Month: July 2020

Selfies – Part 1

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles3 Comments
Selfies 1-1
Selfies by Howard Robinson- Cra-Z-Art – 125/500 pieces

Another fun and fantastic set of smaller shaped puzzles from Cra-Z-Art. If you hadn’t already figured it out I’ll say it plain as day – I love these puzzles! 💖

Cra-Z-Art, sometimes under the name of Lafayette Puzzle Factory, has many sets of these shaped puzzles, and I find them to be fun to assemble – and perfect for me when I am unable to sit at my puzzle table. I can take a group of pieces and assemble them on trays in bed. Perfect! Each smaller puzzle has a colored backing so that if you prefer you can separate them and assemble each puzzle one by one. Or, if you like, you can disregard the colored backing and assemble them as a regular 500 piece puzzle. Either way they’re extremely entertaining. I’ve assembled them both ways and found them to be engaging, beautiful, and lots of fun!

This set should be called “Underwater Selfies” if you ask me, but who am I to tell a puzzle company what to title their puzzles? According to the box, these are just Selfies. They are all the artwork of Howard Robinson, who is probably best known in the puzzle community for his animal selfies images. They’re all so well done, and adorable – very hard to resist in my opinion.

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Meet Bernard and Helen. They’ve been together for a while, and you can tell. Helen is the one on the left nearer the top, and Bernard is the grouchy looking one on the right, closer to the bottom. Bernard is the manager at a food mart selling algae, plankton, and small crustaceans; and Helen is a renowned artist. At the moment, Bernard is cranky because Helen spent the day watching her shows and celebrating the moments of her life with several cups of International Foods French Vanilla coffee. They’re having a tiff at the moment, we should politely back away and leave them be.

Selfies 1-3

I have no idea what species of fish this is, so his name comes from my impression of his countenance; to me there seems to be a youthful look about him. His name is Timmy. Timmy is still in school, but he’s planning on graduating next year if all goes well. He has a part time job after school delivering meals to local shut-ins and he also likes to help his mom making dinner every night. He plans on attending the Cordon Bluefin Culinary School after graduation and becoming a chef. Timmy has plans – big plans!

Selfies 1-4

This is Dakota, she’s the oldest of three girls. She’s a professional cheerleader for the local water polo team, and in her spare time she likes to watch makeup tutorials on YouTube and try out the lessons on her friends and younger sisters – Daniella and Dorinda. Her aim is to be a professional makeup artist (although between you and me, she unfortunately isn’t very good at it). Here’s hoping she finds a career path that’s a little better suited to her. Perhaps a trainer at the local pilates studio? Who knows!

These underwater selfies were lots of fun to put together, and I highly recommend giving any of these sets a try if you haven’t already. They’re good quality, with beautiful artwork, and most especially they’re enjoyable to assemble. 🐬

I Didn’t Plan Ahead

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling8 Comments

I may have ordered a few too many puzzles. Oops. I didn’t plan ahead and get a bunch of puzzles all ready to post like I should have. You have my solemn promise that I will get all these puzzles put away, and spend the rest of the time getting all these pictures of completed puzzles off of my phone and onto the computer where they belong.

So the next time I have a bunch of puzzles being delivered (and there will be a next time), you can be assured I will have the posts ready to go so you won’t have to wait an extra day to see what’s been completed here at the House of the Puzzle Addicted Old Lady. 👵💖🧩

**Tomorrow starts the first of four posts of the Animal Selfies, the small shaped puzzles from Cra-Z-Art. And yes, they will all have names and backstories. Ridiculous names and backstories.

😁

Do I Look Merry?

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles5 Comments
Do I Look Merry
Do I Look Merry? – Brother Sister – 100 pieces

Well? Does he? As the pet parent of a Boston Terrier I can tell you that this look says “Why are you doing this to me? Can we please get this stupid picture over with?” So the title I’ve given this silly, sweet puzzle has been shortened from what it is in my mind. When I look at it, what I hear in my head is “Do I Look Freakin’ Merry to You?”.

This is the second – and last – Christmas puzzle I assembled for Christmas in July. I normally try to do a few Christmas puzzles every July, but I just wasn’t feeling it this year. But the fact that this adorable image is a Boston Terrier and that it was only 100 pieces made the decision pretty easy. This is my kind of Christmas image!

