Green Acres

On March 1, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

I think my age is showing, when I see the title of this puzzle my brain immediately starts singing the theme song to the old tv show. Green Acres is the place to be, FARM living is the life for me! 🎵

This puzzle is absolutely beautiful, and at only 300 pieces was a quick, fun assembly. The cut is random and interesting and the fit was wonderful! There was never any guessing whether or not a piece fit in a certain spot. MasterPieces large piece puzzles have excellent quality, I have never had an issue with any of them. The pieces are thick and fit together well, and the images are crisp and clear and always beautiful.

Many people only do 1000 piece puzzles, and I think they’re missing out; there are wonderful puzzles to be assembled in every shape and size. But I would never tell someone what they should or shouldn’t do, so if they’re working only the larger puzzles that leaves plenty other sizes for me, right? 😎

Review: Sugar & Spice

On February 23, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Sugar & Spice by Charles Wysocki – Buffalo – 300 pieces

I’ve done several Charles Wysocki puzzles lately with single buildings, and I very much enjoy them. They’ve mostly been Buffalo puzzles, and I honestly prefer the 300 piece count in this brand.

For me, I have to be in the right frame of mind to do a larger Buffalo puzzle, it’s something about the size of the pieces, but I’m honestly not exactly sure what it is. I open a 1000 piece Buffalo puzzle that I love the image of and look at the pieces, and most of the time I put the lid back on and say “not today”. I prefer the 300 and 500 piece counts because they’re not as overwhelming to me. Of course lately I’ve been preferring those piece counts because of physical limitations on the amount of time I’m able to puzzle; it’s not a reflection on Buffalo quality, which is quite good.

This puzzle was great fun, and the assembly was relatively quick. The Wysocki puzzles with only one building are a little more unique and therefore more enjoyable for me to do. I love the look of his artwork, but his regular folk/Americana puzzles all start to look the same to me and aren’t as interesting for me to assemble. This one was great with plenty of interesting parts to find and put together and a lovely finished image.

What makes a great puzzle image is so subjective, everyone enjoys something different. That’s what’s so great about puzzling! There are so many companies and so many artists that you’re bound to find something that jumps out at you and begs to be assembled. For me this was a great image with wonderful quality and I definitely recommend it!

Details:

Title: Sugar & Spice
Artist: Charles Wysocki
Brand: Buffalo Games
Piece count: 300 pieces
Size: Approx. 21 x 15 in. (54 x 38 cm)
Purchased: Used, thrift store

Quality:

Board: Very good
Cutting: Very good
Image: Very good
Box: Average
Fit: Very good
Puzzle Dust: Moderate amount
Piece cut: Grid cut
Piece shapes: Good variety
Finish: Slightly shiny finish, lays flat

Overall Rating: Very good, recommended

Review: Flower Kaleidoscope

On February 16, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Flower Kaleidoscope by Lori Schory – Ravensburger – 300 pieces

This puzzle is even more beautiful than the picture, and the picture is pretty darn gorgeous! As soon as I saw this image I couldn’t wait to get assembling, it’s just such a lovely puzzle.

This is a large piece Ravensburger, and though it’s only 300 pieces it’s the size of the average 1000 piece puzzle. I enjoy the larger pieces lately, as I can’t sit and puzzle as long as I used to; putting only a few pieces together seems like I made great progress in a short amount of time. 🙂

The quality was wonderful, and I can’t say enough about the image reproduction – just stunning! The colors are bright and beautiful with no fuzziness. I adored assembling this puzzle, and I look forward to finding more beautiful nature puzzles from Lori Schory.

Details:

Title: Flower Kaleidoscope
Artist: Lori Schory
Brand: Ravensburger
Piece count: 300 pieces
Size: Approx. 20 x 27 in. (51 x 69 cm)
Purchased: Used, thrift store

Quality:

Board: Excellent
Cutting: Excellent
Image: Excellent
Box: Average, quite large for a 300 piece puzzle
Fit: Excellent
Puzzle Dust: Small amount
Piece cut: Grid cut
Piece shapes: Very good variety
Finish: Matte finish, lays flat

Overall Rating: Excellent, highly recommended

Flower Still Life

On February 5, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles7 Comments

This was a very dark, very challenging wooden puzzle. I bought this for mom for Christmas last year and we finally got around to assembling it. Isn’t it gorgeous? She picked it out herself.

The background color was a little too dark for my taste, but it was still a fun puzzle to assemble, especially since mom and I worked it together. 🙂 They were pretty tricky not to include a picture on the box of the irregular edge, so we had to figure that out for ourselves. It was quite the brain teaser, but we older ladies still have our wits about us (most of the time) and we were able to get it done.

Artifact Puzzles are excellent quality with a wonderfully diverse catalog to choose from. They have many different puzzle designers who come up with amazingly intricate and complex piece cuts. I love that you’re able to see pictures of the cuts for each puzzle, so you have that information before you buy. The puzzles are made from plywood and are laser cut; they are beautifully made!

There were almost no whimsies but the cut was excellent and you can see the pieces formed a beautiful symmetrical pattern….

Mom and I really enjoyed this assembly; it was quite a challenge and we even said that it was “deviously cut” a couple of times. Still, it helps keep the brain cells firing and even if it takes more time than we’d planned on we enjoy the extra time spent together.

I’ve done several Wentworths and a couple of Artifact puzzles in the past couple of months, so I’m hoping to get my hands on a new Liberty puzzle soon. If I don’t, no worries – I can spend an afternoon re-assembling the Dr. Suess puzzle I bought myself last year. 🙂

Catchin’ Bugs

On February 2, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

I tried a 1000 piece puzzle just before this one. It was on my board for the entire week, I barely made any progress at all, and ended up putting it back in the box. I said out loud “This isn’t fun for me at all”, but to be honest I think I was more upset that I couldn’t work on it much. Normally it takes me 2 or 3 days to complete a 1000 piece puzzle, and I’ve been known to do an entire one in just one day if I’m really enjoying it. It’s a little depressing for me at the moment to have been working on one for more than 5 days and barely have more than 200 pieces of it together. So I decided to go back to the smaller ones and hope to try again on a 500 or 1000 piece soon.

Hubby helped me work on this one. We spent most of the day in bed and he helped me finish this; it was nice to work on a puzzle with him again, it’s been a while since he’s had the time. 💕

I really had a good time with this puzzle. I enjoy the Wysocki’s that are a little bit different; especially ones that have only one building. I find them a little more interesting and entertaining; sometimes the “regular” ones all seem to blend together and look the same. Just my opinion of course.

The color palette here is a little muted, but it still made for a pretty picture and an enjoyable assembly. The quality of the puzzle was very good as well, with thick pieces and interesting shapes – really nice all around puzzle. This is one of the batch we got from a friend, and she does her puzzles many, many times before she gets rid of them. The masking tape with dates on the box tells me she and her husband assembled this puzzle at least once every year since 2010; and there was not one piece with image lift or any damage at all! This is an exceptionally well made puzzle, and if you come across one I would definitely recommend giving it a go. 🙂