Women March!

On September 7, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles3 Comments

Super busy images aren’t usually my thing, but this puzzle was a lot of fun. A puzzle about the women’s march, with artwork by a woman, made by a woman-owned puzzle company – we ladies are pretty awesome!👸

This is only the second eeBoo puzzle that I’ve assembled, and I’ve been extremely impressed with the quality. The pieces are thick, with an excellent variety of shapes and the fit is wonderful. The image reproduction is bright and colorful with no fuzzy or blurry areas (unless it’s part of the artwork). My only problem is with the finish, it’s quite shiny and can cause lots of glare under artificial lights.

The edge pieces were very easy to pick out for assembly, but I ran into a problem. While putting it together I used the quote around the edge to help me find the correct pieces, and became convinced that I hadn’t pulled them all. After a quick search with no results I skipped the spot and continued around the edge. The problem wasn’t a missing piece, it was that one of the words is spelled incorrectly! I was looking for the next letters in the word, but they weren’t there. 😱

The word is missing two letters, and those were the ones I was looking for and couldn’t find. It’s easy to overlook a misspelling, especially when you come to the word and know what it’s trying to say – sometimes we skip right on past it without registering the error. That said, someone should have caught it somewhere along the line, shouldn’t they? (It caused me a bit of frustration trying to figure out if I’d lost a piece) Still, these things happen, and I’m sure someone else who’s assembled the puzzle has found it too. I emailed the company to let them know, although I don’t know that there’s much that they can do at this point.

These are my favorite signs, and there were so many of them to put together. I loved it! My regular readers know how much I enjoy having plenty of words to assemble. The only other “larger” image in the puzzle was the capital building, and once that was put together the assembly got a bit more difficult. The rest of the image is a sea of people and faces, and basically I had to examine each piece/face and figure out where it fit in. Time consuming, but still entertaining.

Although the women’s march was extremely political, that’s not why it’s here; this blog is strictly about puzzles. I bought this puzzle because I believe in the women’s movement – I believe in women and think we should all be treated as equally and humanely as anyone else – but most of all it looked like it would be great fun to put together. It was!

As far as political puzzles go, I’m bipartisan – I like both random AND grid cut! 😎

Reef Fish (2)

On August 26, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

I loved this puzzle! You’re shocked right? It’s just so hard to believe. 😉

Perhaps my love of collages has something to do with how much I enjoy these puzzles. The fun of assembling a collage for me is finding and putting together each small section at a time; it’s like having a bunch of mini puzzles that all connect together. Even when I’m not feeling well and can’t puzzle for long periods of time I can assemble a little part of the puzzle and it feels more like an accomplishment when I see one section finished.

The only difference here is that these small “sections” don’t connect together. You can separate them by the colored backing and put together one whole little puzzle and you have a sense of completion – for me it’s wonderfully entertaining and I can’t get enough of them.

The big girl with the large mouth is my favorite, the colors and overall look of the fish just make me smile. (I’ve made this fish female in my mind because the colors are so pretty. Could be wrong, but she’s a she to me 🙂 ) The box tells me that she is a Picasso Triggerfish – what a fabulous name! From my small amount of research online I have found that she’s an aggressive carnivore that can sometimes be quite small – that definitely sounds like a few females I know! I think she’s beautifully colored and it definitely made for a fun assembly.

Sadly, I only have one more of these shaped puzzles yet to assemble. But I’m sure I’ll enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed the others, they really are such a good time!

Review: More Ice Cream Please

On August 22, 2018August 22, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

More Ice Cream Please – Cobble Hill – 500 pieces

This was quite fun, but very challenging. It’s got a few missing pieces, but them’s the chances you take when you purchase used. It didn’t detract much from my enjoyment of the assembly, and the puzzle was such good quality that I didn’t mind that much. Fun puzzle!

