Category: Miscellaneous

Happy Mother’s Day!

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Miscellaneous6 Comments
My gorgeous momma!

I hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday, and if you celebrate Mother’s Day I hope it’s a fabulous holiday for you. As for me, hopefully I’ll be in bed being pampered by the kids and hubby – or sitting in front of my puzzle board putting together little pieces of cardboard or wood to make a pretty picture.

If you’re a mom – thank you for all the wonderful, tedious, brave, boring, gracious, heartbreaking, compassionate, caring, forgiving and loving things you do. Even if it isn’t spoken aloud to you enough (and it never is), it is always appreciated. If you’re not a mom, Happy Mother’s Day anyway!

Enjoy your day everyone; my wish for you is lots of love and peaceful puzzling.

Of course the picture above is my beautiful, loving, fantastic, silly, sweet, kind momma. She was the first and most important member of my Puzzle Posse and she loved sitting with me and talking about everything and nothing while we worked together on puzzles. I treasure every moment we had no matter what we were doing, her momma mojo was amazing and as friends we were the bestest of besties. She is so very missed – especially today. 💗

Sorry Guys…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Miscellaneous26 Comments

My apologies for not giving all my faithful readers a heads up, life kinda took me over for a bit and it was all just too much. I took a very much needed mental health break, including a trip back to my home state of Michigan to visit loved ones.

I haven’t touched a puzzle since the last time I posted, on June 2nd. But today, at the very least, I’m back on my computer and sitting at my puzzle table.

Depression and anxiety are no joke, and dealing with them on a daily basis sucks big time. Life just overwhelmed me; hubby had another surgery and I had to drive him everywhere – my anxiety about being on the road went absolutely crazy. That made the depression worse and it was just an infinite circle of one feeding the other. I’m sure that being away from my puzzles didn’t help, but I honestly spent almost all of the last 6 weeks in bed and jigsaw puzzles weren’t even on my mind.

But at least I’ve chosen my next puzzle, a collage of canines that make me smile. Plus, it’s the smallest piece count I have here at the moment (750) other than a 500 piece of 12 shaped puzzles that I’m just not in the mood for right now. I will try to get it sorted today, and may even start on it – but no promises.

So how are you all? Working on some fantastic puzzles? I’d love to hear from you!

*My sincerest apologies for disappearing again, I’m just doing the best I can.*

My Latest Subscription Box

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous10 Comments

May subscription box from MicroPuzzles

I was so tickled by this month’s box that I decided to share it with you all. On the same day that my husband took me to a local kitchen supply shop to force me to spend some gift certificates, we received this fun-packed box in the mail. What a coincidence!

So along with my new mixing bowl, fancy knives and beautiful bamboo utensils from the store I also got a couple of very nice looking baking-themed puzzles, some puzzle piece cookie cutters and a refrigerator magnet with a measuring conversion table. It definitely cheered me up some. 😊

Along with some baking facts you can also see the full puzzle images on the right – don’t they look like fun? I wish I had the first one, Bake Someone Happy, in a larger piece count; it’ll be fun in this 150 piece puzzle, but it would also be great at 500 or 1000 pieces too I think.

I’m looking forward to both puzzles very much, and can’t wait to see what next month will have in store. 💙

1000 Piece Puzzles – How Long Should It Take?

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous13 Comments

The answer is simply this – however long it takes.

There is no right way, wrong way, or time frame anyone should stick to; puzzling works best for you when you don’t compare yourself or how you puzzle with anyone else.

I’ve seen many an article/blog post/answer to this question – how long does it take to complete a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. There are averages I suppose, but if it takes you much longer than it takes me that doesn’t mean a thing.

Perhaps you have young children, a full time job, or less inclination to sit at the puzzle table as much as I do……so what? Are you having fun? If the answer is yes then however long it takes you is the PERFECT amount of time.

There are many factors that go into how long puzzles take to complete; the image, the cut, the quality, your preferred method of puzzling, etc. An easy collage image doesn’t take nearly as long as a landscape with plenty of sky and grass to deal with; so there’s no way to tell you how long it “should” take. It takes as long as is necessary for you.

It all depends on how you puzzle, and as long as you’re enjoying the assembly it doesn’t matter if it takes one day or six months!

What Are You Working On?

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous4 Comments

What fabulous puzzle are you working on this Mother’s Day weekend? Have you treated yourself to a beautiful puzzle that you can spend some time on tomorrow? I certainly hope so.

I’m laying out a new wooden puzzle I bought for myself so the actual assembly hasn’t started yet. It was just delivered yesterday and by the time it got here I was done for the day. I bought myself a few small wooden puzzles from Artifact that were on sale and looked interesting to me. It’s been a little while since I’ve assembled a wooden puzzle that wasn’t a mini (40 pieces), so a week ago I decided it was time to change that and get myself a few new puzzles.

The one I’m assembling first isn’t really an image that I think I would go for usually, it’s the cut of the pieces that makes it interesting. It’s the same cut as In Dreams, the second wooden puzzle I ever owned – it was a gift from mom 5 years ago. Anyway, the cut is one I’ve only ever seen from Artifact (they call it mini-hex), and to me it makes for such an entertaining and challenging assembly that I’m not certain the image matters much at all really.

It’s only a 105 piece puzzle, so sorting isn’t really necessary; I’ll just lay out the pieces and get to it. But the cut and the image will make it so that concentration and focus will be necessary – I’ll be completely absorbed by the assembly. Love that!