Building Facades

On June 26, 2020June 26, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

Here we have another untitled image. Unfortunately, I was unable to come up with a catchy title and so I just gave it a descriptive one. What do you see here? Building facades. What should I call it? I guess…..Building Facades. *yawn* Sorry guys, my brain isn’t always firing on all cylinders.

This is one of twelves puzzles in one box from Cardinal. I knew when I purchased it that it wouldn’t be great quality – I’ve never seen one of these multipack puzzles with really good quality. Ever. But, I wanted these images; I love the artwork and decided that it would be worth muddling through the crappy quality to get to put these interesting and colorful images together.

I’ve now assembled puzzles of all three sizes from this multipack and I can report that the puzzles have differing levels of quality. The 150 pieces are the best of the bunch; the fit isn’t great, but it isn’t horrid either, and the piece thickness is fair. The 300 piece puzzles in this set are the middle range; thinner pieces than the 150 pcs., and the fit was about the same. The 500 pieces were the worst of the bunch; the fit was awful, the pieces were extremely thin, and the glare from the shiny finish was much more noticeable.

All of that said, I don’t regret buying this set. I knew it wouldn’t be great quality and I still look forward to assembling the rest of the images. Glutton for punishment? Perhaps. Puzzle addict and PADS sufferer? Definitely! 🧩💗

Birds in Progress

On June 24, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Birds IP — Birds – Lafayette Puzzle Factory (Cra-Z-Art) – 500 pieces

Another 500 piece puzzle with separate shaped mini puzzles, this one is Birds. I didn’t want to do too many of these small shaped puzzles in a row, but needs must – sitting in my chair in front of my table just isn’t something I’m able to do at the moment; these puzzles are easy to do on trays or my white board while I’m in bed.

I also wanted to show you the colored backings; you can separate them by color so that you can put each group together or you can disregard the backing and just assemble them as a regular 500 piece puzzle using only colors and shapes.

The feedback on the previous sets (Cottages and Shoes) has been great, and I hope you don’t get too sick of them. I bought myself 6 new sets, and one of them has already been assembled, and….. Oh. My. Goodness. They’re so beautiful! They’re fun and interesting too; and more importantly they’re easy to do when sitting is too difficult for me.

This puzzle is different than most of the others in that instead of 12 mini puzzles there are 15 of them. Instead of four days of posts showing three puzzles each day there will be five days of posts. I hope everyone enjoys the pretty birds! 🦜🐦

Retirement

On June 16, 2020June 15, 2026 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

Love, love, love this image! Not only is it beautiful and funny, it made for a fantastic assembly. Hubby decided to get me some more puzzles from Mr. Bob (I think because he wanted to spend a little extra money on himself, and buying me something too lowers his guilt about it). So he asked me to pick out two images and this was the first one I chose.

Mr. Bob Puzzles has a great catalog of beautiful, interesting, and unique images to choose from, it’s difficult to find just one or two that I want to order because I want almost all of them! 😍

Jim Tsinganos is one of the featured artists at Mr. Bob Puzzles, and I adore his artwork. You know how much I love humor – so this funny, silly, beautiful image jumped right out at me when I first saw it, and I’ve had this one on my mental wish list for quite a while. Thank goodness I finally was able to assemble it. There are several other images of his still on my list, and I hope to get them someday, what a fabulous artist he is!

The cut is more “traditional” with regular looking pieces, but it’s quite deceptive. With so many straight or nearly straight edges throughout the entire puzzle it becomes a much more challenging assembly than you would think. It isn’t possible to begin with the edges, at least it isn’t for me; most of the pieces look as though they might be edges! Even on the inside of the puzzle you have to focus much more on the colors, textures, and shading – it’s a bit of a mental workout and I love it.

Great whimsies with this puzzle: Dorothy, Toto, The Tin Man, The Scarecrow, a flying monkey, The Wicked Witch of the West, etc. There are also the usual whimsies of Australia, clasped hands, and the Mr. Bob logo along with the profile of Mr. Bob too. I love the look of all of them!

My only criticism is – where is the cowardly lion? Was he too scared to show up for his profile sitting? Did he take too long to get there because his scooter slowed him down? I’m being silly, I know – but give an old lady some leeway to be ridiculous now and then. 😉

Emerald Towers Retirement Suites – I really do love the art and humor of Jim Tsinganos!

This closeup speaks for itself, it makes the entire image. I love how Dorothy’s shoes no longer have heels; she’s turned those in for flats which are so much safer and easier to walk in. The Cowardly Lion might have broken a hip or something and needs a scooter to get himself around, and The Tin Man needs a cane. You can’t really see a big change in The Scarecrow, other than he seems a little “heavier” than I remember him and a bit more stooped at the shoulders. He also seems to be leaning a bit on Dorothy.

Great image, great quality puzzle, wonderfully entertaining assembly – what more could you ask for? 💖🧩

Building Facades In Progress

On June 15, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Buildings IP — Building Facades by Iralu – Cardinal – 500 pieces

This particular puzzle from a family pack of twelve puzzles has seen me start and stop assembling it before. This is the third time I’ve started, and this time I’m finally going to get it done!

The quality of the 500 piece puzzles in this set is pretty bad, with thin pieces and a terrible fit. The finish is quite shiny as well, and causes quite a bit of glare. Those are the reasons for me starting this puzzle previously but then putting it away; I was NOT in the mood to deal with a bad quality puzzle before.

This time I feel myself being quite stubborn about it though, I really like the artwork and so I’m wanting to power through and get this one “done and dusted”, as they say. I’m not sure I can articulate why this time was the one and why I’ve got a bee in my bonnet to get this finished. I just know that’s how it’s going this time around.

Shoes – Part 4

On June 8, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles10 Comments

Shoes 4.1 — Shoes – Lafayette Puzzle Factory (Cra-Z-Art) – 125/500 pieces

And so today we’ve come to the last of the shoe puzzles. Just as I was a bit sad when I came to the end of these puzzles, I’m a little sad we’ve come to the end of the posts. 😕

Luckily there is another set of puzzles here that I could put together and make multiple posts from – it’s a set of birds. There is one small difference though, there are 15 mini puzzles in that set instead of 12; it would make for five posts instead of four. That’s pretty good, because I’ve been in such a funk lately that I’ve whittled my queue down to almost nothing. Time for Stacey to get herself back in the game!

Shoes 4.2

Love the sparkly bow/pin and the very cool crystal-like heel. Purple isn’t my go-to color, but put purple and pink together and you’ve got a hit as far as I’m concerned.

Shoes 4.3

This is my least favorite of all twelve shoes, I think it’s the orangey-yellow color. It may partly be because it’s floral as well, floral really isn’t my thing either. Still, overall, it’s a little wild and out there – which is absolutely my thing!

Shoes 4.4

How great is this shoe? It may sound a little odd to some, but it reminds me of my wedding dress. You couldn’t see it on the puzzles of my wedding pictures, but on the back of my dress were many draped strings of beads across my back, and the chains on this shoe remind me of them. I love the chains on the back! Add to that diamond studs, and shiny black and gold – to me this is a gorgeous shoe!

I hope this series of small, shaped puzzles was one you enjoyed seeing, and also hope that if you haven’t assembled a shaped puzzle before that it may have given you a push to perhaps try them for yourself. If a large shaped puzzle seems too foreign to you, I highly recommend giving one of these sets a try if you can find them. They’re great fun, and a nice change from only assembling rectangular puzzles. 🧩💗