Category: Jigsaw Puzzles

The Sunny City

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

The Sunny City by Felicia Chiao – Magic Puzzle Company – 1000 pieces

Oh man, I worked really hard on this puzzle and I’m so bummed I can’t show you all my work. *sigh* Oh well, that’s my policy when it comes to “mystery” puzzles, I never give away the ending and only show you a part of the puzzle that is shown on the box so there are NO SPOILERS here at My Jigsaw Journal.

I’ll never forget my first mystery puzzle, it was a Wasgij, and I was looking for an image of the box top to put on the What’s On My Board section of the blog, and the first image that popped up was a picture of the completed puzzle. I was so upset, I wanted to do the puzzle myself and figure it out and now I couldn’t un-see the solution! I will never do that to anyone so my policy is firm and I don’t do spoilers here. (I also never look for a mystery puzzle box image to put on the blog’s home page anymore!)

Magic Puzzle Company is a new to me brand, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about; the only way to do that is try it for myself. The pieces are a good thickness and there are an excellent variety of shapes that fit together well, if somewhat loosely; the fit seemed quite loose while assembling the border, but gets better the more you go along. The image reproduction is excellent with a matte finish and I enjoyed putting this one together more than I thought I would. Overall I would give it a good/very good rating.

If you haven’t heard of this brand, it’s called the Magic Puzzle Company because once you finish the puzzle there’s an extra packet to open, which helps you make your puzzle do a magic trick. It’s pretty cool, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

In the box you get the packet of pieces, the secret envelope, two posters (so you can have a friend join in the fun), a card with some info about the company and the puzzle itself and some easter eggs to look for in the completed image. The packet with pieces is closed with velcro so that none can escape, and the secret packet is closed with string ties; all meant to be reusable so you can send this puzzle on to others to enjoy once you’re done. In addition there is a sticker on the inside of the box top to record who completed the puzzle and the date – it’s meant to be passed on to others to share in the fun. I like that, and I have filled it out now that the puzzle is complete. 📝

There are a few whimsies in this puzzle, and for some reason I’m not sure of there is one very large piece. I have no explanation for it, just wanted to show you.

There are many things I want to say about this puzzle and the assembly – but I can’t without spoiling things. It’s frustrating. When I was working on the border I said to myself “I need to tell them …..” but then when I started writing up the post I realized I can’t tell you that, it might spoil things. Then something happened when I was working the inside of the image and the same thought came into my head, that I needed to remember to tell you that _______ happened – but I can’t!

Just ask Penny; I was texting her the day I finished it telling her how I was p*ssed that I put all that work into putting the puzzle together and I can’t show anyone or even say much about it. Luckily she says she doesn’t care for the artwork on their puzzles so she won’t be assembling any of them – so she got ALL the pictures that day, quite a few pictures showing everything – proof that I did all the work!😂

I really did enjoy this puzzle, even more than I thought I would. The artwork seemed as though it was all very much the same color palate and honestly I wasn’t sure how entertaining or difficult it would be to assemble, but it turned out to be great for puzzling and I had a very good time with it. Wish I could say more, I just refuse to spoil anything at all, so I can’t.

So what do you think? Are you up for a Magic Puzzle of your own? Abracadabra! 🧩

Spring Patchwork

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Spring Patchwork by Bethan Janine – Elena Essex – 1000 pieces

This was another lend from Penny, and boy was she right about how much I would enjoy this one. I could not leave it alone. I kept going back to it over and over again and it was started and completed on the same day for this reason – it was too much fun!

My first Elena Essex puzzle – quality. It was good, excellent variety of shapes, beautiful reproduction with a matte finish, nice thick pieces that fit together well.

This was my favorite section to assemble, there’s something about the colors and the image itself. Most of the details are paler colors than I normally enjoy, but the dark background made this so entertaining for me. Gorgeous!

Most of this puzzle was super easy to sort, but this little section was the hardest to get all of the pieces for, I just kept missing ones I should have seen. And that little greenhouse was harder than it looks for me to assemble. Still this was a fun section to put together.

There’s something so beautiful about this simple little section. It was one of the last I assembled, but I enjoyed every piece. Absolutely gorgeous.

I enjoyed this puzzle very, very much – and like several others I’ve done lately I found myself wishing it had been a larger piece count because it was over much too soon. Each little section was it’s own little puzzle and they fit together beautifully into this gorgeous 1000 piece stunner. Of course I loved it. 💖

The Sunflowers

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles12 Comments

The Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh – Trefl – 200 pieces

Oh man was I super excited to find a wooden puzzle at the thrift store – it’s never happened to me before and even better than just finding it – it was new, unopened! I couldn’t believe my luck and was so excited to assemble it. I had a puzzle on my board and was looking forward to finishing it quickly so I could get to work on this one. Sigh. As you can see, it’s more than just missing a few pieces; by my count it is missing 42 pieces. ☹

Both Penny and hubby brought up that it might just look like it hadn’t been opened, someone could have opened and assembled it and then did some fancy stuff to make it look like new when it was donated. It’s a possibility, but I don’t think that’s what happened. They could have made the outside look unopened, but the puzzle itself is in a paper bag sealed with a Trefl sticker showing the image on the puzzle and what looks like a product number. That bag was also unopened, the sticker had never been removed or peeled away from the paper. I believe it came from the factory this way, but I cannot say for sure. Even though this is the first Trefl puzzle I have ever done, I can’t with certainty say whether the missing pieces are the fault of the company so I can’t speak about their quality control without knowing whose fault this was.

