American Girl – Molly

On September 1, 2023August 27, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

American Girl – Molly – Mattel – 150 pieces

This set of three puzzles was quick and entertaining to assemble, but unfortunately one of them was missing a piece. That’s the chance you take when you purchase thrift store puzzles, but honestly I would say somewhere around 97% of all my pre-loved puzzles are complete. When there is a missing piece or two it isn’t too much of an issue for me; I still got a great deal for my money.

There were two American Girl puzzle sets at the thrift store, and this is the second set that I’ve assembled. The first one, Josefina, was put together in March of last year. That one was complete, and honestly was a little bit better in the quality department than this one.

The fit was much looser with this set, which made the assembly a bit frustrating. The finish is extremely shiny which is a problem under artificial lights, but the image reproduction was otherwise quite good. There were a nice variety of piece shapes, and the chipboard is thin but sturdy.

This was my favorite of the three images, and I wanted to put it into the frame, but the looseness of the fit caused it to crumble when I tried to put it in the tray. I was too frustrated to re-assemble it just for another picture. Sorry…sort of.

Normally the image with a dog would be the one I’m drawn to, but for some reason I cannot verbalize this was my least favorite of the three.

A missing piece. A bit of a disappointment, but I finished the puzzle by putting together all the pieces I had – so mission complete!

The set of three puzzles comes with one frame, so it seems that you display whichever one you like best, or you can rotate the puzzles.

If you’re lucky enough to find one of these sets at a thrift store or online and you’ve got a youngster who enjoys the American Girl dolls and books, they would be a nice gift. The quality is fair/good. It was nice to give them a try, and I enjoyed them very much.

Vintage Summer Books

On August 31, 2023July 26, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Vintage Summer Books by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

We all know how much I adore the artwork of Aimee Stewart, so normally starting one of her puzzles I know that I’ll really enjoy the assembly. This one had me a little wary, I thought perhaps all the flowers and greenery would be quite challenging – I was completely wrong, it was a FANTASTIC assembly, with just the right degree of difficulty. 💚🌼

I adore the look of this section and it was one of the first ones that I put together. There’s something about vintage advertisements, they make me happy.

Just look at all the beautiful colors in this one little section, absolutely stunning! The flowers weren’t nearly as difficult as I thought they’d be, in fact I enjoyed putting them all together.

The piece in the center with the couple kissing was the last piece to be placed in this book. I looked at the piece, was trying to find colors to match it with and then suddenly realized it was a couple. All the titles of the books were complete and in place, so I knew then that this must be the last piece of “In Love’s Garden”; none of the other book titles seemed as though a man and a woman kissing should be on the cover. 💏

This puzzle was much more entertaining and enjoyable than I thought it would be, and I went into it knowing it would be fun! Don’t you love it when a puzzle is even better than you thought?

Rainbow Pets In Progress…

On August 30, 2023August 29, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling8 Comments

Studio Pets? by Myrna – Sure Lox/TCG – 500 pieces

Oh man, I wish I could tell you this adorable image is fun to assemble, but that would be lying; and we NEVER lie about jigsaw puzzles here. It’s obviously not finished yet, but I can’t wait to complete it so it can go bye bye; the quality is subpar and the assembly hasn’t been much fun.

After finishing a Ravensburger, to jump to one of this quality is such a let down. It is going slowly because it isn’t very enjoyable and I keep stopping to do something else. Sometimes I do that to make an entertaining puzzle last longer but that is not the case here; I keep stopping because this puzzle is just…ugh. Sigh. It’s not horrible, I’ve assembled much worse quality puzzles, it’s just not the right puzzle for right now I guess.

Usually I’m an advocate for not assembling puzzles that aren’t entertaining; “life is too short for crappy puzzles” – that’s my motto. But this is more about making my son happy, because he rarely asks for anything at all. Even when he should absolutely ask for help, he doesn’t – he doesn’t want to be a burden or take away time from whatever you’re doing. So, when he asks me to put together a puzzle because he likes it, I cannot seem to resist because he actually asked for something. Mom wants to grant his request, how could I not?

My son has been trying to get me to assemble this puzzle for quite a while, and I finally gave in. This time it’s gonna get done so that I can get it OUT OF HERE! I’m either going to stop letting him pick out puzzles to purchase or be more firm about his choices. When he picks up a horrible image like that god-awful unicorn or puzzles from companies that aren’t the best quality – like this one – I have to say no way!

There is no title that I can find anywhere on the box, the only way to find it was looking it up online. Annoying. And this puzzle is already annoying me with it’s shiny finish and thin pieces. I’m annoyed. Can you tell?

Tube-tastic

On August 29, 2023July 26, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles1 Comment

Tube-tastic – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

This little thing was MUCH more difficult than anticipated, I was constantly putting pieces in the wrong places! I thought the image would be fun (it was) and wouldn’t take too long (it did); but no matter, the challenge got me motivated to finish it and it was enjoyable the whole way through.

Normally I don’t have to use the image on the tube these puzzles come in – but for all the little scribbles on the paper it definitely helped to have a reference.

The fit was a little looser than usual, but otherwise it was the same great quality MicroPuzzle that I’m used to. Loved it!

Rainbow World

On August 28, 2023August 28, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Rainbow World by Michael Searle – MasterPieces – 300 pieces

This image is quite an assault on the senses (my son picked it out), but the puzzle was excellent quality and I enjoyed the assembly very much – in spite of the eyeball blistering artwork. 😲

This was the best quality MasterPieces puzzle that I can remember assembling. The pieces were quite thick with a very good variety of shapes, the fit was excellent, the reproduction is bright and crisp – overall just a great quality puzzle and I was duly impressed.

The fit was so impressive that I even got one of my favorite types of pictures….you guessed it!

I was so confident in the fit that I took this picture first, before making sure I had a good “normal” picture for the post. If I’m not mistaken I have never been able to take one of these pictures with a MasterPieces puzzle before – this puzzle really impressed me!

Also, this is a glow in the dark puzzle. I’m not always a fan of these types of puzzles, only because of the tactile feeling of the pieces. They can feel grainy, almost like there is sand glued to the puzzle, and this one did as well. I can usually deal with it, as most GITD puzzles are smaller piece counts; but I’m not a fan of the way it feels in my hands.