Picker’s Haul

On December 31, 2021December 31, 2021 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Picker’s Haul by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 2000 pieces

This was my first 2000 piece in over a year and a half – and of course it had to be one of Aimee’s images. It’s darker than her usual images, but still had enough brightness, color, and detail. It’s beautiful, and I’m certainly proud of myself for getting it done. 💪

Buffalo puzzles are great quality, and this one was no different. Excellent reproduction, great fit and variety of piece shapes – just an overall wonderful puzzle. I’m warming up to their brand in the higher piece counts, though sometimes the sameness of the piece shapes annoys me for some reason I can’t quite put into words. Just my “interesting” brain at work I guess.

This is the shelf at the top of the image, it’s amazing that you can read the titles on the spines and covers of the books. Gorgeous reproduction!

Love this box of games, the detail is amazing and the bright blue color is lovely as well. This was one of the first sections that I put together.

There’s something about this little stagecoach, the look of it is beautiful. It was more difficult to find the pieces than many of the other sections, but the end result is worth it.

This puzzle was so enjoyable that I had a hard time walking away from it, and it went together pretty quickly as far as these things go. It was a Goldilocks assembly – not too easy, not too hard – just right! 💜

I haven’t been puzzling for very long this year, but for the couple of months that I’ve been back at the puzzle table it’s been a great time being on the blog with you all again. Thanks for hanging out with me every day, I don’t take it for granted.

It’s New Year’s Eve, if you’re going out please take care of yourselves and be safe. See you in 2022! 🎉🥳🎉

Cake Shed

On April 2, 2020April 2, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles9 Comments

Cake Shed was quite a challenge, but I got it done! It’s a beautiful, bright image and I truly enjoyed every part of the assembly. 2000 piece puzzles always seem a bit daunting when I’m sorting them; but once the assembling starts I wind up having a really good time. And when it’s finished I always end up quite proud of my accomplishment.

This was a great quality thrift store puzzle; although it does show the chances one takes when purchasing puzzles secondhand. It was missing one piece and had an extra piece from a completely different puzzle in the box. Even so, it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the assembly and I still consider it money well spent. $1.99 for a 2000 piece puzzle that gave me hours and hours of quiet, meditative, and entertaining fun. Where else can you get that much bang for your buck?

Buffalo puzzles have excellent quality, and I’ve been doing more of them lately. Mom bought quite a few of their puzzles at the thrift stores, and I’m working through them as quickly as I can. The pieces are a good thickness with a nice variety of shapes, they fit together well and have beautiful image reproduction. I’ve assembled their puzzles in sizes from 300 to 2000 pieces, and in my opinion they have excellent quality throughout every size.

Cake Shed 1 — This cake looks delicious!

This was the first thing I assembled, a delicious looking fruit-covered cake. Yum! The bright red ribbon and the fruit were easy to find, and I almost collected every piece for this small section on the first try. That in itself is amazing!

Cake Shed 2

A birthday cake for a cat? We love our Buddy, and even though we give up room on our bed and lots of belly rubs and back scratches, we wouldn’t pay someone to make him a cake for his birthday. We just wouldn’t – although if you do something like that for your pets I am not denigrating that in any way. Buddy may get an extra treat on his special day (if I can remember what day that is), but that’s about it.

Cake Shed 3

I love this little big guy, he looks like he makes a mean cake! The artwork by Steve Read was both adorable and beautiful, and it makes me want to find more puzzles with his images. The colors were lovely, and the image as a whole made for a great puzzle.

If you can find this one out there, it is definitely recommended. I loved every moment of it – even assembling the floor and walls. It’s a great image for puzzling, and is excellent quality. I give it two servings way up! 🍴🍰🍴🍰

Cake Shed In Progress

On March 15, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlingLeave a comment

Cake Shed IP — Cake Shed by Steve Read – Buffalo – 2000 pieces

There hasn’t been as much progress on the Cake Shed as I’d have liked, but a family member was visiting this week and I didn’t spend as much time at home as I normally do. I’m back at home now; a bit worn out, but ready to get back to my big puzzle. 🧩

My apologies for the wonky picture, it looks to me as though it’s leaning at the top – it makes me tilt my head to the left every time I look at it!

The green dresser and shelf are next up, and hopefully that will fill things out a bit – but there are many, many green pieces so it may also take a bit of time. It’s been a pretty entertaining puzzle so far, and I’m enjoying it very much.

*I do admit to wishing it were only 1000 pieces at times; it’s taking up most of my puzzle board, and it’s sometimes anxiety-inducing when I walk into the puzzle room. #anxietysucks 😐

I hope you’re working on a fun puzzle today. Happy puzzling!

Almost In Progress

On March 12, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

api32zqpf__85190.1534533449 — Cake Shed by Steve Read – Buffalo – 2000 pieces

While I have chosen the next puzzle, I haven’t gotten any work done on it yet – it’s still mostly in the box – it’s almost in progress. 😉

I have sorted a bit of it, but it’s 2000 pieces so it takes a little longer to get through them all. I think it’s going to be really fun once I get going though, I just have to get through my least favorite part, the sorting. Hopefully I’ll have time today to at least finish sorting and get ready for some actual assembly.

Pixar Posters

On February 2, 2020February 1, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles7 Comments

I know, it’s a Ceaco, what in the world am I doing assembling a Ceaco so soon after the Christmas debacle? It was a gift, and I love the image, so why not? I can’t very well have a bonfire and torch all the Ceaco puzzles I have here…..although…….🤔.

The fit was terrible, it was very loose and even moving three connected pieces was pretty hard to do. On the plus side the pieces were a workable thickness and the image reproduction was very good. Again, this is one of those times where the image overcame the quality and I enjoyed myself anyway. It’s a collage, there are lots of words, and each of the posters is bright and fun. I had a great time with it, despite it’s issues.

*I tried to be impartial and just judge the puzzle on it’s own merits, and I think I was, but I’m still a little perturbed at the brand in general and so I may have been specifically on the lookout for any problems.*

These were my two favorite sections to assemble, though pretty much all of them were fun. I loved the movie Brave – Girls rule! – and it was the first section I put together; all that red hair was the most logical place to start after putting together all the words and titles. Coco was much more entertaining to assemble than I thought, and although I haven’t seen the movie I found myself enjoying it very much. My son tells me I should see it and that it was an excellent movie that I will love; he and I have VERY different tastes in movies, so I’m not so sure about his recommendation. 😉

My kids are older now and so I haven’t seen many of the newer Disney-Pixar movies. Of all the movies shown here I have seen just over half of them, nine out of seventeen. There was a time not so long ago that when a new movie came out on DVD (or VHS) that we would all take a trip to the store and get ourselves a copy; then we’d go home and watch it together that evening – or sometimes we couldn’t wait and we watched it in the afternoon. I have great memories of watching Disney movies with my kids, and so perhaps I haven’t watched the newer ones because my kids are all adults, off living their own lives, and not always available to watch movies with mom.

Pixar Posters 3

This is the last section I put together, only because everything is blue, and most of the pieces just looked blue – even the teeth! It was still good fun though, especially because at the end of the puzzle when the pieces are dwindling down to nothing it gets more and more exciting. You’re almost there, and every piece you find gets you that much closer to the end, and you’re finding each one faster and faster – almost more quickly than you can put them into the puzzle!

As many puzzles as I’ve done, the end is still as exciting to me as it ever was. Getting down to the last few pieces is entertaining, full of anticipation, fast-moving, thrilling, dramatic, and always fun. I hope it never gets old.