The Challenge of 2019

On December 28, 2018February 28, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling17 Comments

Box of wooden pieces — Mom’s Christmas present this year!

My Christmas present to mom this year wasn’t the usual jigsaw puzzle. In fact, I don’t have any idea whether or not there is a complete puzzle here at all! Intrigued??

I was in bed, bored with television, looking at eBay for some reason. I’ve never shopped there, it was just curiosity; looking at the crazy prices people will pay for “luxury” wooden puzzles made my head spin! Anyway I came across this box of vintage wooden puzzle pieces – 5 pounds of pieces all thrown together in one storage box – with no boxes, pictures, or brands. Oh man, I can’t tell you how much that got me going, I wanted that box!

Imagine the challenge of hundreds and hundred of pieces with no guides at all. No piece counts, brand names, images, not even a guarantee of an entire puzzle. Plus, they’re all wooden pieces!

Since hubby does the eBay thing all the time, I told him about it. We discussed it, how much I wanted it, what I was willing to spend, etc. He had no problem with the purchase and won the auction for me. 🎉

Mom always says that she doesn’t need gifts or “things”, she’d much rather have an “experience” as a present. This is true, she’s a bit of a hoarder and in her 70’s, there’s not a lot she actually needs. So I decided to present her this box of puzzle pieces (that belong to me) as this year’s gift. The actual gift though is the time spent together working through this box of pieces to hopefully put together a puzzle, or two, or however many there are.

I have no idea how long it’s going to take us, but I am so looking forward to the challenge!

It could turn out that there isn’t a complete puzzle in the box, and being completely truthful I absolutely don’t care. If there are several incomplete puzzles or several complete ones it doesn’t matter in the least. This box is hours and hours I get to spend with mom, talking, laughing, playing with gorgeous puzzle pieces – I wouldn’t trade that for all the luxury puzzles in the world! ❤❤

Ocean Life

On December 27, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

This was one of those thrift store puzzles that almost breaks my heart. We love finding fantastic quality kids puzzles, assembling them, and then donating them. When we find one of such excellent quality that’s missing a piece it’s so much more of a disappointment than regular missing pieces to me.

This Mudpuppy puzzle was one of the best quality kids puzzles I’ve seen in quite some time. Extremely thick pieces, beautiful colors, excellent fit – and it even had a little extra something – a search and find aspect. All the pictures around the edges are also shown in the main image and they’re not all easy to find.

What a bummer that it’s missing a piece! It makes me sad, as a lover of puzzles, that they aren’t taken care of. (But I do remember childhood too, vaguely, so I also understand.) But for some strange reason these missing pieces makes me wish that I could go back to my childhood and take MUCH better care of all of my toys and things. If I had, not only would they be worth some big time cash right now, I’d still have some of the things I loved to play with as a child. How awfully sweet and uncharacteristically sentimental of me, right? I know!

Worn Out…

On December 26, 2018December 26, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

I’m so tired from celebrating Christmas with family yesterday that my poor little brain cells are barely functioning, and could very well be melting like a Dali clock! I’m not complaining at all, just explaining today’s post really.

We had a very good day spending time together, and I’m afraid I overdid – as usual. Tried to spend a little time with everyone, help when I could, completed a gift puzzle with my posse, etc. I’m paying for it now, but luckily I have no obligations today other than to recover. (Hubby is planning on making a big pot of french onion soup for dinner, so I don’t even have to cook or reheat leftovers! Yay!)

There was a plan to take pictures of the puzzles I got for Christmas and post them, but they are in the living room about 20 feet away – that feels like about 20 miles to me at the moment. Plus, I’m not sure my exhausted brain cells have had enough coffee to remember how my legs actually work – last thing I need is to face-plant into the bedroom floor. Although…..it might be good for my back to lay on the floor for a while…..hmmm.

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a great day yesterday. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a great day yesterday too! ☺

Vintage Greetings

On December 25, 2018December 24, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Vintage Greetings whimsies

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to all my readers, friends, and family – and some of you are all three of those things! I hope your day is filled with peace, joy, and lots of love. 💝

Vintage Greetings 1

I’ve been wanting a puzzle that spelled something out for a while now, and I finally got one! 😁

This was a beautiful but difficult puzzle – much more of a challenge than I thought it would be. It’s so lovely though, worth every bit of time and money spent.

Merry Christmas! 🎄🎅🎁

Partridge in a Pear Tree

On December 24, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Such a beautiful puzzle, and so much more challenging than it looks! Gorgeous colors, fantastic whimsies – so enjoyable!

This puzzle had all the “12 Days” represented in the whimsy pieces. I tried to put them in order starting at the beginning, but funnily enough it was easier to start with day 12 at the bottom and sing my way back to a partridge in a pear tree. 🎶

Partridge whimsies

With six of the days represented by birds of some sort, I had to go over it in my head a few times to be certain each one is in the right spot. I’m pretty sure I got it right, though surely someone will let me know if it isn’t.

Partridge 1

As usual, a partridge in a partridge. 🙂 I absolutely adored these puzzles and had so much fun assembling them. They’re so lovely and entertaining to work with, they might become a yearly tradition.

I’m having the worst time being motivated to puzzle these past few days; perhaps it’s the big build up to Christmas and all the things that have to be done, perhaps not. All I know is the puzzle on my board at the moment has barely been touched in the last 3 or 4 days and it’s going to be put back into the box today. There’s been almost no progress at all since the first day I started working on it, so it’ll have to wait for another time.

Not one person has asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year, so I’m taking that to mean either they’re tired of me saying “I don’t want or need anything” or they’re all certain of what to get for me. Hmmm, wonder what that could be? So, in order to be sure that there is ample space to work on any gifts with that may arrive with “some assembly required”, the current puzzle is taking a nap for a few weeks at least. If there aren’t any dissected pictures under the tree, no worries, there are plenty here now!