Viva Las Vegas!

On January 30, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

This puzzle was more fun than I expected – don’t you love it when that happens? I do! I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been wrong about a puzzle, thinking it will be easy and it ends up being hard, or vice versa – or thinking it will be fun and it ends up being a drag, or vice versa. It seems I’m almost never right on the money about how enjoyable or difficult a puzzle will be, but it’s still fun being happily surprised. 🙂

I love the colors, which gave it just the right amount of difficulty, I think it made it a bit easier than it would have been without the extra color.

Las Vegas 1

I was surprised at the detail in this puzzle. This section is only about 20 pieces out of this 750 piece puzzle, and you can see how detailed the image is. There’s even a McDonald’s there on the strip!

This was a thrift store purchase, and even with a missing piece and several chewed pieces I still had a great time with it. You can see above that somebody’s pet (or child) enjoyed a chew on several of the pieces. And the image is so detailed that you can’t even really see the missing piece, that’s a bonus too in my book. 😉

Even with chewed up and missing pieces I still enjoyed this assembly much more than I thought I would, and it was a well made and great quality puzzle. Everything doesn’t have to perfect for me to enjoy a puzzle, this is a perfect example of that.

National Puzzle Day 2020

On January 29, 2020January 29, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

It’s National Puzzle Day! Today is the day to celebrate all things puzzle – jigsaw puzzles, crosswords, logic puzzles, sudoku, word searches, etc. I enjoy puzzles of all kinds, but it won’t be a surprise for you to hear that jigsaw puzzles are my favorite. I learned my love of puzzles from my family, so today is a day for me to remember and appreciate my loved ones as well as enjoying some puzzles.

Every year I write a special post on this day, to remember the people who helped me love jigsaw puzzles as much as I do. This year, with my heart still broken from losing my mom, all I can think about is her and how much we enjoyed puzzling together. We’ll never sit together in front of a puzzle board again, and the loss still feels too heavy to bear.

I miss her on many levels, she was my mother after all. But in her later years we became the best of friends, and our shared love of all things jigsaw puzzle was one of the reasons why. We could talk about, look at, shop for, and work on puzzles for hours on end; no one else in our lives felt about puzzles the way we did, and we loved sharing them with each other. She was the first and most important member of my puzzle posse, and I miss her terribly.

My mother encouraged me to assemble the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle, and to start this blog; she was my first follower, my most faithful reader, and always cheered me on. My love of puzzles blossomed mostly because I was always able to share them with her, and they will always be a reminder of her too.

National Puzzle Day will forever be a day for me to remember my mother, and her mother – the two women in my life who taught me to love puzzles of all kinds. I got my start with jigsaw puzzles as a child at my grandmother’s side, and spent countless hours as an adult side by side with my mother assembling them. They were beautiful, kind, loving women, and for me this day is another reason to remember and honor them.

Happy National Puzzle Day my friends!

I miss you Gram, I miss you Mom. 💖

Cats Around the World

On January 28, 2020January 28, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles7 Comments

We were sorting through some of mom’s puzzles, and my daughter said to me “here’s one with a lot of cats”. My response was “Ugh, no thanks”, but then she said it was funny, so I had to take a look at it. I’m glad I did because this is not only a funny image, but was an entertaining assembly too.

I haven’t done a Dowdle puzzle in quite a long time, when did they start using just the one piece shape? And why in the world are so many companies using only one shape? It’s really frustrating, do they think that’s what we like or want? News flash puzzle companies – we like variety in shapes even if it’s only within a ribbon or grid cut – only one piece shape is BORING to work with.

This puzzle came with a legend that names all the cats and tells where they’re from…

Cats 1

Starting at the bottom in the middle and going around clockwise…

Sheriff “Cat” Masterson – Dodge City, Kansas
Audrey Hep-PURR-n – Belgium
Trojan Mouse – Greece
Fat Cat – Wall Street, New York

Cats 2

Starting at the top left and continuing clockwise…

“Mew”-stafa – Egypt
Mr. “Meow”-gi – Japan
MVP (Most Valuable Pussycat) “Go Kitty Wampus!!!”
“Feline” Nightingale – England
Yassir Ara-“cat” – Saudia Arabia

Cats 3

Starting at the top left again, clockwise…

Guillermo del “Gato (gato is Spanish for cat) – Mexico
Maurice “Chat”-velier (chat [pronounced shot] is French for cat) – France
Bat Cat – Gotham City
Coot Cat – Magnum P.C. (Pussy Cat) – Hawaii, USA

Cats 4

Starting at the top in the middle and continuing clockwise…

Captain Cat Sparrow – England
Lady Lib-PURR-ty – a gift from France to the United States
Big Lou – known for his cat calls – New York City
Chaim “khah-Tool”-evsky (khah-Tool is Hebrew for Cat) – Israel

Just for clarification, the explanations of the words for cat in different languages were part of the legend, and I copied them exactly.

