Category: Jigsaw Puzzles

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!

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 with 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! ❤💕❤

Peanuts – Day 4

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Peanuts by Charles Schulz – RoseArt – approx. 125/500 pieces

On our last day of the Peanuts puzzles we have Linus and his security blanket (felt a kinship with him as I was a thumb sucker for a little bit too long as well), Snoopy again, and my most favorite of the Peanut characters – Pig-pen. I was a tomboy who spent her days climbing trees, digging in the ground and in general having as much fun and getting as dirty as possible. I hated having to take a bath or shower at the end of the day and one of my parents’ nicknames for me was Pig-pen. 😎

I hate having to say over and over that this set of puzzles disappointed me, but not everyone reads every post and I feel obligated to say that although I’ve always been happy with the quality of these RoseArt/Lafayette Puzzle Factory sets – this one was different. The fit wasn’t good, the chipboard was too thin, and there were one or two missing pieces. *I can’t really be sure about the missing piece count because these are shaped puzzles and it could be one larger or two smaller pieces missing.*

In general, these puzzles sets are great for when you don’t have much time or space to puzzle; you can use the colored backing to sort the pieces and just grab one color and start assembling one small puzzle at a time. I love them, they’re great when I’m feeling anxious about sorting or starting a larger piece count puzzle; I can just grab this “500 piece puzzle” and put together each little one without worrying about anything else.

Specifically though, this Peanuts set was less than optimal quality, and unfortunately I wouldn’t recommend them. I wish this set had been more entertaining to assemble, but it just wasn’t.

I really did want to enjoy it. 😢

Peanuts – Day 3

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Peanuts by Charles Schulz – RoseArt – approx. 125/500 pieces

Here we have Franklin, Marcie and Sally – of these three I liked Marcie the most, she was matter of fact and logical and totally out of place with the craziness of the other characters in the Peanuts world. To be honest I remember that Franklin was in the comics but I don’t recall a thing about him. That’s most likely my old age brain – I don’t remember much about Sally either, other than she was Charlie Brown’s sister.

There isn’t much more to say about these little puzzles. They weren’t great quality and even though the set was a gift from hubby I wasn’t happy with them at all. Damn the bleeping pandemic – for many much more important reasons than this – but in a small way for it’s effect on our puzzles.

Until now these sets have never let me down, this one did.