Author: Stacey at myjigsawjournal

Phenomenal Women

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

Phenomenal Women – African American Expressions – 500 pieces

This was an entertaining, good quality puzzle that was a little more challenging can I gave it credit for, but enjoyable all the same. African American Expressions is a company whose puzzles I haven’t seen before, but it was well-made and a great image to put together.

All around I would give this puzzle a “very good” in the quality department; the chipboard is thinner than that of a premium puzzle but very sturdy, the fit is very good, there are a very good variety of piece shapes, and the image reproduction is good. I was pleasantly surprised, usually a company that makes things other than puzzles doesn’t do so well in the jigsaw puzzle department, but this seems to be an exception.

It looks as though they only make 500 piece puzzles, and obviously they feature only African American artwork – they’ve got quite a few beautiful images that I would love to assemble.

Now I know that if I run across one of their puzzles that they have good quality and I won’t hesitate to buy them again.

Literary Dogs

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles10 Comments

Literary Dogs by Kathryn Freeman – Artifact – 302 pieces

This very long puzzle was so entertaining to assemble that I kept forgetting to do other things; things like taking a drink, getting up and moving around, talking to my family, etc. With such an interesting border and so many adorable dogs I just kept getting sucked into the assembly – don’t you love it when that happens? I do!

Such a wonderful quality puzzle from Artifact, it was a joy to put together. Lately I’ve been putting together more puzzles with unique borders, and I have to tell you that they are so much fun. 😍 It’s hard to see when you take a picture of the entire puzzle, so I’ve taken some closeup shots for you.

Not only are there whimsies in the body of the puzzle itself, but there are animals frolicking all across the top as well. I love that you can tell the breed of several of the dogs just by their shapes.

The books include quite a few animal-related stories: Lassie, Old Yeller, Moby Dick, White Fang, etc. There are the classics as well; The Hobbit, Of Mice and Men, Anna Karenina and more. Books and dogs – this puzzle was right up my alley!

Love the heart on the side of the big black and white dog (I’m unsure of the breed), and the tableau of animals romping along the top of the puzzle are so cute!

You can see that many of the whimsy pieces were attached to the top border, and some were by themselves. I can’t overstate how much I enjoyed this – it made for a wonderfully absorbing and entertaining afternoon of meditative puzzling.

Nothing’s In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous4 Comments

I finished the 300 piece puzzle on my board yesterday, and also finished up the puzzle in the bathroom – so unfortunately I’ve got no puzzles going at the moment to tell you about. Normally I would have made sure to at the very least start sorting another puzzle to post about (every third day is an “in progress” post), but it’s been a rough week and I just didn’t get around to it.

We got home from our trip on Sunday evening, and I immediately had to go to the doctor. Because of a problem with my good leg I’ve been put on bedrest for the next week and am temporarily taking a medication that makes me extremely dizzy and lightheaded (and I still have to take my pain meds with it). So even if I wasn’t ordered to stay off my feet, I would absolutely need to – because me walking around feeling dizzy is a recipe for disaster. I’m a klutz. A big one.

Anyway, yesterday was spent in bed almost all day long and I never got around to starting a new puzzle. I’ve chosen what’ll be next both on my puzzle board and in the bathroom, they just haven’t even been taken out of their packages yet. And there are still eight puzzles to write posts for that were assembled on our trip or since we’ve been home; there’s plenty of puzzle stuff to keep me busy, that’s for sure.

Regardless, I will definitely get a puzzle going today. Hubby has to be away during the day this weekend, and I’ll be able to sneak off to the puzzle room if I’m feeling well enough. And if I’m not – there are plenty of trays here and if need be I can start sorting and/or working on the next puzzle in bed! 🧩🛌

Bake Someone Happy

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles9 Comments

Bake Someone Happy – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

This was much more difficult than I thought it would be, and I didn’t even attempt to put the edges together at the beginning – this one was worked from the inside out. You go where the puzzle leads sometimes and that where I was being lead.

This is the companion puzzle to Secret Ingredient: Love and the subscription box came with a set of four jigsaw puzzle piece shaped cookie cutters. Both puzzles were baking themed and each had a recipe on the back…

Both recipes call for using your cookie cutters – and I can’t wait to use them. (I pretty much love everything with puzzle shapes.) And if that apron were available with all those puzzle pieces on it, I’d definitely get one of those too.

My recipe for sugar cookies is a bit different and hubby loves it so I’ll probably use that recipe, but I’ll definitely be trying out the new cookie cutters with it. All we have to do now is wait for a day when I’m feeling good enough to bake – here’s hoping! 🍪

Pixels & Pizza

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Pixels & Pizza by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

Gee, I wonder if Stacey had any fun putting together this Aimee Stewart puzzle…of course she did! It’ll be no surprise to anyone that this was a fantastic puzzle that I adored assembling. It wasn’t any easy one, but the challenge was fun and there were so many small details to discover; another fantastic image by my absolute favorite jigsaw puzzle artist!

The quality was only good/very good – because there were quite a few bent pieces. Part of it was most likely that it was cut during the early part of the run while the fit was still quite tight and put into a box that only just fits all of the pieces. It didn’t break apart as easily as it should and when it was boxed some of the pieces were bent. It wasn’t a huge problem for me, it happens, but there were probably 10 or so pieces with bent tabs – so I’m letting you know.

There were no other issues with the quality; the fit was very good, the image reproduction was excellent, and the usual Buffalo variety of piece shapes. Overall I enjoyed the puzzle immensely, despite the problem with a few of the pieces.

Any other oldies like me out there that had a big ‘ol boombox? Mine looked somewhat like this, but it had two cassette players, that way you could make mix tapes and record from the radio, etc. There were no MP3 players, and we didn’t carry around phones that could hold your entire music library – we had to work a little bit harder for our music. You young’uns don’t know how good you have it!

Get off my lawn! 👵

Wow. These certainly take me back, remember when if you wanted to play a video game you had to leave your house and find someplace with an arcade game? I do! Times certainly have changed in just my lifetime. Sigh. I’m feeling positively ancient.

This actually made me laugh out loud – the button that says “Save Ferris”. 🤣 I graduated high school the year Ferris Bueller’s Day Off debuted in theaters, but if it had been available I definitely would have worn that button at school! Love it. 💜

Every time I complete an Aimee Stewart puzzle I immediately want to start another one. The colors, the details, the overall look – they are so entertaining to put together!