For being a used thrift store puzzle, the quality held up quite well. The pieces still had a great feel and fit together very well. Sometimes you buy a pre-loved puzzle and it’s been beat up by it’s previous owner; this one seems to have been taken care of (if you don’t count the missing pieces). I do love a Cobble Hill puzzle, especially the smaller piece counts – the quality is excellent!

Once the edge was assembled it seemed that there may be a few missing pieces, but you can never be sure with a random cut – sometimes the edges don’t look like edges. Blue ice cream was the first to be assembled, and when those were finished I knew for sure that there were some pieces that seem to have melted away 😉

Mom came over and helped me finish this one up, with her help the pieces seem to fly into place! For me it’s so nice working a puzzle with someone else; there’s the fun of working together on a common goal, good conversation, and just spending time together. In the words of one of my favorite puzzle companies – Sit long. Talk much. Turn off that screen.

It’s more challenging than it looks, but absolutely worth it! Definitely recommended, two sundaes way up! 🍨🍨

Details:

Title: More Ice Cream Please
Artist: Not credited
Brand: Cobble Hill
Piece count: 500 pieces
Size: Approx. 18 x 24 in. (46 x 61 cm)
Purchased: Used, thrift store

Quality:

Board: Very good
Cutting: Very good
Image: Very good
Box: Very good
Fit: Very good
Puzzle Dust: Small amount
Piece cut: Random cut
Piece shapes: Very good variety
Finish: Slightly shiny finish, lays flat

Overall Rating: Very good, recommended

Taking Pumpkins to Market

On August 21, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles6 Comments

So I found a total of 20 puzzles that I’d previously assembled and posted pictures of on my completed puzzles pages, but had never written an entire post for. The only conclusion I can come up with is that the pictures are so unbelievably horrid that I was loathe to unleash them on the unsuspecting readers. Well, times being tough and all, I need puzzles to post and so here we are. With the “found” puzzle pictures I have now given myself a 3 week cushion in which to get off my lazy butt and get some serious puzzling done. The pictures are terrible, but a girl gots to do what a girl gots to do! 😇

Another stellar photograph – this time with my husband’s shoes showing up in the background. Yeesh.

Still, this is an exciting puzzle – it was my very first Cobble Hill! I remember being so excited about this puzzle, not only did the pieces look and feel amazing – the box did too! The linen paper they use on both the puzzle and the box gives a great feel in your hand. They do such a good job with quality, especially on their smaller piece count puzzles.

What fascinates me about this puzzle is that it seems quite bright and colorful, but I distinctly remember that all the pieces seemed rather dark with varying shades of brown/black/dark. It was much more of a challenge than it looks, but it was still entertaining and excellent quality.

Walk Me

On August 18, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

How cute is this little one? I definitely wouldn’t be able to deny him/her a walk. The rug, however – yikes! The background was the most difficult part of the assembly, but overall the entire puzzle was fun to do and highly entertaining.

Bits and Pieces puzzles don’t have the best reputation in my book, but I’ve also worked some great puzzles from them. The quality being hit or miss, we don’t buy this brand new – we only get them from thrift stores. This puzzle was good quality, but not great.

The pieces were a good thickness, with an excellent variety of shapes. The fit was good, if a bit on the loose side. The image reproduction was good as well, although the finish was quite shiny which made for added difficulty when working the darker areas under indoor lighting. There was a fair amount of puzzle dust, even being a thrift store puzzle and having been worked before.

My one major problem with this puzzle was the construction of the edge pieces – not all the pieces connect. You can see in the picture below that you can pull away a whole section because some of the pieces only sit next to each other instead of fitting together.

This is a pet peeve of mine, and a major annoyance; especially when they are edge pieces. Until you get specific pieces inserted into the inside of the puzzle the edges move and it becomes extremely irritating.

Although it doesn’t seem like it, I very much enjoyed this puzzle. Other than the edges, the quality was good and the image is adorable! I started with the leash, and although it didn’t go quickly it was fun to figure it out; the puppy was next and kept me completely enthralled. The rug, however, was quite challenging and was the part that took the most time. Still, the entire puzzle was highly entertaining and so damn cute!