It’s National Game and Puzzle Week! 52 Pickup

On November 18, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Jigsaw Puzzling, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

Today is the start of National Game and Puzzle Week here in the US, which is perfect for taking some of the stress out of spending time with family over Thanksgiving. Is Aunt Matilda always making you wait hours and hours for your holiday meal? Set up a jigsaw puzzle to help pass the time, what a lovely way to spend time with your family and loved ones!

You’ll get no board game recommendations from me – it’s too easy to end up arguing (just my opinion, of course). I love board and card games, but hubby is unbelievably competitive, as are many other family members. A fun game of euchre with my parents ends up with the men getting frustrated with mom and I because we “don’t take it seriously”. Mom and I then purposely try to lose, which mean we almost always end up winning; and we giggle hysterically while it’s happening. It’s safe to say the husbands are unimpressed with our behavior. 😁 I’m a jigsaw puzzle gal all the way; everyone can help, you don’t need to explain the “rules”, and everyone wins. Viva le puzzle!

So onto today’s puzzle, I chose this one for today’s post because it’s a puzzle of playing cards which can be used for many games. This puzzle had me so enraptured that I almost couldn’t walk away. I kept coming back to it even though I wasn’t feeling well; I just had to get a few more pieces put in, and I had to know if all the pieces were there!

Another good quality non-traditional Ceaco. This one is called a Conversation Pieces Trompe L’oeil jigsaw puzzle. (trompe l’oeil is a visual illusion in art, it means to trick or deceive the eye to see the painting as a three-dimensional object) Ceaco has a few of these conversation pieces puzzles, but this is the first one we’ve found in the thrift stores.

I wasn’t planning to document this assembly, but mom was here at the beginning and helped me assemble most of the first part. She went home to get some things done, and I kept sending her updated pictures. So I’ve got pics of the assembly as I went along! We started with the face cards, they were harder to assemble than we bargained for!

Conversation Pieces 1

Next I assembled the rest of the cards that were face up, and I tried to place them all approximately where they belong in the puzzle. It sure doesn’t look like much, does it?

Conversation Pieces 2

The next morning I put together the edges; it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought either. I was so excited to get that done! All that’s left is to fill in. I can’t explain how engrossed I was in this puzzle and how happy it made me. So happy!

Conversation Pieces 3

I was hoping to have a picture of it glued and mounted on foam board and hanging in my daughter’s game room. Unfortunately, it’s not on the wall yet. Bummer. Still, we had a great time with this puzzle, and it looks so cool!

If you’re not up close to see the piece shapes it looks like cards strewn across a table. I think it’s going to look amazing on the wall! Perhaps over the holiday I’ll get it hung up – my daughter and her husband are hosting Thanksgiving this year in their new home. I’m bringing the pies, and something to hang up this puzzle! You might just see a picture of it sometime soon. 😎

Christmas Eve Puzzleball

On November 10, 2018November 11, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles6 Comments

Mom found this Ravensburger puzzle ball at the thrift store – unopened! We assembled it together, and working just by the picture it was harder than you’d think. Christmas puzzles already! 😮

You could work it by the numbers if you prefer, as each piece is numbered with an arrow showing where the next piece goes. We go about half and half; we use the numbers to separate them into groups of 10, then we turn each group over and assemble them using the picture.

It’s a vintage looking image, and very pretty.

I wish I knew the name of the artwork, but all I could find was the artist’s name. It reminds me of an old movie, but I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it!

It came with both the stand it’s sitting on, and a ribbon with which to hang it on a tree; although for some reason there are no instructions on how to assemble it and add the ribbon. We figured it out (you have to put it between the last couple of pieces at the top), but decided we’d rather just let it sit on the stand. 😉

I love these puzzle balls, I’m not even sure I know exactly why. They’re fun for me, end of story!

*Is it terrible of me to hope that this year for Christmas many people get gifts of puzzles that they don’t really want, or puzzles that the family does together only once over the holiday, so that afterwards the thrift stores will be full of puzzles for us to find? It probably is terrible and selfish of me, but……

Berry Bucket

On November 5, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

Berry Bucket was completely entertaining to put together, and the finished image is beautiful! Great quality, the pretty summery artwork, and working together with mom made this an excellent all around assembly.

I worried that the sunflowers would be a frustrating, but surprisingly they were great fun; working from the center outward was the key. The greenery was the most difficult, but didn’t seem tedious or overwhelming at all. It’s just a great puzzle image that made for a wonderful assembly experience.

Jane Maday’s puzzles are so lovely, I need to find more of them!

Penny Candy

On October 30, 2018October 30, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles3 Comments

It’s one day before the best candy holiday there is, so it’s the perfect time for this lovely puzzle of Penny Candy! The bright colors and fun candies made for an excellent image that was such an entertaining assembly, I absolutely loved it!

