arrived!

On February 29, 2020February 28, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

New Puzzles

The new puzzles are here! The new puzzles are here! Happy dance! 💃💃💃

I’d seen the Colorful Bottles around online and I thought it looked like an entertaining puzzle, when my PADS flared up last weekend and the opportunity presented itself – what else could I do? It’s an Aimee Stewart, I can’t possibly be held responsible for my lack of restraint. Of course once that puzzle was in my cart I couldn’t just buy one puzzle, I had to buy enough puzzles for free shipping – I mean, you wouldn’t want me to lose money would you? 😇

Next of course was the Common Quilt Blocks, it’s so beautiful and full of color and interesting fabrics. Gorgeous! It’s the one currently on my board and I’m having a fantastic time so far.

New Puzzles 1

Aimee Stewart’s gorgeous Banana Split puzzle was the next one I picked out, who could resist all of those beautiful colors? As with all of her puzzles I’ll try to hold off a little bit to make sure there’s always a fun, colorful puzzle with her artwork around when I need a bit of uplifting. I don’t think I’ll be able to wait too long though, it looks so fun!

As for the cereal boxes, my inner child is responsible for this one. With six 100 piece puzzles around I’ll have something fun as a palate cleanser between larger puzzles. (Plus, look how cute they are!)

Classic Games is full of very old mostly board and card games; I’ve never seen or heard of almost all of them, but it looks like a great time in a box. Anyone old enough to remember the old tv show McHale’s Navy from the early 60’s? It was over before I was even born, but apparently there’s a board game; most of the other games shown are just as old or even older! This puzzle was the last to go in my cart because I wanted a smaller piece count to round out this purchase. It jumped right into my cart before I knew what was happening. 😮

Movie Lovers

On February 28, 2020February 27, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles12 Comments

This was a great puzzle that went together extremely quickly; I love old posters of pretty much anything – advertisements, artwork, travel, movies, etc. It seems as though they put much more thought and effort into them back in the day as compared to now. (Or it could just be my age showing, “Back in my day……” 👵)

There were lots of titles and other words to put together, which I adore. But with an image like this I don’t start with all the words, I separate them by entire sections. If I pulled out all the pieces with words on them it would be 90% of the entire puzzle!

I’ve only seen 9 of the 32 movies shown here, I guess that means I’m not much of a cinephile. Oh well. I know it’s hard to read some of the titles because the piece shape is very obvious but of the ones you can read, how many of these movies have you seen?

Movie Lovers 1

You can’t really tell until you see them close up how good the image reproduction is – if your eyes were good enough you could read every word!

Movie Lovers 3

You can see from this picture that the fit wasn’t great; the pieces didn’t fit properly unless you really smushed them into place. I glued this puzzle for my son to hang in his room, and it looks a little better now that it’s been filled in a bit and the pieces are secured into place.

Movie Lovers 2

I’ve never even heard of this film before, but after doing a little research I find that it’s a comedy that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. So it’s no surprise that I haven’t seen it; I don’t speak French – and it was released 10 years before I was born! 🙂

Interestingly, I found this 500 piece Re-marks puzzle had poorer quality than the last few 1000 piece puzzles I’ve assembled by the same brand. It could be that I got a puzzle from the end of the run when the die was a bit duller, but usually with a smaller piece count the quality is better. I haven’t done enough 500 piece puzzles from Re-marks to be able to say for certain, but as of now my experience has been that their larger puzzles have better quality.

As per usual, I loved this collage – it was an extremely entertaining and interesting puzzle!

The Fire Station

On February 27, 2020February 27, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

It’s been years since I’ve assembled a puzzle with an image by Jan van Haasteren, and I remember why – I don’t really like such crowded, busy images. But this one being a gift, and only 550 pieces made it a little easier for me to handle. Still, it was no walk in the park!

Fire Station 1

There are several things that you’re supposed to be able to find in every JVH image, but I confess that I was only able to find the shark fin and the hands. Even though I scoured the image from top to bottom and side to side I wasn’t able to find the self-portrait of the artist, or Sinterklaas (Santa) – they were nowhere to be found! Ah well, it does make you pay attention to the artwork and gives you an appreciation for the hours and hours of work that must have gone into it. They’re unbelievably detailed!

Fire Station 2

My youngest son came in the room as I was finishing the puzzle, and pointed to this section, he said “I don’t think you could do that in real life, you would hurt your back!” I completely agree. It’s one of those things that when you’re younger looks like it would be fun, but now, at my age, it looks like it would be terrifying!

Fire Station 3

These two men in the firetruck have the right idea if you ask me, there’s no way I’d want to be a firefighter! They’re fantastic, brave people and I have all the respect in the world for them, it just isn’t a job that I could do. I can’t image the heat they have to deal with in fighting fires, it would be way too intense for me! I’d be happy to be able to drive them around though, as long as I could stay in the truck once we got there. 😉

This was a fun assembly, and I was pretty proud to get it finished – it was quite difficult!

Vintage Tin Toys In Progress

On February 26, 2020February 26, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Vintage Tin Toys IP — Vintage Tin Toys by Lewis T. Johnson – Milton Bradley – 1000 pieces

I didn’t actually start assembling this puzzle until yesterday, it was been sitting on my board waiting to be sorted for more than a day. Finally got my lazy butt in gear and started working on it!

It’s much more difficult than I thought it would be, but I find that I’m not at all frustrated with it. Finding the right shape or the right color is still relaxing and peaceful, even if the rate of assembly is a little slower than normal. My daughter chose an awesome puzzle for me, she’s the sweetest❣

My one frustration with this puzzle is that the image on the front of the box is, of course, covered in one area by a banner with information that could have been put elsewhere. There is an image of the artwork on the back of the box with no obstructions, but it’s smaller than the image on the front! So annoying! Seriously, do they think that’s something we puzzlers are looking for?

My eyesight is declining as I get older, and a smaller image isn’t what I’m looking for. If you can’t give me an unobstructed view of the artwork on the front of the box, give me a poster to work from. I realize that it may cost you a few more cents in production, but trust me, you’ll make the consumers very happy and more inclined to purchase your product. Duh! Is this really something you need to be told?!

Sorry for the rant guys, guess I just needed to get that off my chest.

Happy puzzling today! 😎🧩

Proud Lion

On February 25, 2020February 25, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

This puzzle is gorgeous! I’ve been impressed by the quality of these Milton Bradley puzzles, they’re very nice to work with and I love the unique images they have. I always like to have two or three (or more) smaller piece count puzzles around, sometimes it’s just nice to put together a smaller puzzle.

I started by separating the pieces into two halves, the painted side and the funky side; and I also pulled out the middle pieces – they’re easy to spot and a good place to start.

Proud Lion 1

The edges and middle done – I was even able to pick out the pieces that surround the center. (Sorry about that dark spot in the lower right corner, I spilled a drop of puzzle glue on the fabric that covers my board. I usually try to move the puzzles away from it while I’m photographing them, but it slipped my mind with this puzzle. 😉

Proud Lion 2

I started with the more difficult side, and even though I had to use my tired old lady brain cells a little more than usual I enjoyed putting it together. The second side went together more quickly, but still required a bit of brain power. Not all 300 piece puzzles are easy, they can be just as challenging as larger piece counts; I find them completely entertaining and a nice break in between assembling bigger puzzles.

I truly enjoyed the artwork and would love to find more puzzles by this artist – this image was absolutely a joy to put together and makes for a beautiful puzzle. 🦁