Rainy Day Sketch In Progress

On March 23, 2020March 23, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

Rainy Day Sketch IP — Rainy Day Sketch by Tricia Reilly-Matthews – Sunsout – 500 pieces

I just started working on this puzzle early this morning – up at 4 am – yay. I finished my Stacey & Ruth puzzle yesterday, and picked this one out, but didn’t touch it at all until this morning.

Picking out puzzles is sometimes a bit crazy for me. I seem to forget the previous negative experiences I’ve had with a certain brand unless they were over the top terrible, and I want to think that this next time is going to be amazing (a bit like having kids 😉 ). Sunsout has provided me with some amazing puzzling experiences, and some that weren’t so great. When I see an image I really like from a certain brand it overrides the negative and I only seem to remember the good ones.

I found two really adorable Sunsout puzzles on my last shopping trip before we were all told to stay home and socially isolate ourselves. My desire for a few new puzzles and the cute images on the boxes completely wiped out most of the negative Sunsout experiences I’ve had previously. Needless to say, I bought two new puzzles from this brand; now that I’ve started working with this one I remember why this isn’t a brand I usually purchase. 😐

The fit isn’t great, and even though I’m not even a third of the way through this puzzle there have been many, many pieces that seem to fit where they do not belong, and when they do fit it feels “mushy”. You can’t really be certain you’ve got it right unless or until it connects to other pieces around it. I. Am. Not. A. Fan. Of. This.

Oh well. Lesson learned. For now.

Bread Baking

On March 11, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles12 Comments

This image would make for a lovely wall hanging in someone’s kitchen. But it made for a challenging jigsaw puzzle – at least for me. The color palette is so pale and sometimes indistinct; and for someone who loves bright colors (me), it made the assembly a little more difficult to get through.

It was a gift though, and even if the colors aren’t to my choosing or the image isn’t one I’d pick out I thoroughly appreciate the thought that went into it. Someone took the time to select this puzzle for me because they thought I would like it, that is what’s really important – not the image, the quality, or the size. Even though it isn’t a puzzle that I would have chosen for myself I love it for who gave it to me, and the thought it represents. 💝

Bread Baking 1

I loved the red oven – not only would I love to have a red oven because it’s my favorite color, I loved this one because the pieces were easy to pick out. There really wasn’t anything else red in this image besides the rug. It was a good place to start. 🙂

Bread Baking 2

So many cats! There must be cat hair all over that kitchen! I’m not sure I’d want them hanging around sticky bread dough being shaped and proved.

I’ve never had any major quality issues with these smaller piece count Milton Bradley puzzles. The fit on this one was a bit loose, but not too much so. Otherwise it was good quality; thick board, nice variety of shapes, and very nice image reproduction. For me they’ve always been a good quality puzzle that I never hesitate to purchase when I find them.

The colors and brush strokes made this assembly a challenge for me, but I conquered it anyway – like the Goddess of Puzzles that I am. 👑

Songbirds In Progress

On March 6, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

Songbirds IP — Stained Glass Songbirds by Ciro Marchetti – Buffalo – 500 pieces

This puzzle got started last night when I couldn’t sleep, but I made pretty good progress before I finally went back to bed. I’ve had this for quite a while now, but was never really in the right mood for it, but last night was the night!

It’s a thrift store purchase, and I was surprised to find that this puzzle was unopened – it was one that mom bought. An unopened puzzle at the thrift store is a treasure indeed, and mom was good at finding buried treasure within the shelves of the thrift store. 🙂

I was also surprised to see that this artwork was by Ciro Marchetti, I usually associate his name with fantasy images. It is beautiful though, like all of his artwork, and I’m hoping to get it finished sometime today if all goes well.

Happy puzzling today!

Movie Lovers

On February 28, 2020February 27, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles12 Comments

This was a great puzzle that went together extremely quickly; I love old posters of pretty much anything – advertisements, artwork, travel, movies, etc. It seems as though they put much more thought and effort into them back in the day as compared to now. (Or it could just be my age showing, “Back in my day……” 👵)

There were lots of titles and other words to put together, which I adore. But with an image like this I don’t start with all the words, I separate them by entire sections. If I pulled out all the pieces with words on them it would be 90% of the entire puzzle!

I’ve only seen 9 of the 32 movies shown here, I guess that means I’m not much of a cinephile. Oh well. I know it’s hard to read some of the titles because the piece shape is very obvious but of the ones you can read, how many of these movies have you seen?

Movie Lovers 1

You can’t really tell until you see them close up how good the image reproduction is – if your eyes were good enough you could read every word!

Movie Lovers 3

You can see from this picture that the fit wasn’t great; the pieces didn’t fit properly unless you really smushed them into place. I glued this puzzle for my son to hang in his room, and it looks a little better now that it’s been filled in a bit and the pieces are secured into place.

Movie Lovers 2

I’ve never even heard of this film before, but after doing a little research I find that it’s a comedy that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. So it’s no surprise that I haven’t seen it; I don’t speak French – and it was released 10 years before I was born! 🙂

Interestingly, I found this 500 piece Re-marks puzzle had poorer quality than the last few 1000 piece puzzles I’ve assembled by the same brand. It could be that I got a puzzle from the end of the run when the die was a bit duller, but usually with a smaller piece count the quality is better. I haven’t done enough 500 piece puzzles from Re-marks to be able to say for certain, but as of now my experience has been that their larger puzzles have better quality.

As per usual, I loved this collage – it was an extremely entertaining and interesting puzzle!

Purrfect Blooms

On February 22, 2020February 21, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Purrfect Blooms was a cute puzzle that went together pretty fast. I didn’t realize when I bought it that it was primarily about cats – they are everywhere! I counted 16, but there may be more.

This Sure-Lox puzzle didn’t impress me as much as the last few that I’ve done. On the positive side there were a variety of piece shapes that fit together well, and the image reproduction was good; on the negative side the chipboard wasn’t nearly as thick as the newer puzzles, and there was something about the finish that made the pieces feel odd to me. I didn’t like the way they felt in my hands.

Purrfect Blooms 1

Free kittens? I think if I were there with small children I’d be keeping close watch over them! 😉

Purrfect Blooms 2

In this small section there are 5 cats/kittens. I didn’t even notice any of them when I got the puzzle, and I obviously didn’t read the title either – that would have been a big clue. I guess I don’t get the captain observation award for the day, do I?

Purrfect Blooms 3

I didn’t really like the way the pieces felt in my hands, but the fit was very good. It didn’t feel too tight, as though you had to work to put them in, but in the end you could stand up the puzzle very easily, no pieces even tried to come apart.

Overall this puzzle was good quality, even with the thinner pieces; but it didn’t leave me with a good feeling about it. I’m not sure exactly why that is, it’s just a general impression that I have about it, purely an opinion.

It’s a cute image that was fun to assemble, but I’m not sure I would buy another of the 500 piece count puzzles from Sure-Lox unless the box was one of the newer packages. This one didn’t have the new packaging, so perhaps that’s why I didn’t enjoy it as much.