What makes this even more upsetting for me was not only are so many pieces missing, it is a double-sided puzzle! Have you ever heard of a double-sided wooden puzzle? I hadn’t. When I started turning pieces over I was shocked that there’s an image on the back, a black line drawing of sunflowers. If this had been a complete puzzle it would have made me so happy to have found it for only $4.99. A shaped wooden puzzle, inside a rectangular puzzle, with another image on the back – how cool is that? Now it’s basically just an extra box to put in the recycling.

It was so interesting to me that this wasn’t just a rectangular puzzle of the artwork, but the vase of sunflowers itself could be done by itself as a shaped puzzle. This puzzle is just so different from every other wooden puzzle I’ve ever done, it would have been a definite keeper had it been complete.

Other than the fact that 20% of this puzzle was missing, it was relatively good quality. The pieces were about the same thickness as a Wentworth with a matte finish, the fit was quite loose but not too much so, the pieces of the frame were regularly shaped and the inner part of the puzzle had more irregular shapes – it should have five whimsies, but they were absent. You can see from their missing shapes that they were a chair, a bed, a leaf, a sunflower, and a vase of sunflowers.

This puzzle was quite a disappointment, but here’s how I’m choosing to look at it – I didn’t pay full price and I did get about two hours of quality puzzle time out of it even if it was incomplete. My job was to put together all the pieces until none were left, I completed my mission. Where else can you get two hours of entertainment that’s also good for your health for only five dollars? And, as a bonus, I saved someone else from spending their hard-earned money on a puzzle with so many missing pieces. Yay me!

Disappointing, but still I had a good time putting together the pieces that were there. That’s how I’m choosing to look at it. Onward to the next puzzle!

The World of Charles Dickens

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

The World of Charles Dickens by Barry Falls – Laurence King – 1000 pieces

I had a great time with this puzzle, it was so much fun! Puzzles with a lot going on or a lot of buildings are not usually my thing, but this one was really entertaining. This is another puzzle from a swap with Penny; it’s so great that we don’t always have the same taste in puzzle images, because this way I get to do puzzles I wouldn’t normally go for and sometimes find out that even if the image isn’t something that connects with me that it can still be great fun to assemble.

This is only my third Laurence King puzzle, and the first one I’ve done that was manufactured in China. The previous ones I’ve done, Pop Art Puzzle and The World of Frankenstein were both manufactured in The Netherlands and were of excellent quality. A friend and fellow puzzle blogger from Europe told me about the bad quality of this brand’s puzzles that were made in China, so I’ve steered clear of those and only bought ones I could be certain where they were made. That being said, even though this was made in China it wasn’t too bad. We’ll start with the pros; the fit was exceptional (stay tuned for one of my famous puzzle standing up pictures), the finish was matte and had a wonderful hand feel, there were a good variety of piece shapes, and the image reproduction was excellent. On the negative side; this puzzle was secondhand from Penny, so with her disassembling it to put back in the box, the pieces showed that the chipboard used was far less superior – the tabs had already begun to fray and part of the image was delaminating. At the corners of many pieces the image was coming up and it made my usual post completion puzzle massage less satisfying as I didn’t want to cause any more damage by making the image come off even more.

Overall I’d say it was a good quality puzzle, but I much prefer the Netherlands made puzzles from this brand, they have the same quality as a Jumbo puzzle with an almost waxy feel to the finish and the much nicer chipboard. Just my opinion of course, please don’t come for me.

The image is so detailed with so many things to see, this is just one little section with many characters set in London. I’ll be honest and tell you that I have never read any of Dickens’ work, so I have no idea who these people are or anything about them. But you don’t need to know anything about the author (which I didn’t) to enjoy this puzzle, it’s just an entertaining image that makes for a fun assembly.

On the back of the very large (almost too big if you ask me) poster is this synopsis of Dickens’ life, with a legend of the characters and places represented in the artwork. It tells a little bit about each of his books, and shows you the people and places he wrote about. Very cool! I feel like I learned something after reading this, and that’s always a good thing in my book.

No one asked for it, but I did it anyway cause it makes me so very happy – puzzle standing up in the Stacey Stance picture!

Hershey’s S’mores

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Hershey’s S’mores – Buffalo – 300 pieces

Quick little puzzle that helped pass the time while we were waiting to see if dad was going to be discharged from the hospital, it’s pretty cute but almost seemed too easy – I needed to concentrate on something in order to keep my mind occupied a little more than this image required. It’s all good though, great quality puzzle with an adorable image.

My apologies for the picture, I had to come at it from an angle to keep the glare off of it, but I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped. I tried. Thanks for the lend of this one Penny!