…Gator In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

The Pinwheel Gator by Alex Beard – Liberty – 512 pieces

This one is going slowly, but it’s nothing to do with the puzzle itself, I just can’t sit for long at the table. Besides, I don’t look at the box image when I’m working on a wooden puzzle; it makes it last longer and I can really be in the moment and enjoy everything a wooden puzzle has to offer.

Normally I don’t work from top to bottom, but that’s just how this one is going. I started with the purple color at the top and am working each color from there down. It’s quite fun!

From what I can see from the pieces I think this is another puzzle from Liberty that has an additional character/image to assemble. Remember The Seven Chakras where each little puzzle had a representation of the chakra that could be assembled as a multipiece whimsy? Well, I’m pretty sure this puzzle has a big gator that can be assembled with some of the pieces.

It doesn’t seem to be one like Birds, whose Alternate Solution used every piece; it looks as though only some of the pieces will be used.

I hope it isn’t too difficult, because I really wanna try to get it done when I’m finished with this puzzle. 🐊

Garden Shed*

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

Garden Shed* – Hua Cao Shu Mu – 300 pieces

Sorry to do this to you two days in a row, but I’ve got no puzzles left in my queue, and I did these two puzzles one right after the other. Wanna guess about the quality? Did you guess that it needed a very big straw? You are correct!

  • Image reproduction – horrible and blurry.
  • Fit – loose, pieces sometimes fit where they don’t belong
  • Piece shape – only one shape – BORING
  • Chipboard – thin with a tendency to peel apart
  • Backing – sharp white backing with letters on it to assist in assembly

I did not enjoy the assembly, it was just one I wanted to get it done to get this box of puzzles out of my sight.

If you see a puzzle box with the name Hua Cao Shu Mu on it, set it down and walk away. It isn’t worth the frustration.

Puzzler’s Desk

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles6 Comments

Puzzler’s Desk by Steve Read – Hua Cao Shu Mu – 300 pieces

Ugh. This puzzle sucked. I would enjoy doing this image put onto a quality puzzle, but on this crap-tastic thing wasn’t any fun at all.

I have a bad attitude about it, admittedly. But it is what it is, this is my blog and I’m expressing my feelings. Here they are – if you see puzzles that are so friggin’ cheap that you can hardly believe it, there’s a reason and you should run away. I didn’t purchase this new, it was bought second-hand at a thrift store, so at least this company didn’t get any of my hard-earned money, but it still ticks me off.

Also, I know for a fact that these companies steal these images and the artists get no compensation at all, which makes me even more upset. It shouldn’t be easy to get away with theft like this, but unfortunately it is. It’s depressing.

This puzzle sucked. End of story.

The Pinwheel Gator In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

The Pinwheel Gator by Alex Beard – Liberty – 512 pieces

It’s sorted, but hasn’t been started yet; and there are SO MANY whimsy pieces that laying them all out to take a picture is gonna take a very long time! Therefore you just get a little preview today of some of the whimsy pieces in this gorgeous puzzle.

Many of the whimsies seem as though they’re Mardi Gras themed, and since Mardi Gras starts this Friday I thought this was the perfect time to get this puzzle going. I’ve had it here for months and months, and have really been looking forward to it. 😍

Hope you all have fabulous puzzles in the works right now, I know I’ll really be enjoying myself putting this beauty together!

1980s Novels

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles10 Comments

1980s Novels – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

This puzzle went together so quickly once I actually started on the assembly. It was sorted the day before, but didn’t start assembly at all until the next morning. It began in the morning and was finished before I went to bed that night. It was so much fun – it was definitely the right puzzle to help lift my mood!

The quality was actually on the better side of an average Re-marks puzzle, I had no issues with the fit or the reproduction at all. It was a very good quality puzzle, which made me even happier. 😎

To be perfectly honest, the fact that this cover was in the collage is basically the reason I bought this puzzle. I picked it up in the store and my eye went to this book and I didn’t even look at the rest of the book covers; it had already been decided! Ready for a little reminiscing?

When I was in the 10th grade my English teacher gave us a list of about 150 or so books that she considered very good literature, and those were the books we were to pick from to do book reports or whatever it was she called them. I LOVED reading and I think I went through more of those books than any other of her students. I didn’t turn in papers on all of them, but I loved having that list and found books I thought I would like and just read them for myself. That’s how I found this book. I enjoyed it so much that I gave my library copy to mom to read – and she loved it too. It’s the first book in a series of six, and it’s set in prehistoric times when it’s possible that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon humans were sharing the world. I know, it doesn’t sound that interesting, but mom and I loved it! She loved it so much that she got all the books on tape that were available from the library and we would listen to them in the car on our weekend trips with dad to softball tournaments.

I’ve re-read the entire series several times. I love the books, and now they also remind me of mom because we both loved them so much. 💕

I’m not sure how I found this book, but I recall being completely absorbed by it when I first read it. Plus, look at that cover – it’s gorgeous! This is one of the ones I picked out on the initial sorting, and it was so fun to put together.

Mom and I loved Fannie Flagg books; she found some of her novels from the early 2000’s and encouraged me to read them. Honestly I’ve never read Fried Green Tomatoes, but some of her other books I’ve read over and over and mom and I absolutely adored them. The workings of a small town and the hilarity that comes from just regular people being themselves made for such fun novels, and some of them were just heartbreakingly beautiful. Fannie Flagg books make me think of mom, and how we were very alike in the books that we enjoyed.

This puzzle was a joy to put together, and many of the books made me think of my beautiful momma, which was sad but also brought back sweet memories.

If you’re looking for a puzzle with good quality and a great image, I highly recommend this one. I adored it! 👍👍