Shoes – Part 1

On June 4, 2020June 4, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Shoes 1.1 — Shoes – Lafayette Puzzle Factory (Cra-Z-Art) – 125/500 pieces

The small, shaped mini puzzles are so entertaining for me, and perfect to work on when I can’t sit at the puzzle table. I can either use my white board or assemble them in trays while I’m in bed. Fantastic when my P.A.D.S. is kicking in and I really need to puzzle!

This was one of my favorite sets of the mini puzzles, I love the wild and crazy shoes and the super high heels – as puzzles. If I tried to walk or even stand up in any of these shoes I would most definitely fall over, crash into things on my way down, break bones, and stain the floors with my blood.

My first thought when I was assembling these puzzles for the first time was that they would be amazing glued and hung in the room of a young girl – I know I would have loved to have them hanging on my walls when I was a teenager. 👠

Shoes 1.2

This one looks a little dangerous! If you accidentally bump the front of this shoe into someone or something there could be problems! Love the black stripes on this one.

Shoes 1.3

This one is my favorite out of this group of three. Seems a little wild and crazy for a little old lady who loves jigsaw puzzles doesn’t it? Well, I’m a child of the 80’s. As a teenager at the beginning of the 80’s, all around me were Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, doubled up polo shirts, scrunched up socks, giant earrings, bright crazy neon colors, and much much more. As a result, my brain tells me that neon pink and black is the perfect combination and I love these shoes. 💗🖤

Shoes 1.4

These are fun, and with all those colors they would go with many many outfits. I’m not loving the yellow heel, but every shoe can’t be for everyone. The zig zig pattern also reminds me of the 80’s, perhaps I’m just feeling nostalgic today for my youth.

Wouldn’t these shoes look great with some gold lamé hammer pants and a ripped, off-the-shoulder Flashdance sweatshirt? 🤩

Still Choosing…

On June 3, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling14 Comments

I finally assembled a small puzzle yesterday, it was 200 pieces. It’s finished, but I have yet to get the pictures put on my computer and write up the post; at least I got back to my puzzles though.

Haven’t chosen the next puzzle to assemble yet, but at least I made some progress.

Perhaps I need some inspiration. What are you all working on today?

Call of the Sea

On June 2, 2020June 2, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

This gorgeous image by Josephine Wall was thoroughly entertaining, more than a little bit of a challenge, and wonderful quality – in short – the perfect puzzle at the perfect time.

It’s been a while since I’ve assembled an Anatolian puzzle, and it was my first of their smaller piece counts. The pieces were lovely to hold, a good thickness and fit together beautifully. You can see from the picture above that the image reproduction is excellent; the colors were lovely, and even where the details in the artwork seem to blur into one another the actual image is crisp and clear.

I’ve done only a handful of images by Josephine Wall; I find the artwork to be dazzling, exquisite, pretty, pleasing to the eye and a host of other words that fail me at the moment. But for me, and only for me, they’re not always what I’m looking for in a puzzle image. It’s always so different for each and every puzzler, we all have something specific that we are or aren’t looking for.

I’ve learned that gorgeous pictures don’t always make for entertaining puzzles. I can love to look at something, appreciate it’s balance, color, motif, etc. – but know that if it were cut up into little pieces that it wouldn’t be fun for me to put back together. It’s something you get a feel for the more puzzles you assemble, and you find what images you most enjoy putting together.

After many, many, many puzzles I am still learning. Sometimes a puzzle that wouldn’t normally catch my eye makes for a fantastically entertaining assembly and I find myself surprised by it. Mom used to buy puzzles at the thrift store that I would never have gotten for myself; and I found myself shocked at how enjoyable they were. The opposite can also be true; I purchase an image that I’m in love with, only to find that the actual assembly was disappointing for me.

Josephine Wall creates stunningly beautiful works of art; but they’re not always the easiest to assemble as puzzles. Call of the Sea is gorgeous, and I consider myself lucky to have found it in a smaller piece count that brought down the level of difficulty. I didn’t want too much of a challenge with this one, so I went for the tiny piece count – I’m a chicken of the sea! 🤣

Quilts

On June 1, 2020June 1, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Quilt puzzles make me happy, and this image was different than the norm. A stack of folded quilts doesn’t sound like an interesting image, but put them in the right order and it’s a beautiful little piece of artwork.

Cobble Hill puzzles are very good quality, and although I enjoy all of the different sizes and piece counts, their puzzles with large pieces are highly entertaining for me. Thankfully they are not a company that has only one piece shape, and are one of the few companies that use a truly random cut that makes an otherwise simplistic image more engaging.

I loved this puzzle from the first piece to the last, and would definitely recommend it. 💜

Not Today…

On May 31, 2020May 31, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Miscellaneous2 Comments

Dog Tales 3 (2)

It feels completely trite and trivial to talk about what puzzle I’m working on in the midst of what is happening in my country. I know we all need a respite from the news, the increasingly only terrible news; it might be nice to just not think about it and talk only of puzzles, which is what normally happens here.

But not thinking about the bad things that happen and acting as if they aren’t happening is what has gotten us to where we are – which is a frightening, horrible place.