Month: January 2022

The Seven Chakras – Eagle Update #2

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles3 Comments

Well, I received my re-worked eagle chakra puzzle, and have finally succeeded in assembling the multipiece whimsy that represents the eagle itself – triumph!

I couldn’t be happier with the customer service I received from Liberty Puzzles, and am grateful for both their assistance with this problem and their fantastic puzzles. Once my request alerted them to my dilemma with the eagle chakra, they wasted no time in communicating with me and resolving the issue. If you ask me, they get an A+ for excellent customer service.

So, here’s the picture that tens of readers have been waiting for – all of the whimsies from the eagle puzzle – including the multipiece representation of an eagle……

See that eagle above our woman in the lotus position? That’s the little bugger that caused me so much grief; I had all the proper pieces pulled, I just couldn’t get them to fit together properly. But a little tweak from the puzzle designer to correct a slight miscalculation and voilà! Success!

This puzzle set was so fun and interesting to assemble, and I’ve also received a hint about how they all connect together (which was what I suspected you could do when it was put together the first time). So I will definitely be working with these beautiful puzzles again, especially so that I can try to connect them all together in the proper order.

And when I do, I will take a picture of the seven of them attached together as one – to show you these amazing puzzles again, and how much intricate design goes into one of their creations.

I’m still astonished by this set of stunning wooden puzzles and how much thought went into their composition and construction. Absolutely sensational!

Clever Women are Dangerous Too

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Clever Women are Dangerous Too by Joe de Mers – Clementoni – 500 pieces

I know it’s only January, but this is the winner for best puzzle title so far this year – love the title and the puzzle. What a fun assembly, and even with all that black it isn’t as difficult as you might think.

The fit was loose, but otherwise it’s a great quality puzzle. I don’t get to do many Clementoni puzzles, I find that the 500 piece puzzles are just about right for this brand; other than the slightly loose fit the quality was excellent. 💗

I have an in process picture because I texted it to a friend while I was working on it; I don’t usually take them. I absolutely adored this image, it’s quite different than the usual subject matter – and it’s pretty darn cool too. 😎

Fantastically great puzzle!

National Puzzle Day 2022!

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Happy National Puzzle Day my friends and fellow P.A.D.S. sufferers! Today is the day to enjoy whatever kind of puzzle that makes you happy; crosswords, sudoku, word searches, jigsaw puzzles, etc. Of course you know which is my favorite – my beloved jigsaw puzzles. 💜

National Puzzle day is also the day I talk about those I love who made me the Puzzle Goddess that I am today. I’ve talked about Mom and Grama in past years, and this year I’m going to tell you about some others who have been there for me – especially during the dark time in the past year and a half that I left my puzzles for a while.

My daughter doesn’t do many puzzles, but she is always on the lookout for ones I’d like and loves to surprise me with a great puzzle for no reason other than she loves me. She listens to me talk about them even though she isn’t nearly as interested in them as I am, and reads my blog every day. If there’s a fun puzzle on the board when she comes to visit she’ll sit down and work on it with me for a little while – it makes me happier than I can express, though I wish she had more time for visits and puzzling. She’s been a wonderful friend to me since we both lost my mom, and we’ve both leaned on each other whenever we need to. I love her to puzzle pieces and I’m so proud to be her mom! 💗

My friend and fellow puzzle blogger Penny is another who has helped me tremendously, especially when I wasn’t blogging or even touching puzzles. She was always nudging me back towards my puzzles and the blog, even when I wanted nothing to do with them at all; she knew exactly how much to push and when to back off. If it weren’t for her I’m not sure if I would have come back to the blog and my jigsaw puzzles when I did (or perhaps at all). She’s been a true, dear friend to me even though we’ve never met in person, and she is the one to thank for helping me come back to the hobby I love so much – even though “thank you” doesn’t quite cover it. She’s a fellow P.A.D.S. sufferer, a member of the puzzle posse, and a true blue friend. 💙

So whether you have a posse of your own, or prefer to puzzle by yourself I hope you spend at least a little time today with whatever type of puzzle makes you happy. I think I’ll work on a jigsaw puzzle for at least a little while today, as I’m reflecting on those who have loved and supported me and helped me become the proud puzzle geek I am today.

Love, hugs, and peaceful puzzling my friends!

