Art City

On January 23, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

I love unique and interesting images, and there’s nothing like this one anywhere but at Mr. Bob Puzzles. The colors, the movement of the artwork, it’s just astounding and I absolutely adored this puzzle and the assembly!

The first thing I do when I get a wooden puzzle is to look through all the pieces to see the shapes, hopefully whimsies, and get a feel for the colors and the image. This one definitely didn’t disappoint. Not only where there plenty of whimsical shapes, there were a lot of words too – so fun!

Art City whims 1

I didn’t even notice when I was going through them that “ciao” is spelled wrong, in fact if I hadn’t received an email from the company I probably never would have realized it! They were horrified at the mistake and have offered to fix it immediately. Honestly I don’t think I’ll bother, it makes it more interesting I think. 😉

Art City whims 2

The whimsy pieces have a roaring 20’s feel, jazzy and fun and they made for fun surrounding pieces too.

Art City 2

The image made for a difficult assembly, but it was the lovely kind of difficult that keeps you engaged and engrossed.

Art City 1

This woman taking a picture with her iPhone is the artist’s way of bringing the image into the present as many of the whimsy pieces suggest older times. (Or so Mr. Bob tells me 🙂 )

This assembly was absolutely the right amount of challenging, but not too difficult as to make it frustrating. The cut of the pieces seems mostly regular, but it is quite deceptive and not at all as easy as it looks. If it were too easy it wouldn’t be much fun at all, so thankfully these puzzles have struck an excellent balance.

Even with the shipping from Australia, I’ve found Mr. Bob Puzzles to be relatively reasonably priced; with the exchange rate for the Australian dollar shoppers in the US start out with a bit of a discount already. And with the wildfires in Australia I also like the idea of sending some of my puzzle money down there.

Helpful Garden Paws

On January 22, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

This image is so very sweet, there’s something about the artwork, it isn’t like many other “cute animal” puzzles – something is special, but I can’t put my finger on it.

Slightly thinner pieces, somewhat bendable, but not too bad. Very good fit, exceptional image reproduction

Garden Paws 1

I’m not a cat person at all, but that face!

*Sorry for the brevity of today’s post. My hubby has lovingly shared his illness with me, and I’m feeling terrible today.

Dog’s Life

On January 20, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles9 Comments

Is that not the cutest puzzle? It’s so adorable!!! My darlin daughter gave me this one for Christmas, and I couldn’t wait to get at it. It’s truly a dog’s life in this puzzle, and if you have dogs or have had them in the past you will relate.

It’s not the best quality, and if you ask me Eurographics is backsliding in the quality department. They used to be very good quality randomly cut puzzles, but this one piece shape with terrible cutting leaves a lot to be desired. The finish is super shiny and there is glare no matter if you’re working with dark pieces or light.

Dog's Life 1

This is basically dog ownership in a nutshell. Always looking at you for food as if they’ve never eaten a meal in their lives; that’s how Buddy looks at us anyway.

We only have one dog, just Buddy, but he certainly enjoys a ride in the car, and there is plenty of hanging out the window going on! And more than any other little vignette in this puzzle, the one on the right definitely shows how Buddy gets comfy in bed with my husband and me. He takes the middle – all of the middle!

My youngest son surprised me by coming in at the end of this puzzle when I was finishing the middle, there were about 7 or 8 pieces left, and he just grabbed one and put it in. He NEVER wants to do puzzles with me, so it was a bit of a shock, but a very happy one. He kept on going and I let him place all of the final pieces. He stopped at the last one and looked to me, knowing that putting in the very last piece makes a hard-core puzzler like me very happy, but I told him to go ahead and finish it. It was so lovely and I was truly pleased that he came in and wanted to be with me in my puzzle room working on one of my puzzles – even if it was only for a couple of minutes! He’s so sweet, and I love that he helped me put in the last few pieces. 💖

A Cranky Camper

On January 19, 2020January 19, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

This is another puzzle from the multipack of 12 puzzles with artwork by Iralu, puzzles by Cardinal. I was surprised at the difference in quality between the 300 piece that I’d already assembled and this one; the 300 piece was much better quality than this 150 piece. Interesting.

I knew when I purchased it that the puzzles would most likely be of lesser quality; I find that the puzzles in most multipacks are made with thinner chipboard and as a result don’t usually fit together well – that was certainly the case with this puzzle. The fit on the edges was especially terrible and I found that the pieces seemed to fit where they didn’t belong. The top and bottom edges were assembled at the beginning, but the sides weren’t completed until the interior of the puzzle was assembled; the top and bottom edges had color on almost every piece and I could be certain that I got the assembly correct.

Each of the 150 piece puzzles in this pack are similar to this image, they are all of trucks or some sort of vehicle; I don’t dislike them, but they aren’t my favorites. The 500 and 300 piece puzzle images are the ones I really like in the box, but the 150 piece puzzles are perfect to put onto a tray and work while I’m resting in bed.

Even with the questionable quality this was an enjoyable puzzle to assemble (except for the edges), and it went together pretty quickly. It’s nice to have some very small puzzles available that I can work on my trays in bed when I’m not feeling well enough to sit at the puzzle table. 🙂

Momma’s Me Mood*

On January 17, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

I started this early in the morning before leaving to spend some time with family on New Year’s Day, and finished in the late afternoon when we got home. First day of the year, two puzzles completed; they were only small ones, but they were both entertaining and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I did something I NEVER do and bought one of those multipacks of puzzles. Usually I find the quality is really awful when you have many puzzles in one box, but I couldn’t help it – the artwork was so interesting, colorful, and completely different from what you normally see. I had to brave the questionable quality of 12 puzzles in one box from Cardinal, I just couldn’t pass them up; artwork like this is not something you normally find in a multipack.

The asterisk by the title is because although the artwork is by Iralu, the title is by my daughter. I couldn’t find the real title online (I’m not great at web searches to be honest), so I asked for some help in giving this image a name. I think it’s a perfect name for this puzzle, and I hope she’s feeling creative because none of the puzzles in this multipack have titles. 😉

I was surprised at the quality of this 300 piece puzzle, it was better than I thought it would be – at least as far as the chipboard goes. It was thicker than I’d assumed and fit together quite well. It may not be the same for the other piece counts in the box, but at least the four 300 piece puzzles are fair/good quality. In my book that’s a bonus!