Tag: 750 pieces

Family Dinner

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

Family Dinner by Ed Wargo – Rose Art (Back to the Past) – 750 pieces

The Back to the Past series from Rose Art has some amazing artwork, and if this puzzle is any indication they make for challenging and wonderfully entertaining puzzling. This puzzle was a great time, and I don’t know where else a person can pay $2.99 and get hours and hours worth of amusement, enjoyment, relaxation, and distraction out of it. Adored this one!

Rose Art puzzles can be hit or miss in the quality department, and luckily this one was a hit. The very blocky grid cut pieces made for some false fits, but if I’d really been paying attention maybe I’d have realized my mistakes more quickly. The image reproduction is lovely, but the painterly style made some pieces look like blotchy blobs of color – it was the image itself though, not the reproduction. There were a good variety of pieces that fit together well and the chipboard was relatively thick and sturdy. Overall this was a good quality puzzle, and I was quite happy with it.

If any of you grew up in the 60s and 70s this might be a familiar looking thing – all the side dishes and casseroles. My mother had sooooo many casserole dishes, it was quite a thing at the time; the number of beautiful Corning Ware dishes she had was amazing, and I wish I had more of them here. We never had a giant roast like the one in this oven, we weren’t that well off (and honestly the number of little side dishes shown here for a family dinner seems a bit excessive to me) but the first thing I noticed in the oven were the two casserole dishes in the smaller left-hand oven. They immediately made me think of my mom. 💜

The first thing I put together was this refrigerator with all the wonderful little drawings on it. They were easy to pick out during the sorting, and it’s always fun to have something to assemble immediately after you put together the border.

I really had a good time with this assembly, and it’s making me want to get my butt back to the thrift store to see what other treasures I can find. This beauty has been sent on to Penny soon so she can assemble it too; when I texted her a picture of the puzzle I was doing she immediately asked if she could have it after I was done. Hope you love it my friend! 📦🧩

Family Dinner In Progress…

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

Family Dinner by Ed Wargo – Rose Art (Back to the Past) – 750 pieces

There’s a bit of glare on this picture, my apologies. Otherwise though, it looks pretty good, and the assembly is going very well. It’s a challenging puzzle, with both the painterly style and the block-type pieces, but I’m having fun figuring everything out.

This is another thrift store puzzle, and I’m hoping it’s complete because I absolutely adore this artwork by Ed Wargo. I can also tell you that it isn’t for sale anywhere that I could find. There are quite a few Rose Art Back to the Past puzzles available, but this is NOT one of them, it seems to be out of print (or at least out of print for right now). It makes me so thankful for thrift stores and people who pass along their puzzles for others to do; what a gift to allow others to find puzzles that make them happy at a discounted price while also helping out local businesses or charities. Thrift store puzzles are awesome!

*Someone please gently remind me of that the next time I have a thrift store puzzle with many missing pieces. You haven’t seen the post about it yet, but maybe check out the June completed puzzles page for this year and see my Sunflowers puzzle.🤬*

And so today after a lazy Sunday of napping, puzzling, napping, and shopping online for puzzles it’s time to get back to it. I’m hoping to have this one finished this morning. Only three trays of pieces left to go!

Canine Collage

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Canine Collage by Yago Partal – Buffalo (Dog Days) – 750 pieces

Obviously I’m going to love this puzzle for many reasons – great brand, collage, dogs, blocks of color, etc. It was entertaining (or so says my draft folder from last year) and although it didn’t go together very quickly that doesn’t mean it wasn’t thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.

I think this is the first image by Yago Partal that I’ve done. At least it’s the first one where his name was featured on the box so that credit would be given. If there are any more puzzles like this out there they’ll definitely be on my wishlist.

This puzzle was very good quality; there was one piece slightly bent out of shape but otherwise it was an excellent puzzle.

LOVE this one! It reminds both Penny and I of Ruth Bader Ginsburg – anyone else see it or are we just weirdos?

There’s something about the light hitting this poor guy’s eyes – he looks so sad!

The Wolf of Wall Street! There’s something about this breed of dog, their faces are just too intense for me – it has to be the eyes.

Colorful Destinations

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Colorful Destinations by Lewis T. Johnson – Buffalo – 750 pieces

Beautiful. colorful, and quite lovely to assemble (according to my completed puzzles page from last year). Unfortunately the next several puzzle posts will most likely all say something to the effect of “I have no memory of actually assembling this puzzle”. They were all finished last year and in the queue when the puzzling stopped. Sorry.🤷‍♀️

From what little I put in my draft of this post I can tell you that this one was excellent quality – that’s always good to hear, isn’t it? Of course Buffalo puzzles are usually very good or excellent in the quality department, they were one of the brands being purchased most often last year because 1) they have a LOT of images by my favorite artist – Aimee Stewart, and 2) there have been very few issues with their puzzle quality that I have ever had to deal with. I’m glad this one was no exception.

I’m not much of a traveler, and to be honest the only country I’ve visited is Canada. We used to live in Michigan – directly West of Canada. And you didn’t need a passport back in the old days to cross the bridge and visit our neighbors to the North; sometimes we’d go over just to have dinner.

Luckily even though I’m not well-traveled there are gorgeous puzzles like this one so at least we can look at all the fabulous places there are in the world to visit.✈

I absolutely loved this section, figuring out how all those stripes went together had me in full meditation mode. Fantastic!

Another section that was fun to put together, it reminded me of the Colorforms I used to have as a kid. Anyone else remember those?

This was my favorite section, the artwork is fabulous and it really stands out. Stunning, isn’t it? Loved it!

After completing a wonderfully entertaining collage on Sunday, I may or may not have gone to the bookstore and bought myself six more big collages. My youngest son asked for a ride to the movie theater, and coincidentally it is very close to the bookstore where I sometimes shop for puzzles. That’s what happens when I’m left unattended with money in my wallet.

Perhaps the inner puzzle goddess in me was raring to get back to my board and to make up for all the time when I wasn’t shopping for puzzles. In addition to shopping in an actual brick and mortar store there are four different shipments of puzzles on their way to my house. I ordered a bunch of small puzzles that could be worked on while in bed if necessary, and lots of bigger ones too. It may be that I wanted to be sure to have lots of incentive to continue puzzling even if I’m not feeling so great after next week’s surgery, or that I just missed being at the board, or just a severe PADS flare-up. Putting together beautiful puzzles, writing about them, and sharing them with my puzzle posse really does improve my mood and help deal with all the stress of life and dealing with chronic pain.

Whatever the reason, there is NO REMORSE whatsoever. In fact, I’m working on one of my new collages right now – and having a fabulous time. Puzzles (especially collages) truly are my happy place. 🧩😍

In Progress

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Colorful Destinations by Lewis T. Johnson – Buffalo – 750 pieces

Still in my funk I’m afraid, and haven’t touched my current puzzle in a couple of days. Hopefully today will be the day I get back to it.

The border is completed, and so are the words, and a few of the sections that I picked out on the initial sort; I’m somewhere between a third and a half done. I’d take a picture, but I’m just not feeling up to going into the puzzle room at the moment.

Hope you all have a great week. Happy puzzling!