Author: Stacey at myjigsawjournal

Road Trip

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments
Road Trip
Road Trip – Re-marks – 500 pieces

This one was waaay too much fun! You all know how much I enjoy a collage, so it won’t be a surprise to anyone that I had the best time with this one. Love, love, loved it❣

Re-marks isn’t a premium brand in my mind, but I’m not a complete puzzle snob and do not ever hesitate to buy one of their puzzles. They have such a great variety of collages in their catalog that I just can’t help myself. It’s a sickness. One I don’t apologize for. Ever.

The pieces are a good thickness, they fit together well, there’s a really nice variety of pieces and a random cut that makes the assembly interesting. Normally the image reproduction is very good, but I’ve had the odd problem – it doesn’t stop me from continuing to buy their puzzles though. There is not ONE puzzle company, premium or not, that I haven’t had at least one problem with. Manufacturing is never perfect and I don’t expect perfection from anyone.

Road Trip 1

Who remembers when the Disneyland sign used to look like this? I do. I’m old. Any of my fellow oldsters remember The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights? The whole family sat down to watch tv together; no cussing, no sex scenes, no nip slips or wardrobe malfunctions, no kids staring at their phones (which would have been REALLY weird, our phones only made phone calls and almost all phones were connected to the wall), just good family entertainment. Do I sound like an old person? I feel like one.

Road Trip 2

I just love this one, I have no idea which state this represents but I just love the look of it. Cowgirl power!

I’m still feeling like death on toast, but thankfully I have a couple weeks worth of puzzles in the queue to keep on posting till I make it back FULLY to the puzzle table. I hope you all are staying safe and healthy, and having a great time with your puzzles. 💗🧩

Call of the Sea In Progress

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling14 Comments
Call of the Sea IP
Call of the Sea by Josephine Wall – Anatolian – 260 pieces

I have been having some real difficultly with my meds lately, and until 11 o’clock last night hadn’t touched a new puzzle since I finished Quilts last week. It only came off the board yesterday, it had been sitting there all weekend. If you knew me you’d know that’s weird; I finish a puzzle, take my pictures, make sure they’re good, and immediately disassemble the puzzle and decide on a new one.

But thankfully I finally got myself out of bed last night when hubby was blissfully snoring and sleep eluded me. I was just going to sit in the living room and watch tv, but ended up being drawn to my puzzle board.

I chose a puzzle with fewer pieces than normal, this beautiful Josephine Wall image is only 260 pieces. It’s the best of both worlds for me; it’s a smaller piece count so that even if I have to spend much less time in my puzzle chair I can still make good progress, and it’s a Jo Wall, so it isn’t so easy as to be boring – my mind will still be active and engaged.

Working on anything fun today? I’d love to hear about it!

The Valuation Day (What If? #14)

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments
The Valuation Day
The Valuation Day by Geoff Tristam – Ravensburger (What If? Puzzles) – 1000 pieces

Such a fun puzzle! As per my usual rules I do not show the picture of the entire finished puzzle, to do so would be a spoiler and I’m not about spoiling anything. When I started my first What If? puzzle, I searched for a picture of the box to put on my “What’s on my board” section of the homepage and of course the first image that popped up was of the finished puzzle – what a disappointment for me! I couldn’t un-see it, I knew what happened in the image and I was upset. I will never do that to my readers, so all you get to see is the character shown on the box, heavily cropped.

You have to use more brain cells than normal because you don’t have the finished picture; but luckily with this series there are plenty of hints on the box image. You can see what everyone is wearing, what the background looks like, and you know what the premise is. This puzzle in particular was a little easier because you can tell as soon as you start turning over pieces and sorting what is going to happen. I can’t tell you what, but the “problem” is evident all over the pieces.

According to what we’re told, “The picture on the box shows the crowd’s excitement and anticipation….the puzzle inside this box depicts the shattering outcome! Doris Bootsayle loves rooting around jumble sales, charity shops and the like. She cannot wait to get TV auction expert Tom Wannapott to value her latest find. Will Tom make her dreams come true, or is there a sting in this tantalizing tale?”

So what happens? Of course I can’t tell you! That would ruin the fun out of figuring it out yourself. I love these puzzles where you don’t have an image and you have to figure out where everyone ends up and what happened. The artwork is fantastic, the puzzle quality is excellent, and the fun is built right in.

I’ve never shown this before, but one of the fun things about these puzzles is that they’re all drawn by the same artist, Geoff Tristam (one of my favorites 💖), and he does something fun on the back of the box. There’s a picture of him next to his bio, and in every picture he’s dressed up in the theme of the image. In this puzzle, which is a tv show much like Antiques Road Show, he’s dressed up as the expert…

Geoff Tristam
The Expert

I’ll try to remember to show his picture on the box with the remaining What If? puzzles I have left to do. They make me smile, and a smile can be such a help when you’re having a bad day, or just help to brighten a good day even more.

Have you done a Ravensburger What If? Puzzle? If not, I highly recommend giving one a try. I love them! 💟

Balconies in Bloom

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles10 Comments
Balconies
Balconies in Bloom by Iralu – Cardinal – 300 pieces

I’ve had this set of 12 puzzles in a multipack since way before the world stopped rotating, and I sometimes forget that it’s sitting under the puzzle table. I’m glad I decided to find myself a 300 piece puzzle to assemble, because this one was really fun to do.

I put the box away and assembled it without help from the image, and had a fantastic time. It makes me want to put together the rest of the puzzles in this multipack because I just love the artwork! There are still four 500 piece puzzles, two 150 pieces, and one more 300 piece. They aren’t the best quality, but I knew that before I purchased them; it was all about these images by Iralu. You don’t see artwork like this on puzzles usually, and I absolutely adore it. 😍

I decided to show each of the balconies separately, they’re all pretty cool looking…

Balconies 1

Each one is very detailed and deserving of it’s own picture. There is coffee, wine, and/or cigarettes on every table.

Balconies 2

Everyone smokes in this tableau. Perhaps these are French balconies?

Balconies 3

This is my favorite of the four. You know me, I love the colors – especially the purple chairs! And I’m great with coffee at all hours of the day, keep it coming! ☕

Balconies 4

Wine AND coffee. Hmmm. Not a good combo for me. I’d much rather put some whiskey in my coffee – I am partly Irish after all. I’m not allowed to drink with all the pain meds I’m on, but an Irish coffee sounds really good right about now. 😎

Happy Mother’s Day Giveaway Winner

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling13 Comments

I want to wish all my readers a very Happy Mother’s Day. If you’re a mom, thank you for all the brave, loving, tedious, difficult, and wonderful things you do – it is always appreciated even if it isn’t always spoken aloud. If you’re not a mom, Happy Mother’s Day anyway!

The random number generator has spoken, and the winner of this beautiful shaped wooden puzzle is……..

Entry #4 – Kristen Rank

Congratulations Kristen! I will be sending you an email, and hopefully I’ll be able to get this gorgeous puzzle out to you very soon. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Thank you to everyone who entered this giveaway, and for all the wonderful comments about your moms – I loved hearing about them. Thanks also to all my readers, and for everyone who stops by My Jigsaw Journal, you are all welcome and appreciated. 💖

Happy Mother’s Day mom, I miss you more than I can say, and I will always love you to puzzle pieces.

💗🧩💗