The Old Candy Shop

On February 20, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

This puzzle is a great example of why you need to see the puzzle box close up and the puzzle assembled. I’ve seen this image many times before and thought only “Eh, it’s okay I guess” , but it was much more detailed and fun to assemble than I’d imagined. What an excellent puzzle!

This is one of the lot of puzzles I got from my Facebook Marketplace purchase and I wasn’t overly excited about assembling it – and boy was I wrong. It’s so interesting to me how I still cannot tell what puzzles I’ll enjoy and what puzzles I won’t. I’ve assembled a LOT of puzzles, I work on them every single day if I’m able, but still they constantly surprise me!

The quality was very good, this was the first 300 piece White Mountain that I’ve done. You can see in the above picture that the piece shape isn’t obvious and it almost looks like a picture. The fit was wonderful and the large pieces were very easy to work with. They had the typical WM shapes and thickness. The image reproduction is absolutely gorgeous….

The detail is amazing, and look how wonderfully grandma’s face is captured; it’s a gorgeous image, and was thoroughly entertaining to assemble! I haven’t done many Steve Read puzzles, but I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more of his work. I absolutely adored this one!

Mystery Box – Day 40

On February 19, 2019March 1, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling10 Comments

Mystery Puzzle 16

Check out the fantastic progress mom and I made yesterday! The last time we worked on it we got the top part of the building started (from the long windows up); when we began yesterday one of us said “it won’t be long until we can start adding all these window sections”. About 30 seconds later, one of us saw a connection and we were so excited!

Mystery Puzzle 14

You can see in the picture from my previous Mystery Box post all the window sections we had partially assembled on the right side. We had the majority of it in little bits and just had to find out how they all fit together. There were several pieces still to go, but once the big chunks were in it all went relatively quickly.

We had a great time! It’s starting to look like an actual image now, and it’s getting pretty exciting!

It’s hard for me to go into the puzzle room and not sit down to work on it. I try not to work on it when mom’s not here, since the purpose of the gift was for us to spend time together. I texted her last week and told her I “accidentally” worked on the puzzle. ☺ I took my husband in there to show him the progress we’d made that day and suddenly saw where one of the large chunks fit in – I couldn’t NOT put it in!

It’s been 40 days since we started, and we are no less delighted by it than we were on day one! 💝

Goldfinch Garden

On February 18, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

I think this would be a fun puzzle in most any piece count, the artwork is beautiful! In a very large count the flowers and goldfinches would present quite a challenge – it would still be lovely though.

It’s so nice to still have many wooden micro puzzles here, if I’m feeling the need to puzzle when I’m not feeling well I can always assemble one of these beauties on a small tray no matter where I am. The quality is exceptional and the puzzling itself helps relieve stress and tension. We have the best hobby there is!

Goldfinch Garden whimsies

All the whimsies match the image this time, no guessing required! They also make for some very interestingly shaped pieces that fit around them, which always helps when the puzzle is somewhat difficult. Being only 40 pieces the difficulty level wasn’t too high, but it’s always nice to have a little assistance with the shapes. 🙂

Dapper Dandies

On February 17, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

Dapper Dandies was the first of my Facebook Marketplace purchases that I assembled, and what fun! I love the artwork by Amy Lynn, and it made for an excellent and entertaining assembly. 🙂

I find Mega Puzzles to be hit or miss, sometimes the quality is much better than expected and sometimes not so much. The fit was fine on this one but the chipboard was on the thin side and it definitely didn’t lay flat.

Dapper Dandies 1

Still, if we’re discussing the puzzling itself I enjoyed this one very much. It gave me a bit more challenge than I would have thought, but I find the challenging ones are pretty darn fun too! Looking at the finished image I’m surprised that it was as difficult for me as it was, but I can’t only blame the puzzle. I was recovering from a long trip and on pain medication; that sometimes slows down my brain function, which slows down the assembly. 😉

Thrift Store Fun!

On February 16, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling6 Comments

Thrift Store Fun

So I went a little insane with power the other day; the thrift store we went to while mom and I were running errands had SOOOO many puzzles and I had extra money in my wallet – the combination was a bit much for me to handle!

I bought quite a few kids puzzles, mostly in multipacks, but the majority of the puzzles were 500 pieces or larger and I bought a lot of them. I couldn’t seem to stop myself from throwing puzzles into the cart. 🛒

There were 2 puzzles that didn’t feel right when we picked them up, so we opened them to be sure there were actually puzzles in there. To our wonderful surprise, some fantastic person had put two puzzles into each box – and the extra puzzles even had a small picture of the image included in the bag. Bonus!!

I think I’m set for a while, and won’t likely buy more anytime soon. Peaceful piecing ahead!