Classic Movies

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles14 Comments

Classic Movies – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

My oldest son and I put this one together in about two and a half hours, and we had a great time with it! I love a collage puzzle, and he LOVES old movies – the perfect combination.

This was the only puzzle I received this year for Christmas; he bought it for me but it’s being glued for him to put up on the wall in his room. He’s good about getting puzzles for me that he’d like to keep – but he also wants to assemble them with me – that’s the real gift. 💝

The fit on this Re-marks puzzle was extremely loose, it made it a bit difficult at times. I’m not thrilled with the recent update they’ve done with their chipboard; it’s very slick feeling on the back and if I’m not careful it slides right off the board when I’m trying to get pictures. Frustrating!

Dracula is my son’s favorite movie out of the 39 in this image, and mine is Rear Window. To be honest there are only eight movies that I’ve seen – what an uncultured swine I am! My son has seen fifteen of them, almost twice as many as I have. But to be fair he’s been a movie buff since he was very young – and he loves the classics; the movies he hasn’t seen he still has a wealth of facts stored in his brain about each one. He can tell you so much information about movies it would make your head spin!

Anatomy of a Murder (middle image) is a movie that makes me think of mom; I remember her telling me how scandalous it was when it came out. It’s a courtroom drama dealing with a rape and there were words used that had previously never been spoken in American films such as “contraceptive”, “climax”, and “spermatogenesis”. And apparently the talk of a woman’s underwear being torn off was quite racy in 1959. Oh my. If only those pearl clutchers could see the movies we have today. Yikes. Double yikes!

I loved puzzling with someone side by side again, that hasn’t happened much since mom died – I miss it. And I’m thankful my baby boy decided to come out of his room for a couple of hours and spend some time with his old mom. It made my day. 💖

Playful Parrots

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

Playful Parrots – Unidragon – 291 pieces

This was quite a fun puzzle to put together; challenging enough to keep me engaged, with beautiful colors – I wish the quality and attention to detail were better.

Unidragon is a newer puzzle company, their pieces are about the thickness of a Wentworth puzzle, but the wood used doesn’t feel as dense (if that makes sense). It’s a very good fit for a wooden puzzle, the piece shapes aren’t overly obvious in the finished image – no huge gaps. The piece shapes are interesting and not the usual cardboard puzzle shapes, which makes for a more entertaining assembly.

There were a good amount of whimsies for a 300 piece puzzle. Lots of interesting birds, fruits, and flora and fauna. The dragon at the top curled around the puzzle piece is the Unidragon logo.

My fellow puzzle blogger Nicola sent this to me in a puzzle swap, and in her post about this puzzle she wasn’t sure of one of the shapes (the one just below the butterfly and above the parrot with the crest feathers standing up) – it’s a dragon fruit. I had to look it up to be sure, but I’m confident that’s what it is. If I didn’t watch The Great British Bake Off I wouldn’t have known what it was either, I’ve never cooked with it – and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it in a store!

The design of the pieces makes it so that you don’t have to put the birds in the order that is shown on the box, the ends of the branch for each one is shaped the same so that they can be moved around in any order you like. Very cool!

This puzzle also came with eight extra pieces so that if you wanted to, you could put each parrot on it’s own perch. Four for each side – all exactly the same. The problem with the extra ends…..the image on the pieces that allows you to put each bird on it’s own branch weren’t quite aligned properly with the image on the puzzle itself – you can clearly see that they don’t match up.

These pictures show the two problems I had with this puzzle. Left shows that images don’t align and chipping off of the image. Right is more image chipping.

This puzzle was sent to me by a friend, and it had only been assembled once before me. Wooden puzzles are more expensive because they are sturdier – you are supposed to be able to assemble them more than once – over and over, in fact. If after one assembly this is what happens then I’m not that impressed with the quality.

The first wooden puzzle I ever bought myself has probably been assembled and disassembled six or seven times so far – not one piece has any part of the image coming off. Are my standards are too high? I don’t really think so. If I’m going to spend a larger part of my puzzle budget on a wooden puzzle, I expect that I will be able to put it together several times and that it will hold up well.

If it doesn’t, it isn’t worth it.

Many, many thanks to Nicola for throwing this in with our swap. I thoroughly enjoyed assembling this – problems and all. 🧡