Category: Jigsaw Puzzles

Woman with a Parasol, Facing Right

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

Woman with a Parasol, Facing Right by Claude Monet – Robert Frederick – 100 pieces

I really wanted to enjoy this puzzle, sadly I was quite disappointed in it’s quality. Fine Art puzzles can be quite difficult with the painterly style and brush strokes, but the bent pieces and overly shiny finish made it even more troublesome than usual.

This was my first time with a Robert Frederick puzzle, and while I don’t like to make snap judgements I was pretty let down by this brand. I’ll hold off making a decision about the brand in general until there have been one or two more puzzles assembled, but so far it ain’t looking good.

Although the pieces were quite thick and sturdy, that in itself made the first problem I’m going to tell you about even worse. There were SO MANY bent pieces! And with a thick and sturdy chipboard, once it’s bent trying to get it back into shape is a losing battle. The finished puzzle didn’t lie flat because of all the bent pieces that I couldn’t get back to their original configuration.

My second issue with this puzzle was the EXTREMELY shiny finish. It was so shiny that even with the lightest areas of the puzzle I was constantly having to tilt my head to be sure what the piece actually looked like. I’m not a fan of the extra shiny coating on a puzzle. Not everyone can work with natural lighting (my puzzle board is in a room with only artificial lighting) and the shine makes it very difficult to see what you’re doing.

On the positive side…there were a good variety of piece shapes, the chipboard was thick and sturdy, and the fit was very nice. But to me those things don’t mean much with bent pieces that prevent the puzzle from lying flat and a shiny finish that makes it difficult to see what you’re doing under any artificial lighting.

While I love the actual artwork by Monet, this isn’t an image that I would dare to try in a larger piece count. Finding it in only 100 pieces made me quite happy, but unfortunately the quality left a lot to be desired.

Creatures of the Cosmos

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Creatures of the Cosmos by Sarah Walsh – Mudpuppy – 500 pieces

This puzzle was more enjoyable than I anticipated, and the pleasant surprise of having more than one piece shape was fantastic. Easy to sort, relatively easy to assemble, this one was lots of fun!

My daughter insisted I buy this one, and to be honest I wanted nothing to do with a Mudpuppy puzzle, but I couldn’t refuse my baby girl. Good thing too, because other than the “sharp” white backing I thought the quality of this puzzle was very good. My last Mudpuppy puzzle (a birthday gift) was good quality as well, but still had just the one piece shape; the fact that this one had a variety of shapes made me quite happy. Perhaps the fact that it had foil accents had something to do with the difference in pieces.

The stars in the constellations and the lines that connect them were all foil accents in this image. It’s hard to capture in a closeup picture, but it wasn’t difficult to work with at all.

Creatures of the Cosmos was enjoyable to assemble, and happily I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would! 🌟

Northern Lights

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Northern Lights by Nancy Wernersbach – Ravensburger – 500 pieces

This wintery image with the gorgeous Northern Lights in the background was pretty darned entertaining to assemble, and isn’t it just a beautiful puzzle? Loved it!

Ravensburger quality – as usual. This one had a fantastic fit though; in addition to the thick pieces, crisp image reproduction, variety of shapes, and wonderful cut. The pieces are larger than normal, and the finished image is approximately the size of a regular 1000 piece Ravensburger puzzle. The larger size made it even more surprising that I was still able to get one of my favorite, silly pictures…

Look at that edge, it’s barely distorted at all and standing up almost perfectly straight. I almost never get to do this with such a large puzzle, and this made me happier than it should – I was pleased as punch to be able to stand this one up. 😁

You know I love to see a beautiful canine fur baby in a puzzle; and I can’t resist getting a close up picture of them either.

Precious puppy puzzles please this passionate puzzle practitioner. 🤎🐶

Bed of Clouds

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

Bed of Clouds by Schim Schimmel – Ceaco – 100 pieces

Quick little kids puzzle that didn’t take long at all to assemble. It was a thrift store purchase, taped up with another 100 piece GITD puzzle – both were new and unopened. To me, there’s no problem buying it there because Ceaco isn’t actually getting any of my money.

It’s sometimes sad for me when I see a beautiful image on a Ceaco puzzle, the quality and their customer service is just not up to snuff – but some of their puzzle images are just stunning! Oh well, I’d rather work a puzzle with better quality from a company that I know will take care of things if there’s a problem.

The quality on this one wasn’t great, you can see along the border where the pieces are bent at the corners and sticking up, and the fit wasn’t great either. Still for about 99 cents it was a good purchase and my youngest son and my hubby enjoyed the GITD aspect of it. They took it outside to “charge” in the sunlight and had a good ole’ time finding the darkest spot in the house to check out how much it actually glowed. Love💖my boys!

For me the glow was a little disappointing, the entire top portion of the puzzle had no glow at all. Still, it’s cute, right?

Color Dream

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles14 Comments

Color Dream by Nadieh Bremer – Artifact – 403 pieces

Oh man! This was a challenging, beautiful, fantastic puzzle to assemble! It was quite difficult, as I didn’t use the image on the box – but I absolutely adored both the challenge, the image, and the assembly itself. 🧡💜💙💚

This was my third puzzle with an image by this artist, and I am completely smitten with her work – it makes for such fun puzzling! And I also have to give a shout out to the designer of the pieces, Chandler Millwood (who designed all three of Nadieh’s puzzles), whose design was like artwork in itself. Stunning!

Look at all those loops and swirls, it was such a challenge, but so much fun! The groups of stars in each corner, the connectedness of everything – just a wonderful design to go with such a lovely image.

The star in the center and the loops that form the flower-like image around it aren’t visible from the front. It made for such an interesting puzzle! I know, my use of exclamation points is getting ridiculous, but this puzzle made me so happy that I just can’t help myself!!

There was a surprise in the box, the description on the website alluded to it, but I skipped right over it when I was ordering the puzzle. It said “Tools included to make your own tiny orbit artwork.” Whatever does that mean?

It came with it’s own tiny little wooden Spirograph! Does anyone remember those from when you were younger? I certainly do, and let me tell you there have been a LOT of little pictures made with this already. I have to fess up and tell you that it didn’t occur to me until I was probably 50% through the assembly that all the little images on the puzzle are ones that you could make with a Spirograph. I was looking at the shapes and putting together colors and suddenly realized that all the loopy, swirly, interesting shapes are ones you could make with the toy in the box. DUH!

This puzzle was unbelievably difficult, entertaining, beautiful, and FUN!