Next up……

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Regular readers, get ready for a shock…..I’m starting a 2000 piece puzzle today!! I’ve been in a “collage” mood lately, and mom brought me this beautiful 2000 piece Ravensburger she found on her last thrift store safari.

I did a little bit of sorting yesterday, but don’t have enough trays to lay out all the pieces because we’re using about 20 of them on the Mystery Puzzle. In addition to the edge pieces, I pulled out some sections to start with; the dark background of Las Vegas, the tan backgrounds of San Francisco and Hawaii, and all of the words. That ought to keep me busy for a little while. 🙂

My last 2000 piece puzzle was in 2017, wow! It’s time for another one, don’t you think?

New In Progress

In Progress

I started a new puzzle this morning – a collage of album covers! This is the first album I put together, and I can already tell it’s going to be a very entertaining assembly. 😉

There’s a lot of dark and indistinct areas, but because it’s a Springbok puzzle with a random cut it might be a little easier than normal to find the pieces I need. It’s a big one, 24 x 30 inches, but having so many small sections to assemble makes it seem much less daunting.

What are you working on this weekend?

Mystery Box – Day 21

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One entire edge complete!

Mom and I have finally gotten back to work on the Mystery Puzzle! And although we found and assembled quite a few pieces in the last few days there’s one piece in particular that made us both VERY happy – we found the one we needed to complete the top edge of the puzzle!!

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We only needed one, thin, tiny little piece to complete the top edge. Yay! I can report that the this edge measures almost 30 inches across, but we still have no idea how tall it’s going to be. Since it’s obviously a building, and the color line cutting makes for many straight edges that go on the inside of the puzzle, we aren’t really even attempting to assemble the edges.

We’re finding (or trying to find) significantly interestingly shaped pieces and working outwards. Although you can see from the pictures that many of them are significantly interesting, so it isn’t as easy as we’d hoped. 😉

Most of the work we’ve been doing over the last couple of days is in small chunks of pieces that are on trays and scattered all over the board. I didn’t take pictures of them because I was too excited about sharing the progress of finding that one teeny piece. Still, every piece we find that connects to something is a triumph; and we’re continuing to revel in the fun of the mystery, the crazy wonderful pieces, and the time spent together. 💗😍💗

National Puzzle Day 2019

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Happy National Puzzle Day!

Here at My Jigsaw Journal I’m sure you can guess which type of puzzles we love the most, but today isn’t just for jigsaw puzzles, it’s puzzles of all kinds – crosswords, logic, brain teasers, anagrams, word searches, etc. If you like to “puzzle” you are definitely welcome here, but the focus is definitely on jigsaws. 😉

I’ve done puzzles since I was very young, mostly at my grandmother’s side. She always seemed to have a jigsaw puzzle in progress at her house, and she was never impatient with my sisters and me picking up pieces and trying them in every single empty spot (regardless of color or shape). She had the patience of a saint sometimes! This is a photo I shared on this day back in 2017 of the two of us at her house sometime in the mid-1970’s.

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This is my favorite picture of us, although it’s been around 45 years or so since I was that cute!

Nowadays I mostly puzzle alone; but sometimes I’m fortunate enough to get to assemble jigsaws with one or more members of my small “puzzle posse” – Mom, hubby, daughter, and my oldest son. Many times the solitude of puzzling by myself is exactly what I need, but I also enjoy being able to spend time with loved ones around the puzzle board. Being together, working towards a common goal, laughing, teasing, celebrating the small victory of a found piece or connecting two sections – these are worth more to me than any “thing” could ever be. For me, jigsaw puzzles are a family thing. 🙂

I love jigsaw puzzles of all kinds, and I love the calm that puzzling seems to bring me. I started this blog for a giant puzzle project, but have kept it going because I enjoy assembling, talking, and writing about jigsaw puzzles of every shape and size. If you’re new here feel free to stick around and check out the puzzles I’ve put together over the past few years. If you’re a regular reader, thanks for hanging out and talking puzzles with me. I appreciate every single one of you!

Thank to my regular readers for sharing your P.A.D.S. diagnoses too, it helps to know we are not alone. Tell your puzzle friends about this syndrome so they too can be a part of the PADS Posse, and this community of fellow sufferers. We are all here for each other!😂😂

I hope you find time today to turn off those electronic screens and spend some time with whatever kind of puzzle makes you happy. This may surprise you, but I think I’ll spend part of today assembling a jigsaw puzzle or two. Shocking! 😱

Enjoy National Puzzle Day my friends!

The Cake Off – In Progress

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The Cake Off

I’ve been sidelined for the last few days with a doozy of a cold, and haven’t touched my puzzle in progress. I did manage to do a bit of sorting early this morning when I couldn’t sleep, and finally got some pieces put together!

It’s a little more challenging for me than normal, because I don’t have any trays to lay out the pieces,  scrabbling through the box trying to find things is NOT how I like to work. All of my trays (and some borrowed from mom) are being used on the mystery box puzzle, so I’m having to try to assemble this puzzle in a completely different way. Ick.

This puzzle is perfect for me at the moment; it’s from Ravensburger’s What If series and it’s called The Cake Off. My husband and I have been watching The Great British Baking Show the past few weeks, and this image is a send up of that series. We love the show, so I was pleasantly surprised when the next puzzle in the series for me to assemble was this one. 🙂

It’s been relatively untouched for 3 days, but I’m hoping to be able to do a little more work on it today. Can’t wait to see what happens at The Cake Off!