Life Rules

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles5 Comments

Life Rules by Louise Carey – Andrews + Blaine – 1000 pieces

This was not an easy puzzle. Luckily, I was looking for a difficult/tedious puzzle to put on the board while I was working on all the micro puzzles for the holiday season – this one fit the bill perfectly. Putting together large letters isn’t as simple as some may think. This one tried to melt my brain!

I always love having words to assemble in a puzzle, but when the words are basically the whole image – or even when they’re just very large – it can become quite difficult. All the pieces are basically just the background color, and the color of the letter. And there were only four colors in this image, each color was used multiple times for their own set of words. It was quite the challenge.

The easiest part of this assembly was the sorting. I just had one tray for each color, and one container for any pieces that were only the background. I worked on one color at a time. Sometimes the font used for one quote was simple to find, but much of the time it wasn’t as easy to pick out the right pieces for a certain quote.

Because it was so tall and thin (13 x 37 in.), it was easy to push to the back of the board when I wanted a break from it – and that is exactly what I did. When I felt myself getting too frustrated I stopped and worked on something else. 😎

My fellow P.A.D.S. sufferer Penny sent me this several years ago, but I was never in the right frame of mind to work on it. I never have my puzzles in any order to be assembled, my brain has to be in the right “head space” to work on an image; so the puzzle I’m doing next has to speak to me in some way. This puzzle has previously never had much to say – except, “Put me back, you don’t want any of this today.”

Miss Penny has since been informed that she wasn’t getting this puzzle back – after all the work that went into this one I’ve glued the bleeping thing and will be hanging it in the puzzle room. I love the look of it, and couldn’t bear to disassemble it after all that effort!

Stevie the Hedgehog

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Stevie the Hedgehog by John Francis – Wentworth – 15 pieces

Of the three kid’s puzzles I got from Wentworth, this is the one I’m keeping….for now. He’s too cute for me to give away just yet. Besides, it’s always a good idea to have an extra gift hanging around the house for emergencies.

Stevie is absolutely adorable, and he was a lot of fun to assemble too. The extra big pieces, bright colors, and sweet image made for a great time; Wentworth did such a great job with these puzzles for children, they’re truly lovely.

It makes me wish my kids were still little so I could do these puzzles with them. We would have had so much fun with these. (I miss my kids being little 😭)

Such great whimsies, all ones that even young children will recognize. A snowman and Santa are pretty easy to spot, and there’s also a little representation of Stevie himself. Adorable!

Wanted to show you the extra large pieces that are easier for little hands to hold and work with. Mom always said to give a reference when a puzzle was larger or smaller than normal, so that people can appreciate the actual size. When you see this piece in my hand you can tell that this is a puzzle with extremely big pieces made especially for children.

I loved this one! 🦔💖

No More Galison Puzzles For Me….Ever

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling13 Comments

I normally do not buy Galison puzzles new, many people love them – I do not. I don’t care for the chipboard they use, the feel of it in my hands, the lack of variety in piece shape, etc. …. they’re just not my pile of pieces. I’ve done a couple of reviews and actually really enjoyed them; but the more of their puzzles that I completed, the further down they went in my mental list of puzzle companies. I don’t mind if I get them from the thrift store, but I do not buy them new.

While puzzle shopping recently, I wavered. My resolve weakened and I gave in because I adored the image so much – I was willing to put up with all the things I dislike about their puzzles for such a fantastic and interesting image.

Once the box was opened, however, I got mad. Both at Galison for the quality and myself for giving in and buying it. I opened the bag of pieces, and there were SO many still attached. Now, when I say that you might be thinking “There are always a few pieces attached, what’s the big deal?” That’s true, it usually isn’t a problem at all – but that is NOT what I’m talking about here.

There are probably at least 200 pieces of the 1000 piece puzzle still attached, and they’re that way because the die didn’t cut all the way through. So much so that if I tried to get them apart I would damage them. In theory I could get an exacto knife and cut them apart, but it would probably take me an hour or two sitting at the board working on this puzzle before I could even start sorting it. It shouldn’t take all that work and effort on my part just to be able to start assembling a puzzle!

*200 pieces is a generous estimate, it’s more like between 250-400 pieces still attached in groups of 2, 3, 4, and 5*

You can see in the picture that the pieces are not cut through, on many pieces you cannot see the piece shape from the back. If you look at the box you can see in the bag still that there are many, many more attached. These are just the ones I grabbed from the top of the pile, I wasn’t searching them out, they are everywhere in the bag. Everywhere.

Not only were so many pieces still attached, many of them were damaged – because a properly cut puzzle will break apart when it’s being packaged. But since these pieces weren’t cut through they were smashed together with some force when being put into the plastic bag and into the box. They’re bent, the chipboard is split apart in some places, and the image is coming off where that happened.

It’s the worst quality brand new puzzle I’ve ever opened. Ever. And you know I’ve opened a LOT of puzzles.

For only the second time in my life, I returned a puzzle to the store. The only other time this happened was with the Ceaco advent calendar in 2019. Usually I just deal with bad quality, let the company know so they can make improvements (hopefully), and get on with my life. But this one actually pissed me off – I REALLY wanted to assemble this puzzle, the image was so amazing – and there was no way it was going to happen with such horrid cutting. If 25-40% of the puzzle is already put together for me, it wouldn’t feel like I’d actually assembled it myself. So very disappointing.

