Tag: 500 pieces

Winter City

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Winter City by Karla Gerard – PuzzleTwist – 500 pieces

Like a Wasgij or What If? puzzle, the puzzle inside the box doesn’t match the image you see on the outside – so I do not show any spoilers. Sorry, you don’t get to see the finished puzzle. In this puzzle there are 32 differences between the box image and the puzzle, sometimes small things and sometimes very big things.

I don’t find these too difficult, it’s just like assembling a puzzle when you put the box away and don’t use it for help. They’re still great fun though.

PuzzleTwist has a bunch of different categories of puzzles; in this one, Something’s Amiss, things are different on the actual puzzle than what you see on the box image. The first puzzle of theirs I did was called Reveal the Color; the image on the box was black and white, and the puzzle was not only in color, but the color revealed a hidden image as well. Very cool!

I had a good time with this one, my only problem was the amount of puzzle dust. I received this puzzle secondhand from my pal Penny, so it had already been sorted and assembled once. There was still quite a bit of dust. Otherwise it was an excellent puzzle that was hard to walk away from. The fit was very good, the image reproduction was beautiful and there was wonderful variety in piece shape.

PuzzleTwist has created a character called “Maynard”, he’s hidden in many puzzles. He’s very small, about the size of the knob end of a puzzle piece, and he’s not always easy to locate. If you can’t find him though, there are hints on the PuzzleTwist website for each puzzle; and if you still can’t find him, there is a picture revealing where he’s hidden. This is Maynard….

He’s very cute, don’t you think? While looking up this puzzle on the PuzzleTwist website I read about Maynard, and there was a link to the page where you could find hints to help you find him. I’d never heard about this before, and so I went to the hint page. I only read the first hint and found him in my puzzle pretty quickly. To be honest, it makes me want to get some more of their puzzles just to find if he’s hidden in them!

I think Maynard is adorable, and love that he’s hidden in their puzzles. I couldn’t find much info about him on their site, only hints for where he’s hiding in certain puzzles. I wish there was a page with a little information about how it began and which kinds of puzzles he’s hiding in, etc. I’d like to know more!

Wanna hear a weird coincidence? My nickname among friends in high school was Maynard. There was a commercial back in the 80s for Malt-o-Meal (hot breakfast cereal similar to Cream of Wheat) and the tagline was “Good stuff Maynard!” which I was constantly quoting because I found it funny. My friends started calling me that, it was our little inside joke. When the whole senior class got personalized shirts – the name on the back of mine was Maynard. 😎

Christmas Cookies

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Christmas Cookies by Allied Products – Majestic Puzzles (Springbok) – 500 pieces

Another puzzle sent by a puzzling friend, you can never have too many of those! I always appreciate it when someone thinks I’ll enjoy a puzzle and sends it along, it’s just so thoughtful and I love that. 💙 Christmas puzzles aren’t my favorite, as you all know, because they all seem so alike and the images are just not my pile of pieces. When there’s a different one though, it usually finds it’s way to me – just like this one has.

This puzzle had great quality, the pieces feel like a Springbok but without the super tight fit. That would probably be because they’re part of the Springbok line (which I did not know until writing up this post). Looking at the pieces it seemed as though it might be a difficult assembly, but it turned out it was more fun than I thought it would be. It was a great puzzle that went together quickly.

I started with the yellow, blue, and the sugary red mitten; then filled in all the green. I don’t usually have in process pictures, but for some reason I felt like documenting part of the assembly for this one.

This puzzle was so much fun to put together, and is a beautiful finished image – I love cookie puzzles!

A Christmas Story Leg Lamp

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

A Christmas Story Leg Lamp – USAopoly – 500 pieces

Well ya’ll, the holiday for Americans to gorge themselves on dinner and fall into a tryptophan coma has passed. It is now – according to my father – officially the Christmas season. What better way to kick it off than with a puzzle from the quintessential holiday movie … A Christmas Story.

This puzzle was first assembled over four years ago; back then mom wanted to assemble it too so I took it apart and off it went to her house. The plan was to glue it after she was finished, and then I would hang it in the window or on the door as a Christmas decoration. She never did get to it, and so it came back to my house and this year it was finally reassembled – it is already glued on both sides and ready to show everyone my oddball Christmas spirit! 🤪

Reading through my previous post about this puzzle, it was a little surprising that I didn’t mention the edges and how in some places the pieces just sit together instead of attaching to each other. It’s a big pet peeve of mine, and assembling the shaped edge was hard enough without the added annoyance of having to find the piece to make it all click together. Either I was much more excited about this puzzle four years ago, or I am much crankier these days. Or both.

Probably both.

But, if you’ve got this puzzle and are going to assemble it, here’s a tip…. When you’re sorting for edge pieces take every piece that has any bit of the white border. Then, when you come to edges that don’t connect you can help anchor them with the inside pieces

It was simple to sort ; edges, lampshade, fringe, fishnets, and shoe/base. The assembly was pretty simple as well, but nonetheless enjoyable. Truly a fun puzzle, and I’m excited to finally have it as a holiday decoration.

As I sit here typing up this post I’m thinking of where exactly to hang my new Christmas decoration. Hubby wants to build a custom frame for it, complete with LED lights! We gotta show it off – “It’s a major award!” 🤶

Seaside Sunshine

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles1 Comment

Seaside Sunshine by Nancy Wernersbach – Ravensburger – 500 pieces

Sorry about the cockeyed picture, apparently I was having balance issues the morning I took this picture. I started working on this puzzle on Halloween, and finished it up the next morning; perhaps it was a candy hangover – that’s why I couldn’t hold my camera straight. I was coming out of my sugar coma!😉

It was so nice to get back to Ravensburger quality; the feel of the pieces, the wonderful click when they fit perfectly, the matte finish. Just a great quality puzzle with a beautiful image. This puzzle has been in my to-do pile for several years, and now I’m trying to figure out why I waited so long – it was so entertaining!

You all know I love a quilt puzzle -and this one had two of them – such lovely colors!

Frog Pile

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Frog Pile by Lori Anzalone – Cobble Hill – 500 pieces

I love frogs, and there are several frog figurines around my house, so of course I loved this image when I saw it; not only the subject matter, but they’re so bright and colorful – my kinda puzzle. It was more difficult than it looks, but not so much that it was frustrating. The perfect amount of challenge. The finished puzzle is absolutely stunning. 😍

The quality was pretty good, other than a very loose fit. Two or three pieces couldn’t be picked up to move to another place on the board without falling apart or using both hands. It wasn’t so bad that you couldn’t tell that you’d found the correct piece, but it wasn’t good either. With a lesser quality brand puzzle this would probably annoy me much more than it did with this one. The linen textured paper that Cobble Hill uses has such a great hand feel, the thick pieces and the overall quality of the brand made up for the shortcoming in the fit department.

The wet look on the frogs is done beautifully, and that little blue guy there has the best “smile” on his face! As far as his little buddy next to him, I think if I ever saw a black polka dotted frog out in nature I would steer pretty clear of it.

What can I say? Red is my favorite color, so I’m a little partial to the red ones. Doesn’t this one look like they’re ready to let you in on some juicy gossip they just heard at the pondwater cooler?

Psst. Did you hear what Veronica did last Friday at Señor Frogs? 😮