Harvest of Gold

On May 8, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles3 Comments

This image reminds me of my youth; I grew up in farm country. Tractors and fields remind me of home and a simpler time.

The colors of these machines jumped right out at me; dad always had a John Deere, as did most of the other people in our area. I don’t ever recall seeing a blue tractor! As a puzzler, the bright blue and yellow made for an easy place to start assembly, once they’re done there are plenty of places to work from and holes to fill in. I thought the corn field itself would be a pain, but it wasn’t bad at all. I suppose it’s more about the artwork than I thought!

This was the first panoramic Sunsout puzzle that I’ve assembled, the fit was very nice (not too tight) and it was grid cut rather than random. It doesn’t seem like it from the picture, but this puzzle is 3 feet long. It’s nice every once in a while to have a longer, shorter puzzle; there’s less leaning forward to place pieces and it’s easier on your back and neck. At least that’s how it is for little old lady me. 👵

Fly Away Home

On May 1, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

I love the bright colors in this puzzle, and the artwork is quite interesting. Mom and I assembled this together, and although the fit was terrible we had a good time with it. Everything doesn’t always have to be perfect, we can be entertained and appreciate the time spent together puzzling even if it’s quality was sub par.

MasterPieces puzzles have fluctuating quality at times, I’ve had excellent puzzles from them and also really bad ones. It seems as if different series are manufactured at different places, the quality is so varied. The pieces of this puzzle are grid cut and more elongated than most other MasterPieces puzzles I’ve assembled. The image reproduction is very good, as is the piece thickness and variety; but the fit was extremely loose and difficult to work with.

The image is perfect for puzzles and I found it very unique and fun – the colors and patterns made for just the right amount of challenging that day. The artist, Hayley Gillespie, has a delightful point of view and the artwork made the puzzle worth assembling even with the fit problems. I’d love to find more of her puzzles.

Mom is away this week and I won’t be visiting or puzzling with her on Friday. 😪 When real life gets in the way of my puzzle happiness it is such a bummer! Come home soon momma, I miss you already.

Private Library

On April 27, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

I usually have relatively strong feelings either way about the puzzles I’ve assembled. It’s usually “loved it” or “where is the lighter fluid?”. For some reason this puzzle just makes me think “meh”; I’m even feeling blah about typing up this post. 😐

Springbok has some great puzzles, and although I’m not a fan of the super tight fit I’ve had a great time putting together many different Springbok images. There’s something about this one though, it just seems neither here nor there. It’s pretty, but wasn’t overly inspiring or entertaining to assemble. It could very well be that I was just in the wrong state of mind when putting it together; or it might be that this image just didn’t make for the kind of puzzle that I enjoy.

This puzzle is from the late 80’s, and the quality was good. The fit was extremely tight, but the pieces were very thick with an excellent variety of piece shapes. The image itself is quite dark, but the finished puzzle is actually very pretty.

You can’t fall in love with them all; if there aren’t any valleys you wouldn’t know how much you should appreciate the peaks, right?

Summer Surprise

On April 23, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Summer Surprise was not the best quality puzzle, but for some odd reason I really wanted to finish it. I have no explanation for my completion obsession other than I found the assembly to be somewhat entertaining even though the quality was lacking.

I’m surprised at the variation in quality that I’ve found from MasterPieces. This puzzle was quite thin, there were no variety in piece shapes at all, and it was grid cut. I’ve also worked several of their space saver puzzles and found the quality to be quite good; with good thickness, a random cut, and very nice images. Their EZ grip large piece puzzles have excellent quality with very thick pieces that fit together wonderfully and lovely image reproduction. From “meh” all the way up to “excellent” – hmmm, what is the reason for such fluctuation? Perhaps their different puzzle lines are produced by different manufacturers?

I liked the image well enough, thought it doesn’t wow me. It took me a couple of days to finish, and was entertaining at times. I wouldn’t recommend this puzzle though – the quality just wasn’t up to snuff.

Lakefront: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

On April 20, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles1 Comment

Lakefront: Milwaukee, WI by Hannah Jablonski – HANmade Milwaukee – 500 pieces

This was an interesting puzzle mom got in a swap with another puzzler from her facebook puzzle enthusiasts group who lives nearby. We love having words to assemble, and the image is so unique and fun!

HANmade Milwaukee is a small company that produces souvenirs and gifts that are Milwaukee and Wisconsin themed. They don’t have a large catalog of puzzles, but we found their quality to be quite good and enjoyed assembling this puzzle. The pieces were a nice thickness with an excellent variety of shapes, and fit together very well. The image reproduction was clear and crisp, the random cut kept us on our toes, and the overall first impression was very good.

We’ve been having a tough time lately finding enough smaller piece count puzzles to do together on our visit day, so we were happy to find this one farther back in the stacks of puzzles to be done. I enjoy map puzzles and knew we’d have a good time with this one – I was right! (That doesn’t happen as often as I’d like to believe) It’s always so interesting to try out new companies and see how they compare; we were completely entertained with this puzzle and impressed with the quality. 👍