Author: Stacey at myjigsawjournal

Cape Cod Pier

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Cape Cod Pier by William Glackens – Artifact – 139 pieces

What a fantastic puzzle! I can’t say enough good things about it, the unique cut of the pieces, the beautiful artwork, the quality of the puzzle itself – it all went together to make for a wonderfully challenging assembly, even at only 139 pieces. I adored it! 💜

Love the whimsies in this puzzle, and the image was difficult enough that I “cheated” and used the unique shapes of the pieces around the whimsies themselves to get started. That isn’t something I normally do, as I like to make my wooden puzzle experience last as long as possible. But the painterly style of the image and the split tendril cut of the pieces made for a most challenging assembly – and I am on a LOT of pain meds these days.

*If you use the shapes of the pieces around the whimsies to get started on a wooden puzzle, of course it isn’t really cheating. However you choose to puzzle is exactly the right way, and there’s really no such thing as cheating (unless you have someone else assemble it and claim the work as your own). What I meant was that I considered it slightly “cheating” for me because that’s not where I usually begin, and it seemed to lessen the difficulty level somewhat once I had several small sections complete.

There’s something so satisfying for me in seeing the back of an interestingly and well cut wooden puzzle. I hope you guys like the picture too!

We’re Home!

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous2 Comments

We made our way back home, and now’s the time to recover from vacation. There were lots of little wooden puzzles assembled, and I’m looking forward to sharing them all with you.

Hope you’ve all been well, and working on lots of fun puzzles!

Doghouse

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Doghouse – Re-marks – 200 pieces

An adorable little puzzle from Re-marks, but sadly I didn’t find it as entertaining as I’d hoped. Perhaps I’ve started spoiling myself with too many wooden puzzles – and we can’t have that, I still want to be able to enjoy all of my cardboard beauties! (My next puzzle in the puzzle room was a 1000 piece collage from Re-marks, and after finishing the wooden puzzle next to my bed the next one in there was a cardboard one as well.)

The quality was just fair with this one; the fit seemed a little off in some places and excellent in others – very odd. The finish was quite shiny and I found that I was twisting myself around and moving my head to be certain the color of the pieces I was looking at. Not everyone has the luxury of only working with natural light; many of us work under artificial lighting and a super shiny finish is sometimes difficult to work with depending on the image.

Regardless of all of the above this is a sweet little image, and that sad little beagle face in the middle makes me want to find a puppy to cuddle. 🤗🐶

Fabric Owls

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Fabric Owls by Annya Kai – Artifact – 156 pieces

I cannot stress enough how adorable and entertaining this puzzle was to assemble. Such a great little puzzle from Artifact, and if you’re so inclined it is highly recommended – it gets two very enthusiastic hoots! 🦉🦉

The decorative border was quite interesting, it was my first time was a border like this and I found I liked it very much. There were no whimsy pieces, but honestly it didn’t need any. And the artwork by Annya Kai makes for a great assembly – the colors and patterns were lovely to work with.

My youngest son picked this out for me to assemble, and even came in and helped me near the end – a minor miracle! Although these days he seems more interested in what puzzles I do and has been helping more often when the image is to his liking. This makes his old momma very happy.

This was one of those puzzles that I wanted to take apart and immediately start working on again. Love, love, loved it! ❤💕❤

Another One…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous4 Comments

Blooming Heart – Crafthub – 80 pieces? (I’ll count them up later)

Here’s another of the terrible quality wooden puzzles from Crafthub; unfortunately I bought three of them to make the shipping cost worthwhile so there’s still one more after this one. Even though the first one was so frustrating that doesn’t mean I would just get rid of the other two – of course I’m going to put them together, exasperating as they might be.

I’m not sure why, but as we were packing for our trip I threw both of these remaining Crafthub puzzles into my suitcase. It turns out that was a good idea though, because there are still several days left on our trip and I’m almost out of puzzles. The horror! 😱

Yesterday morning when talking about them with hubby a fantastic idea popped into my head; so believe it or not I was actually excited to start working on one of the crappy puzzles right away – even though there are two Wentworth puzzles in my suitcase that have not yet been assembled.

Once this puzzle is complete I plan on committing what normally would be a terrible puzzling sin in my own eyes – I’m going to glue this wooden puzzle. Shocked? I don’t blame you – never thought I would hear myself put all those words together in that order. Never. Ever. Wooden puzzles are such a joy to work with that prior to these Crafthub puzzles I would never have even considered gluing one. Part of the reason they’re more expensive is that they can be assembled over and over, even passed down through family sometimes. Gluing a beautifully made wooden puzzle is a TERRIBLE idea if you ask me, you would never again be able to experience the delight and satisfaction of assembling it.

But here is my thought process; these puzzles are NOT beautifully made, not ones I would ever want to assemble again, and inflicting them on anyone else by giving them to friends or donating them elsewhere doesn’t seem like a good idea either. The only positive with these puzzles so far is the beautiful images, so the thought came to me that it would make a lovely little wall hanging or decorative tchotchke – why not glue the sucker and at least get some future use out of it?

That’s my plan anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes. 😎