In addition to returning the puzzle, I contacted Galison’s customer service to let them know how disappointed I was and the specifics of the problem in the hopes they could work with their manufacturer to improve the brand’s quality. I let them know that the puzzle had already been returned, and specifically that I was NOT looking for a replacement. Two times in my email I stated that I was letting them know what was wrong only in the hope that they would work to improve quality, not for a free puzzle. They offered one anyway – which is good customer service I suppose, but I said I didn’t want one.

They sent a link to the form to be filled out for a replacement puzzle. Which even if I wanted to I cannot fill out. I stated twice in my email that the puzzle had already been returned to the store where it was purchased; so I no longer have it, obviously. The form you have to fill out requires both the ISBN and batch numbers from the puzzle – I already said I took it back! Even if I wanted a replacement I no longer have that information. Grrrr.

I was going to show you a picture of the image, letting you see how cool it was and why I bought it even though this brand isn’t a favorite; but decided against it. I think the artist is awesome, and the image is really great; it’s just too bad it was licensed to a company that made such an awful puzzle. Besides, the artist’s image doesn’t need to be associated with a horrible review, it wasn’t their fault at all.

Galison has joined Ceaco on the banned list. They won’t be getting any of my money again. Ever. 🚫

LIFE IS TOO SHORT FOR CRAPPY PUZZLES!

Tinsel Town

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

Tinsel Town by Richard Macneil – Wentworth – 40 pieces

Tinsel Town was the last of the micro puzzles from Wentworth that I assembled this season. (Don’t worry, there are still plenty left to show you, this isn’t the end of the holiday puzzles) It was a little more time consuming than it looks like it would be, but it was a fun assembly. I had a good time in spite of myself. 😉

This was purchased a couple of years ago, but for some reason I never got around to putting it together. Most likely it just got lost in the shuffle, it’s probably not because of the image. A couple of years ago I bought EVERY single micro puzzle Wentworth had without regard to image. It’s one of those holiday puzzles I don’t normally care for; however, with such a small piece count it wasn’t nearly as tedious as my brain thought it would be.

Don’t get me wrong, the artwork by Richard Macneil is absolutely beautiful. I appreciate the colors and the use of light – it’s truly lovely. I just have an (admittedly) irrational dislike of puzzles with traditional Christmas images. They just all seem the same, and for me that’s boring. I recognize and appreciate the artwork, they’re beautiful. Honestly, some of them – like this one – are stunningly beautiful. They’re just not what I like to assemble, that’s all.

The usual nicely accented whimsy pieces; my favorite is the snowman with his pointy carrot nose. ⛄🥕

Brian’s Worst Nightmare

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

Brian’s Worst Nightmare – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

This one was done in about 3 days, which is pretty fast for one of our bathroom puzzles. Hubby said it was because he doesn’t care for cats and wanted to finish it quickly. I wasn’t fooled though, it was finished fast because it’s a cartoon puzzle with bright colors on a white background and it was relatively easy – and he enjoyed it more than he’s willing to admit.

You may be wondering about the title – Brian’s Worst Nightmare – it’s a great title! To tell you why I’ll have to tell you a little bit about MicroPuzzles. It’s a small company run by a husband and wife team in Anaheim, California. One of their “employees” is Brian in shipping – and he’s their adorable dog! Here’s what their website says…

Part unpaid intern, part scapegoat, part family pet – he has been a two time (non consecutive) Employee of the Month in June 2018 (and again in February 2021).  Brian (whose real name is Presto) is a 13 year old senior rescue with a sunny disposition and a bad habit of handing out discount codes.  He’s the oldest and least productive member of the staff…. but we love him anyway.

So, this puzzle full of cats is Brian’s Worst Nightmare. It made me laugh out loud when I saw the title for the first time, and it makes me smile now when I think about it. Although, since this puzzle came in a box with many puzzles and the name of the artwork isn’t on their tube’s label, I had to go to their website to find the official title.

As for the assembly, it wasn’t quite as easy as hubby thought. He put together the entire border, and started working on the inside completely on his own in the middle of the night. When I started working on it, the realization came quickly that the border wasn’t quite correct and had to spend some time trying to figure out where he went wrong. The images of the cats are repeated, so he got a little mixed up and had things switched around – but it was put to right with not too much trouble. I almost wish I’d been able to do a little more of it, because honestly he did the majority, but I love that he was so engaged with it and almost couldn’t stop working on it.

It’s such a cute puzzle, with an even cuter title – and even though it was full of cats hubby had a great time putting it together. And so did I. 😸

*On a side note, the owners of MicroPuzzles (and the company itself) own one of the oldest examples of jigsaw puzzles in existence – a John Spilsbury in it’s original box with label! It’s from 1767, and is in excellent condition. A 250 year old puzzle, wouldn’t you love to see that up close? You can see pictures of this amazing puzzle here.

For those of you who don’t know, John Spilsbury is credited as the inventor of the jigsaw puzzle, which he originally named “dissected maps”. As a young man he was apprenticed to the Royal Geographer to King George III, and he came up with the idea of mounting maps to thin pieces of wood and cutting them along borders as an educational tool to teach children geography.

It’s almost impossible to say who made the very first puzzle; in the early 18th century people were creating jigsaw puzzles by painting images on wood and then cutting them apart. John Spilsbury was the first one to “commercialize” them by making his dissected maps and selling them, so he became known as their inventor.