Go with the Flow

On April 28, 2020April 28, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Cue the fireworks, there was finally a puzzle in this series with all of it’s pieces. Congratulations Ceaco, it seems you finally did your job. Correctly. For once. Well done.

This one was much harder than I anticipated, and it seemed more difficult than the previous two puzzles from this series – but that is only perception and not something easy to quantify. It has been more than four months since I completed the second puzzle in the series, so it seems quite a challenge to remember all the way back to the beginning of January. And remembering the first puzzle that I put together in August of last year seems almost impossible! It’s harder for me anyway, I’m old and on lots of pain meds, my memory ain’t what it used to be.

Even though it was difficult I didn’t mind at all, it kept me completely focused on the puzzle and not on everything else going on in the world and in my house. That’s one of the reasons working on jigsaw puzzles is such a popular form of entertainment – even more especially right now – it’s almost a form of meditation. Your brain is only concerned about what shape, color, or pattern is next and there’s no room to think about your worries or stresses; it’s only the puzzle and what piece fits in next.

Blissful meditation.

Banana Split In Progress

On April 27, 2020April 27, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Banana Split IP — Banana Split by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

Unfortunately yesterday didn’t see much puzzling, but I’m hopeful that today will be better. With an Aimee Stewart image on my board, all I really want to do is get back there and start placing pieces. 😍

It just reminds me how much I enjoy working a puzzle with her artwork; the colors are beautiful, they’re fun to put together, not so easy as to make it boring, and it’s lovely to watch the image come together. I’d tell you more about it, but my fingers are itching to be placing pieces rather than typing!

Are you working on something fun this week?

Lucky Charms

On April 26, 2020April 26, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

So now we’ve come to the end of the set of cereal mini puzzles, and the last of them is my favorite of the six cereals – Lucky Charms. For a sugar-hungry kid like I was, how could the cereal with dehydrated squeaky marshmallows not be my favorite?

I’m sad that this multipack set is over. Having some 100 piece puzzles around to assemble in between larger ones was nice, and now the smallest puzzles I have are 300 pieces. Not that they aren’t entertaining, because they most definitely are; but the 100 piece mini puzzles are great for when you only have a few minutes to puzzle and don’t want to sort and start something larger.

Lucky Charms have been around longer than I have, and I still remember the commercials from long ago. The marshmallows have changed over the years, but I still remember the roster as Lucky the Leprechaun used to say in the commercials, “Pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers – and new blue diamonds!”🎶Frosted Lucky Charms, they’re magically delicious!🎶

My mom always said that I was never really interested in tv shows when I was young, but as soon as the commercial break started I would stop what I was doing and run into the room to watch every single commercial. Then apparently when we went grocery shopping I would walk down the aisles next to her cart and perform the commercials for the products on the shelves. That must be why, almost 50 years later, I can remember the order of the marshmallows.

I was a weird little kid. 🤪

What’s the Temperature?

On April 25, 2020April 25, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

It will be no surprise to anyone that I had a fantastic time with this puzzle. I love collages, but the downside of them is that they are over too quickly because I can’t seem to walk away. Even if I sit in the chair at my puzzle table until the pain makes me stop, I end up resting for only a little while because I just have to get back to it!

This thrift store puzzle was complete, which isn’t something I can say about every puzzle bought second-hand. It was well loved, and it looks as though it’s been assembled several times; many of the tabs had the image lifting off from repeated assembly and disassembly. Otherwise, it was still in relatively good condition.

What's the Temperature 1

This made me smile, you almost need a magnifying glass to read it, but between the degrees of temperature it tells you why you should go fishing. At the colder end it says “Oh yay! Pre-frozen fish”, “Frozen worms aren’t slimy”, and “Wouldn’t sweat if we fished today”. At the warmer end it says “We fish, we get a tan, what d’ya say?”, “Too hot for anything but fishing”, and something like “Get the fish pre-baked today”. I’m not one for fishing, but I think this may be the cutest thermometer I’ve ever seen.

What's the Temperature 2

Looks to me like this is some sort of “snake oil” medication, but it makes for a cool looking thermometer. My son says “Dr.” Ramon looks like the Monopoly Man. 😄

What's the Temperature 3

You can see above many of the tabs with the image sticking up. It’s a thrift store puzzle that has been assembled before – you can’t say how many times – and there’s quite a bit of image lift on this puzzle. It makes the end of puzzle “massage” a little less satisfying; you can feel them sticking up and you have to try not to rip any of the image off while it’s getting it’s rubdown.

And when’s the last time anyone heard of Ken-L Ration dog food? Looooong time!

I started this one in the morning and finished before bedtime. Perhaps I need to see if I can find some 2000 piece collages – are there any of those out there? I’m sure there aren’t right now, but once we’re able to find puzzles again I’d love to get my hands on two or three — or twenty-seven of them. 😇

Assorted News 2

On April 24, 2020April 24, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Just a few bits of news…

I’ve been contacted by several people who are starting or have started up new jigsaw puzzle companies and websites, and I am passing the information on to my readers. I am not promoting any of these puzzles or sites, this is informational only as I haven’t had a chance to assemble or review any of these puzzles.

Perhaps if you are feeling like playing along on a tournament website or your to-do pile is getting low you may be able to find some out of the way places to perhaps do a little puzzle shopping or even just looking around. Remember that smaller companies have much higher costs to produce and ship their puzzles, so the prices are normally quite a bit higher than puzzles from big companies that are mass produced.

Even if none of these is your cup of tea, it might be entertaining to spend some time looking around these sites to see what they’re offering. If you’re anything like me, you enjoy reading about and window shopping for puzzles as well as actually assembling them.

This puzzle company was started by a former teacher with a graphic arts background who began publishing these puzzles upon her retirement. She created these puzzles for middle school students; they are all 513 pieces, and teach concepts in math, science, English, and social studies. I love the idea, and the images are fantastic! (I especially love the look of the math puzzles) Each puzzle also includes a downloadable lesson plan, which is great if you’re a teacher or homeschooler, or if you feel like going back to middle school for a weekend. 😉

Check them out at standardsinpuzzles.com – according to the owner they are still shipping puzzles daily. I can’t speak to their quality as I haven’t assembled any of the puzzles themselves, but if anyone tries them out I’d love to hear from you.

Attention Buffy fans…

Jasco Games has been a board and trading card game publisher for over 10 years, and they are now applying their art foiling techniques to new lines of Buffy jigsaw puzzles that they are launching.

They have launched their first jigsaw puzzle project on Kickstarter featuring Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is also their most popular board game. If you’re interested you can check out their Kickstarter page here, today is the last day of their campaign. It’s already completely funded, but there’s still time to get in on it and order some Buffy puzzles if you’re of a mind to. Again, I haven’t assembled any of these puzzles, so I have no direct knowledge of their quality. I’m hoping they’ll be good, because they look like fun.

Marshall Rhinehart has started a free website, to help do his part to encourage people to stay at home. His wife is a nurse educator, so keeping people at home (and perhaps puzzling) helps keep his wife and thousands of other healthcare workers like her a little more safe.

You can create an account, participate in tournaments or just time yourself when you assemble your puzzles and post your stats on the site. You can also post or find available puzzles in your area for swap or sale, or just spend your time looking around at the puzzles others have completed. He’s just getting things up and running, but if it takes off it might be a fun place for puzzle junkies to hang out a bit. Check it out here at pandemicpuzzleplayoffs.com

I think it’s a great idea to encourage people to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus, which helps to keep our healthcare heroes a little bit more safe and keeps the system from being overwhelmed. And you know for sure that I think spending some time puzzling is a fantastic idea!