Brother Sister Design Studio is a brand/trademark of Hobby Lobby. As I don’t shop there for personal reasons, this is the first puzzle from this brand that I’ve assembled. For a store brand it was better quality that I thought it would be – I would characterize the quality as good.  Although as I’ve only assembled this one puzzle I cannot make a final determination on the brand’s overall quality.

I enjoyed the assembly very much, mostly because of the adorable image; and I was surprised by the detail you could make out in the reflection from the dog’s eye…

Do I Look Merry 1

You can see the room where the picture was taken in this reflection! It jumped out at me while I was assembling the eyes, so I had to take a closeup to show you. The image reproduction was the best part of the quality in my opinion, although the finish was quite shiny and made assembling the darker parts a little more difficult under the artificial lighting at my puzzle table.

So, as this pup would probably say, “Happy freakin’ Christmas in July.” 🎅

Goodies!

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments
Goodies
A new box of goodies!

There’s nothing like the thrill of finding a newly delivered box of goodies on the front porch! (Or wherever you receive your packages) Apparently this fantastic box of small piece count puzzles was delivered yesterday – but it was after we were all in for the night, so no one found it until this morning. I woke up to a fantastic sight – a box of puzzles sitting on the couch!

Either my oldest son or my husband found it when they were leaving for work at the butt-crack of dawn, and left it for me to find when I woke up today – it’s almost better than that first cup of coffee in the morning! ☕

I say almost because even though I was so excited to see it, I didn’t open it until I’d had my first cup of coffee. I need that first cup to recall my brain from it’s nighttime wanderings back to where it belongs. It would have been impossible to fully appreciate all the fun packed inside without my brain, so I had to wait.

My fantastic friend and fellow puzzle junkie Penny sent me a box of small piece count puzzles, and I think I’ll be starting today with the adorable puppy puzzle on top – how cute are those little guys? So freakin’ cute! The box is mostly kids puzzles that are 100 pieces or less, and two 300 piece adult puzzles; and I am looking forward to every single one of them.

You can’t see it, but I’m happy dancing in my chair right now. 💃💃💃

Childhood Favorites

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles13 Comments
Childhood Favorites
Childhood Favorites – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

Brace yourselves everyone, you’re in for a shock – I LOVED THIS PUZZLE! I know, it’s unbelievable, isn’t it? Who’d have thought that this collage (my favorite type of image) of book covers (I love books and reading) in puzzle form (my absolute favorite hobby) would be such great fun? I know, it bowled me over too! 😉

I was quite a prolific reader as a kid, in addition to being quite a tomboy. Playing outside and getting dirty was so much fun for me, and I was always climbing the big tree in the backyard with a book in my pocket. I’d get to the good branch and sit there, out of sight of my sisters and my mom, and spend as much time as I could reading. I love to re-read books too, and I couldn’t tell you how many times I’d re-read my favorites books – sometimes as soon as I finished a great book I’d flip right back to the beginning and start over again!

So put my love of books together with my love of puzzles, and add that it’s a collage – that’s puzzle bliss for me!

The fit of this Re-marks puzzle was a bit loose, and the piece shapes are quite prominent. The loose fit can be a bit of a pain to work with, but it wasn’t so loose as to be much of a problem. Otherwise the puzzle was good quality; the offset grid cut made for a more interesting assembly and the chipboard is a good thickness. Overall, other than the fit, the puzzle quality was very good.

Childhood Favorites 1

Charlotte’s Web was one of my favorite books as a child, not only because of the story, but also because I loved the illustrations. They were done by the same man who did the illustrations of the Little House series of books. Speaking of Little House on the Prairie, why aren’t any of those books shown here? I ADORED them as a child, and still do – I just re-read them all a couple of months ago!

Childhood Favorites 2

Most girls in the US have a memory of this book. I know I sure do. Ain’t it great being a lady and dealing with menstruation?

Childhood Favorites 3

My sister told me about this book when I was younger, and it sticks with me to this day. What a fabulous story, told by a talented author! Just looking at this book cover makes me want to get myself a copy of this book and re-read it; it’s been a few decades since I last read this one.

I wonder to myself sometimes if you guys get tired of me doing so many collages, I’m not ashamed to tell you that I worry about stupid stuff like that. I’m an accomplished worrier. I try to keep telling myself to just post the puzzles I do and not fret about doing puzzles to make others happy or to give them more variety – but I’m not always successful in convincing myself.

Happy puzzling everyone! I hope you’re still finding and assembling some fantastic puzzles!