Author: Stacey at myjigsawjournal

…Boardwalk In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Thrift Store Puzzles9 Comments

Down on the Boardwalk by Charles Fazzino – TCG – 300 pieces

I know, it’s a terrible picture – apologies. I’m working on a time crunch this morning, that’s my excuse. Usually I’m in the puzzle room first thing, but today was an anomaly and I didn’t get in here until about 7:40 this morning. Just enough time to snap a picture of what got assembled yesterday and type up a quick post about it.

It’s been quite a while since there’s been a puzzle image by Charles Fazzino on my board, and I’m not sure why because it’s been quite an entertaining assembly so far. Perhaps where I’ve been shopping there haven’t been many of his images to choose from? Not exactly sure. But this puzzle has good quality; thick pieces, bright reproduction, and a good fit – you could almost forget that there’s only one piece shape. Almost.

On a completely separate note, I’m watching over my grandpuppy Manny today. He’s in terrible pain, but the emergency vet wasn’t able to find what is wrong with him. If you’re of the praying type, send up a quick prayer that at the very least he isn’t in too much pain for now, it’s heartbreaking to hear him cry. 😭

Battleship

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles10 Comments

Battleship – Spin Master – 1000 pieces

These board game puzzles seem to be growing on me, each one I complete seems to be more entertaining than the last; this one was my favorite assembly so far. The quality remains the same, but perhaps I’m more used to it now and it doesn’t seem as disappointing as before. It’s a good quality puzzle, overall.

There’s only one more left here at the house to assemble (Guess Who?), but there are actually three more in the series. The other two, Life and Monopoly, aren’t ones that we’ve been able to find; that’s alright with me though, neither of them were ever games that I enjoyed playing very much. The puzzles themselves would most likely be much more fun than playing the games, although you never can tell.

In all honesty, I’ve never even played Guess Who?, but the puzzle itself looks like it’ll be both challenging and engaging and I’m looking forward to it.

Unfortunately I’ve already told my best story about 70s commercials in the post about this puzzle when it was in progress. I did get more of the story recently though. We had a small get together at the house to celebrate both mine and my father’s birthday, and he re-told the story of my doing jingles and commercials at the grocery store (I told you my parents love to tell this one). He told me that my mother ordered me to “stop singing commercials next to me!”; my response was to go to the next aisle over, where I wasn’t next to her, and kept right on singing and quoting tv ads. What a little imp I was!

The blue background here was one of the last bits to be assembled, but it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. In fact, the entire puzzle was easier than anticipated. Not too easy, of course, but the challenge level was just about right. There was never a point where I needed to separate by piece shape, and overall it was a great assembly from beginning to end.

Rainbow Tarts

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Rainbow Tarts – Buffalo – 300 pieces

This was a perfect puzzle for when I wasn’t feeling up to much puzzling – it was easy to sort and assemble – which was just what I needed. It had a quality problem, but it was still a fun one to put together.

I normally don’t have problems with Buffalo puzzles, but there was an issue with the image on this puzzle. There were tears in the image, as if the pieces weren’t cut all the way through and they tore when the pieces came apart. They were small little rips, but still noticeable to me. I emailed Buffalo about the problem, and have yet to hear back from them other than the automated response.

It was so easy to sort that it was no problem at all to assemble this line by line. The most difficult colors were the first three lines, after that it was even easier!

Even though this would have been easy to finish in no time at all it was on my board for a few days, I took my time because I wasn’t really in the mood to puzzle – but I needed to just the same. When my mood gets very low I don’t want to do anything at all; puzzling can help me out of it, but sometimes I need to force it and that’s when these smaller piece count puzzles are the best choice.

Tiered Treats In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling6 Comments

Tiered Treats by Aimee Stewart – Wentworth – 210 pieces

My son picked out a wooden puzzle for me to assemble next, and I’m having lots of fun already. How would it not be fun? It’s an Aimee Stewart image!

It’s a shaped puzzle, so the edges aren’t where I’m starting; obviously I started with the blueberries. I don’t have the image near the board to look at; usually when assembling a wooden puzzle I put the image away so the assembly lasts longer. I like to fully enjoy working on a wooden puzzle and focus on nothing but the pieces and colors. 🧩💚

Because I don’t have the image close at hand I pulled all the blueberry pieces thinking they would all be in one section, but it looks as if I was wrong, they seem to be everywhere.

That’s ok though, it’ll all fit together in the end.

Dino Glow

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

Dino Glow (?) – Ceaco – 100 pieces

Yes, dear readers, I assembled a Ceaco puzzle. It’s from the thrift store, and came taped up with another glow in the dark puzzle (both new and unopened) from the same brand. Since it’s second-hand, and Ceaco gets none of my money, in my mind it was perfectly fine to buy it.

I always like to have a few kids puzzles here at the house; when I’m in a mood and feeling b*tchy it’s better for me to do something quick and easy than to try a much larger one that I would normally assemble. Plus, kids puzzles are fun!

Glow in the dark pictures are always difficult for me to take. The lights are turned off and even though I try my best, it’s challenging to get both the puzzle itself centered and the actual glow. I’ve gotten some good pictures before; this one is alright, but it isn’t one of my best.

It was a good quality puzzle, although the fit was a bit loose. I took it outside to “charge up” the glow in the sunlight, and had to be quite careful because pieces wanted to come apart when the puzzle was moved. Happily for me, the glow on this puzzle wasn’t the sandy-feeling chemical that all the previous GITD puzzles I’ve assembled have – it feels more like lines of dried hot glue. If you have a tactile aversion to GITD puzzles like I do, this type of glow was much nicer to puzzle with.