Tag: Collage

Vintage Matchboxes In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling7 Comments

Vintage Matchboxes by Karen Romanko – Colorcraft Puzzles – 1000 pieces

This puzzle was started a few days ago, but it seems to be going quite slowly. The picture above is only one corner of the puzzle, but I’m afraid a picture of the whole thing wouldn’t look like much as it’s only going together one matchbox at a time and everything is spread out all over.

At this particular moment I’m working on all the boxes with either blue or green in them – slow work indeed!

In addition, there’s something about the finish on this puzzle that likes to stick to my arms; so I’ve taken to covering the bottom of the puzzle with fabric when I’m not working there so that I can work on the rest of the puzzle (or the blog) without upending the whole thing when I take my arms away from the table.

Still, I’m enjoying this one even though it’s only going together bit by tiny bit. That’s what matters. 😊

I Love Music

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

I Love Music by Charlie Girard – White Mountain – 1000 pieces

This was a bright and beautiful collage image that was lots of fun to assemble. And as an added bonus I was happy to work with the new finish that White Mountain used, I liked it very much.

This puzzle had very good quality for this brand. Sometimes it can be hit or miss, but I put up with little annoyances because they have such a great catalog of collages – and my readers know that they are my puzzle happy place. It had a variety of piece shapes, relatively thick chipboard, a very good fit, a lovely matte finish, and good image reproduction. Many of the posters seemed blurry, but I think that may be because they used the old images which weren’t the sharpest. All in all it was the nicest White Mountain puzzle I’ve done in quite a while.

Love the colors and the look of this one – and the “address” is funny to me. Max Yasgur’s farm. I was one year old in 1969, so I definitely do not remember Woodstock.

This concert was twenty years earlier, in 1949 – when my mom was just under two years old! The difference between Billie Holiday’s music and the music of the sixties was VAST.

There were so many letters and words in this image that, other than the heart, the big letters were one of the last bits to be put together. I enjoyed it much more than anticipated though, and that’s always a bonus in my book.

Does this look like a puzzle you’d enjoy? It’s definitely recommended!

I Love Music In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

I Love Music by Charlie Girard – White Mountain – 1000 pieces

This was finally sorted and assembly began yesterday, and it’s going quite well! It’s been a minute since I’ve done a brand new White Mountain puzzle, and honestly I’m quite impressed with the quality. Has anyone else noticed if their puzzles have improved in the quality department?

The finish is much nicer than their older puzzles in my opinion – it’s no longer shiny but matte and the hand feel is excellent; I’ve found myself rubbing my fingertips over the assembled sections absentmindedly as I’m thinking or looking for pieces. I like this new finish. 😊

The fit seems nice as well, it’s absolutely Goldilocks in this puzzle; not too tight, not too loose, just right. 👱‍♀️🐻🐻🐻

When I started sorting I thought this would NOT be as entertaining as I’d hoped, but thankfully I was wrong. Again. It’s going well and I’m finding it hard to walk away from. There’s always one piece more, I remember seeing that one, and it should go here……..

1980s Novels

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles10 Comments

1980s Novels – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

This puzzle went together so quickly once I actually started on the assembly. It was sorted the day before, but didn’t start assembly at all until the next morning. It began in the morning and was finished before I went to bed that night. It was so much fun – it was definitely the right puzzle to help lift my mood!

The quality was actually on the better side of an average Re-marks puzzle, I had no issues with the fit or the reproduction at all. It was a very good quality puzzle, which made me even happier. 😎

To be perfectly honest, the fact that this cover was in the collage is basically the reason I bought this puzzle. I picked it up in the store and my eye went to this book and I didn’t even look at the rest of the book covers; it had already been decided! Ready for a little reminiscing?

When I was in the 10th grade my English teacher gave us a list of about 150 or so books that she considered very good literature, and those were the books we were to pick from to do book reports or whatever it was she called them. I LOVED reading and I think I went through more of those books than any other of her students. I didn’t turn in papers on all of them, but I loved having that list and found books I thought I would like and just read them for myself. That’s how I found this book. I enjoyed it so much that I gave my library copy to mom to read – and she loved it too. It’s the first book in a series of six, and it’s set in prehistoric times when it’s possible that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon humans were sharing the world. I know, it doesn’t sound that interesting, but mom and I loved it! She loved it so much that she got all the books on tape that were available from the library and we would listen to them in the car on our weekend trips with dad to softball tournaments.

I’ve re-read the entire series several times. I love the books, and now they also remind me of mom because we both loved them so much. 💕

I’m not sure how I found this book, but I recall being completely absorbed by it when I first read it. Plus, look at that cover – it’s gorgeous! This is one of the ones I picked out on the initial sorting, and it was so fun to put together.

Mom and I loved Fannie Flagg books; she found some of her novels from the early 2000’s and encouraged me to read them. Honestly I’ve never read Fried Green Tomatoes, but some of her other books I’ve read over and over and mom and I absolutely adored them. The workings of a small town and the hilarity that comes from just regular people being themselves made for such fun novels, and some of them were just heartbreakingly beautiful. Fannie Flagg books make me think of mom, and how we were very alike in the books that we enjoyed.

This puzzle was a joy to put together, and many of the books made me think of my beautiful momma, which was sad but also brought back sweet memories.

If you’re looking for a puzzle with good quality and a great image, I highly recommend this one. I adored it! 👍👍

Travel

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

Travel – Cavallini & Co. – 1000 pieces

This Christmas gift was the second of the puzzles that I picked out myself over Facetime call, I did a pretty good job don’t you think? It was lots of fun to put together, and even though it was on my board much longer than normally takes for a 1000 piece puzzle I was sad when it was over.

Cavallini & Co. puzzles are good quality, but quite expensive in my opinion. There are a variety of shapes, but most of the pieces are ballerinas. The fit is good, if a bit loose, the image reproduction is very good, but the finish is a bit shiny and darker areas can be difficult to work under artificial lights. Overall I’d give the brand a “good” rating. The puzzle comes in a tube, which isn’t ideal for those who keep their puzzles, it’s much harder to shelve than rectangular or square boxes; and the pieces come in a cloth bag which makes disassembly and repackaging annoyingly more time-consuming than it already is. As a bit of a pedant I also find it annoying that their packaging says “vintage puzzle”- that is just untrue. They are all new puzzles and the only thing vintage about them is perhaps the images. Just my two cents, of course.

I always like a section of a collage whose pieces are so very easy to pick out when I’m sorting. This was the easiest section to find all the pieces for – plus, it’s in the states. Gotta love “the Wonder City” – though I don’t ever recall hearing that nickname for New York before.

This was another section with easy to find pieces, and the assembly was lots of fun too.

The giraffe in this section was much more difficult to assemble than I bargained for, and I was shocked at how much it hurt my brain to try and get this one together. Perhaps it was the pain meds, but I rather think it was just that I wasn’t in the right head space when I was putting this part together. The rest of the puzzle didn’t seem that difficult, it was just this tall guy here giving me fits. 🦒

Overall it was a lovely puzzle, with beautiful old travel posters that made for an entertaining and absorbing assembly. Can’t ask for much more than that!