While I was disappointed in the lack of variety in piece shape, I still enjoyed the puzzle and especially the names and silly faces of the cats. Chaim khah-Tool-evesky makes me laugh every time I look at him, that grumpy face is hysterical! Feline Nightingale’s cranky face is pretty funny too – the ones that make me laugh made this puzzle completely worth it. Just looking at the picture of the puzzle makes me smile. 🙂

Knitters Stash In Progress

On January 27, 2020January 27, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

Knitters IP — Knitters Stash – Springbok – 1000 pieces

It’s taking me a little bit to get my brain back into “random cut mode”, but I think it’s finally there. Thank goodness, because this puzzle has been more challenging than I bargained for already. I’ve been assembling grid cut puzzles almost exclusively this month, and I’ve had to wait for my brain to remember how to think around the random cut pieces and how they go together.

I’ve only gotten these two balls of yarn completed, but oh my has it been challenging! It’s mostly been getting used to the random cut, but assembling skeins of yarn isn’t as easy as I’d hoped either. I’m sure I’ve put together yarn puzzles before, but I don’t remember any specifically; maybe the memory of them is why it’s taken me so long to finally start assembling this one. 😉

The image reminds me of mom, but not only because she got the puzzle at the thrift store for us, it’s the yarn. My mother did crafts all her adult life and there was always yarn, crochet thread, beads, knitting needles, etc. all over our house. Stored in closets, hung in garment bags, next to her chair, in the office – pretty much anywhere there was a flat surface or a place to stack things up you could be sure to find some craft supplies.

She always had to have some sort of project going (most of the time there were several projects in the works), and always took her knitting or crochet bag with her when she went anywhere. Waiting in the doctor’s office or sitting in the car waiting on one of her kids after band practice she’d be crocheting a coaster or knitting an afghan, or whatever beautiful project was being worked on at the moment. There was always a “go bag” of yarn or thread near her purse so that she’d be ready if she had to go anywhere.

Mom taught me to knit, crochet, embroidery, cross-stitch, and even a little sewing; I really only knit anymore, and it’s not very often. I’m set for life in the yarn department though, I’ve got quite a bit of it stashed away from mom’s house, and there are still so many more boxes to go through!

Review: Birthday Candle

On January 26, 2020January 26, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews2 Comments

This image was too funny to pass up, how could you walk by this puzzle on the shelf and not give it a try? That face!

I’ve found that the newer Sure-Lox box means better quality, so I was confident buying this puzzle. I’ve been impressed with the new quality, especially on their 300 piece puzzles. The chipboard is thick and both the fit and the image reproduction are excellent – look at the bright, beautiful colors, and the sharp focus on the cat!

I decided to sort and assemble this a different way, and documented as I went. It was put together at night when sleep wouldn’t come – as per usual these days. Insomnia = lots of puzzle time.

Birthday 1

After the edge was complete I started with the the cupcake and candle, and it went together quickly. I love the colors, it’s all so bright and cheery.

Birthday 2

Next to be assembled was all of the background; it took a little more time and since I put the box away I was only using the colors to find my way. Shapes were of no help because all of the pieces were ballerinas. It didn’t make it too difficult with this image though; the colors were all the help I needed.

Birthday 3

Next I put in all the pieces with both cat hair and background color. Assembling the puzzle this way, from the outside in was quite entertaining and although it doesn’t lend itself to most puzzle images it was fun to try it on this one.

Birthday

All that was left was to fill in the cat, it was the most difficult part, obviously. After the eyes, nose, and mouth the whiskers were the next to be put together; they were brilliantly white and easy to pick out. Once those were all done all that was left was just fur, which is notoriously difficult; but because there were only 300 pieces to begin with there weren’t that many pieces left, so it went pretty quickly.

The image was great fun, the background colors made it interesting, and I loved the process of assembling in from the outside in and documenting it as I went. Hopefully you, my readers, liked it as well. Meow! 😽

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