I decided to try laying out all the pieces on my board – a completely different method than the one I normally use – to see if perhaps it was easier or more efficient for me. And since I was doing something new, I also decided to document my progress for the blog, taking pictures along the way. It’s interesting sometimes to watch how a puzzle comes together, at least I hope it is. 😉

Penny Candy 1

Many people use this method when puzzling, so I decided to try it to see if it was better for me. There are some pros, some cons; it was easier at times to find the piece I was looking for, but it made my slight OCD go a bit crazy! I wanted to line up all the pieces into neat little rows. I’m not sure it’s a method I’ll use again, but it was fun (sort of) to give it a try.

Penny Candy 2

These sections were the ones I pulled out to start on first when laying all the pieces on the board; I did pretty well and got most of the pieces on the first try!

Penny Candy 4

Everything’s starting to come together, and I’m becoming more familiar with the colors and patterns so it’s a bit easier to find those stray pieces I didn’t pull the first time. I’m loving the look of the image!

Penny Candy 5

This is how the puzzle looked just before my Puzzle Posse arrived to help finish it off. It won’t be long now!

Penny Candy - with mom

Mom’s here and helping to fill in all the blank spaces. I’m a good daughter and let her have the comfy chair right in front of the puzzle. You can see there aren’t very many pieces left to go now; with her help we finished up in no time and enjoyed every piece. How cute is my posse? So cute!

There were some VERY old fashioned ads and candy that you would absolutely never see these days…

Candy is quick energy for active bodies, put some in their lunch every day. Yowza. That definitely wouldn’t fly into today’s kale infused atmosphere, would it? And candy is delicious food, eat some every day? Oh my! Not that I dislike candy, I definitely enjoy it very much. But food? Yikes. And you wouldn’t see that syrup six shooter in any candy store today! Not only is it a gun, but it’s made out of syrup? Ew! 🤢

I’m old enough to remember penny candy; there used to be a “General Store” in my hometown with a candy counter full of penny candy. The eternally patient clerks would grab a very small brown paper bag and fill it with the candies we chose – adding up the price as we went, making sure we knew how much we were spending.

I have wonderful memories of going into town and getting 50 cents or a dollar from my parents and picking out all the different candies. My favorites were the dots on paper strips, tootsie rolls, pixie sticks, and rock candy. And I’m a child of the 70’s and 80’s, so of course we enjoyed out share of pop rocks and cosmic candy! Good times. 🍫🍬🍭

Penny Candy had me reminiscing, and I enjoyed both the memories and the puzzle!

3 Teddy Bears?

On October 28, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles3 Comments

Here’s a new one for you, I’m posting a puzzle that I DIDN’T do. It’s one of the worst quality puzzles I’ve seen in quite some time. As I was sorting it I became more and more disenchanted; and after putting together only a few pieces I put everything back in the box and put the box in the recycling.

First, the colors shown on the box do not match the puzzle – not by a long shot! The image on the box looks bright and fun, with only the bears themselves and the background looking somewhat muted. Many of the pieces are peach colored, but I don’t see that color anywhere on the box. There are so many of them that I’m thinking it must be either the yellow background behind the bears, or the tan background in the border. The other colors seem bright on the box, but are EXTREMELY muted on the pieces; the reds look pink, and the rest are just very, very pale. 😦

Second, there are 6 pieces total that have become totally delaminated. The image layer is completely separated from the cardboard backing. So basically there were 6 pieces of pretty paper in the box, along with 6 naked puzzle pieces. Not good. I was going to just fix them, but the other problems with the quality of this puzzle all added together made it seem not worth the time.

Third, there is no variety in the piece shapes; they are all what I call ballerinas. (2 prong/2 hole – 2/2 – two/two – tutu – ballerina – get it? Yes, my mind is a weird and interesting place) Normally I can deal with that if the image is entertaining, but the severely muted colors and other problems with this puzzle made it seem like it wasn’t going to be worth the effort.

Lastly, even after all the sorting, laying the pieces out on my trays, and seeing those first 3 problems I was still planning on working the puzzle. But once I started the assembly and felt the terrible way the pieces fit together it was the last straw. The fit was very spongy and the awful quality of the cardboard made it so that you couldn’t even tell from the back if the pieces were put together properly. With no variety in shape and the color issues it would have been a nightmare. Ugh!

Life is short, and puzzles are supposed to be fun – not a chore. If it doesn’t seem like fun why on Earth would I do it? Yes, we spent 99 cents on a puzzle that I’m not going to assemble, but it could be worse. We could have paid retail, we could have no more puzzles left to assemble, I could have a yeast infection – there are endless horrifying possibilities! Fortunately we only lost what amounts to loose change, there are hundreds of puzzles still here to assemble, my lady bits are perfectly fine, and I’ve learned what brand NOT to buy. All good things in my book. 😎

If you love puzzles and come across one from Giftco, set the box down and back away! We puzzlers deserve better.

*This puzzle was not named anywhere on the box, so I’ve given it an uninspired name – 3 Teddy Bears. The artwork on the box looks so adorable; it’s a pity it was licensed to this company.