Art Nouveau Poster Collage

On February 25, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

This is an amazingly beautiful collage that mom picked out for us. I thought it would be as difficult as the Santa Collage from Wentworth that we did, but it went together a little bit easier. The colors and artwork are absolutely lovely, and it was so much fun!

The smaller 500 piece Santa collage was quite a challenge, and we thought this one would be too. Don’t get me wrong, it was a challenge, but we were also surprised that it went together as quickly as it did. We enjoyed ourselves very much; we always do when working with wooden puzzles, they’re such great quality and so much fun to work with.

We always start by picking out all the whimsy pieces and seeing all the clever shapes. So many interesting shapes from all over the world – Christ the Redeemer, Sydney Opera House (I think), The Statue of Liberty, The Thinker, a can-can girl, and so many more…

Such lovely whimsies were a perfect compliment to such a lovely puzzle. The vintage art nouveau posters made an excellent collage that was a joy to assemble. The colors were wonderful to work with and mom and I loved placing every single piece!

If you haven’t worked a wooden puzzle, it takes a little getting used to. The pieces don’t fit together like your average cardboard puzzle, the fit is much looser and it takes some time to get the hang of it. I find it’s easier to work with wooden puzzles on my fabric covered board, the fabric makes it a little more difficult for the pieces to move too much. The loose fit of the pieces and the more obvious piece shapes showing in the finished image are the two major drawbacks of wooden puzzles that I’ve found. I don’t find them much of a problem at all actually, and as long as I could afford it I would never hesitate to get myself another wooden puzzle.

I always end my posts about wooden puzzles by telling my readers that if they are able to they should think about treating themselves to a wooden puzzle. I’ll end this one the same way, maybe take a few dollars from your tax refund this year (if you get one) to reward yourself with a beautiful wooden puzzle!

Flower Pot Friends

On November 7, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

I enjoyed this puzzle very much! I found it to be excellent quality for a Mega Puzzle, and was delighted at the way they included the whimsies. All the other pieces actually had connectors; so even though the whimsies just fit into place, the surrounding pieces were all connected. Awesome!

I love puzzles with whimsy pieces, but I don’t love how they’re usually included with many other pieces that just sit next to each other. I know there has to be some of that when you include specially shaped pieces, but so often it seems that there is much more of it than is necessary. I admit to not really having any knowledge of how puzzles are made, but the pieces sitting together instead of fitting together makes me crazy!

This puzzle had none of that, the whimsies themselves didn’t connect, but all the rest of them did. Hooray! Someone finally did it my way! In addition to that, the pieces were very thick for a Mega Puzzle and fit together extremely well. All in all, not anything like other Mega Puzzles I have worked, much better quality.

I’m not really a cat person, I prefer dogs; and I don’t normally go for cat puzzles either. (I know, you think little old lady with her puzzles and cats, but that’s just not me – I’m a little old lady with her puzzles and her Boston Terrier!) Even though it’s a cat puzzle something about this image drew me in, and I really had a good time assembling it.

All the regular rules went out the window with this puzzle. I don’t normally do Mega Puzzles because I find they’re just too thin, not so with this puzzle. I don’t normally do cat puzzles, but I loved this image with the cats and had a great time with it. I usually have a tough time with dealing with the pieces of a puzzle with whimsies, but this one was done very well and I was impressed!

Barn Sale

On November 2, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, I think I was having flashbacks of the last Bits and Pieces shaped puzzle that I’d done. This one seemed to be much better quality, or perhaps a better cut? I’m not sure which, but it was much easier to deal with – the pieces all fit together!

I try not to be overly judgmental about certain brands, but I’m not always successful. Just because the last shaped puzzle from this company was a disappointment doesn’t mean they all will be. But when you’ve had a bad experience it sticks with you, at least it does for me. But sometimes one of the puzzles calls to me from the “to do” pile, and I just have to do that one next, even if it may be one with questionable quality.

I’m glad I decided to ignore my judgy brain and assemble this puzzle anyway. It really was much better quality than I’d assumed, and it was quite fun to assemble as well. I love a puzzle with quilts, so that was even more incentive for me; there’s something so entertaining for me in putting a jigsaw quilt together, I love it! All around I would say this was a very good quality puzzle that I would definitely recommend. 👍

Witch Way to Halloween

On October 1, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

I did this puzzle in 2016, I put it on the 2016 Completed Puzzles January – March page but for some reason haven’t done a full post on it. While going back through the blog to prepare the first birthday post I came across this puzzle and realized with October only a few days away that it was the perfect time to post it. Witch Way to Halloween??

I love the artwork of this puzzle, the gravestones, the trick or treaters, the gorgeous colors of the leaves on the trees, the headless horseman, bats, etc. – it’s an excellent puzzle image. It also included several whimsies – a black cat, a witch in the shape of the puzzle itself, gravestones and others. The puzzle itself it gorgeous; the quality, unfortunately, not as beautiful. 😦

The pieces were a good enough thickness and the image reproduction was very nice. My problem was the cut/fit of the pieces. I know with a shaped puzzle and especially when there are whimsies that you can’t have every single piece connect, sometimes they just sit next to each other. But the fit of this puzzle took this to the extreme. Even when the entire puzzle was completed you could pull away whole sections because they didn’t connect anywhere. You can see in the picture that you can actually remove the witch’s hand – it just comes away. There was constant readjustment necessary, which is extremely annoying to me. And even where the pieces did connect the fit was very loose; any slight bump would upset many pieces.

This puzzle and the terrible cut/fit turned me off Bits and Pieces puzzles. I haven’t ordered from them since. I’ve done one or two of their puzzles we’ve found at thrift stores, but in general they’ve been on my naughty list. I may have just gotten a puzzle from the end of the run, you never know. Still, they’re not a manufacturer I go out of my way to find. They do have some gorgeous puzzles though – we’ve still got some on our to do list that we’ve picked up from the local thrift stores. Maybe the next one I do will be awesome!

Nevertheless, this puzzle is beautiful and a nice kick-off for the Halloween season. I love the fall! 🎃

100 Elephants and a Mouse

On July 30, 2017February 5, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Ugh, this was the worst assembly for me in a while. Ceaco isn’t a favorite, but this was awful! I muddled through it because I like the image, and ended up with 2 missing pieces. 😐 Normally Ceaco isn’t that bad, perhaps this was the end of the run.

The fit of this puzzle was horrible, the best way I can describe it is “spongy”; you could place a piece and it felt almost soft and spongy going together. It was easy to place a piece incorrectly because the fit was so ambiguous. The image reproduction was sharp in some places, and in others it looked almost fuzzy, like a mimeographed picture from my elementary school days. (Yes, I’m old)

I picked this puzzle up several times to start it, liked the image so I pulled the pieces out of the box – then I put it back down because the pieces did not look great. It’s finally assembled so I won’t be having that argument with myself anymore!

I always try to find something positive; with this puzzle it’s making me think very hard. Um, we saved someone else from buying a puzzle with missing pieces, there were a nice variety of piece shapes, and I enjoyed the image very much. Oh, and I found the mouse! 🙂