Bedtime Stories

On February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Bedtime Stories was so much fun, the bright and colorful covers made for a truly entertaining assembly. There were a few books I’d never heard of, although to be fair it’s been a long, long, time since my children were young enough to read books like these.

It was a great quality puzzle too, which makes an entertaining image even more fun to put together. The pieces were a good thickness with an excellent fit, and the image reproduction was bright and colorful. The only drawback was a little bit of a shiny finish which sometimes made the darker pieces hard to see with the glare.

Bedtime 1

The Tom Sawyer cover was a little challenging to put together, but I adore the look of it; I’ve never seen that cover before. The Alice in Wonderful cover was lovely, and I think this puzzle would be fantastic in a larger piece count – 1500 or 2000 pieces would be extremely entertaining!

Bedtime 2

These are books I remember from my childhood, though I admit that James and the Giant Peach wasn’t on my radar until I had kids of my own. I LOVED Pippi Longstocking books when I was young – she was bold and brash and didn’t care what anyone thought, and I wanted to be just like her. In many ways I think I’ve succeeded; bold is a word that’s been used more than a few times to describe me, and I honestly don’t give a bleep what anyone thinks of me – just like Pippi! 🙂

The Jungle Book was my absolute favorite movie, though I didn’t read the book until I was a bit older. Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel was a book I hadn’t thought about in years and years, but I remember it very fondly. I loved it as a child, and just looking at the cover makes me smile. Anyone else remember Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel named Mary Anne and the problem they dug themselves into?

I have such good memories of books and time spent reading from when I was a child; I was a voracious reader with an imagination that was capable of many, many flights of fancy. I’ve raised three children who also love to read, and that makes me unbelievably happy and proud. 📚

Game Pieces

On February 18, 2020February 18, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles6 Comments

My last puzzle completed in January was a thrift store find that was lots of fun and went very quickly; I started at 4 am and finished just after noon (that includes some running errands too). I’m no puzzle dynamo though, collages go together much more quickly than a single image, and when an image draws me in like this one did I find it terribly difficult to stop. It’s an affliction!

It’s easier puzzling in the wee hours of the morning; there are no distractions and no interruptions – just a peaceful, quiet house and the only thing I have to think about is does this blue look the same as the blue I’m trying to match? And do I need a piece with 3 tabs or 4?

Better than typical White Mountain quality made it very nice to work with; the pieces fit together extremely well and the fantastic collage image was completely engrossing. There was no image lift at all which is surprising for a secondhand puzzle, and the image reproduction was bright and colorful with no fuzzy or blurry areas. Very good quality all around!

Anybody know what game that butterfly card is for? I don’t ever remember seeing it before. How about the Pig card, anyone know what game that is from? There were a lot of games I didn’t know, ever heard of Flinch? If you have heard of or played any of these games, please let me know. I could probably look these things up online, but to be honest I’d rather have a conversation in the comments with a fellow member of the PADS posse. 😉

Game Pieces 2

Oh my! Did I love the dice bubble from the Trouble game when I was young! I would sit and just pop it/roll the die over and over – it just felt really cool! (Can you tell I am from the pre-internet generation? LOL) Just looking at it makes me smile. Was it just me, or did anyone else love to play with it too?

Even though there was a missing piece I wasn’t disappointed at all, it was still tons of fun. It was just what I needed after a puzzle that was pretty much all one color and all kinds of YAWN – I wanted bright colors and fun, and this puzzle definitely delivered. If you come across a copy I highly recommend it. Loved it! 🎲 👍😍

Candy For All Seasons

On February 14, 2020February 14, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles6 Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today is the day for love, and gifts of flowers, jewelry, and candy if you believe the commercials. Hubby and I don’t go in for all of that; he treats me like the queen I am all year long. 👑

Anyway, to the puzzle! I don’t have any Valentine’s Day puzzles here at the house, and I don’t like to repeat any posts, so this one was the closest I could get specific to today’s holiday. I associate some holidays with candy – Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas. This puzzle has one heart lollipop which is the only candy I could find for Valentine’s Day; it’s a little sad, one lonely lollipop.

There’s plenty of chocolate eggs and rabbits for the Easter holiday. The only thing I could find specifically for Halloween was the candied apple at the bottom. There are some Christmas chocolates in the foreground, but really not that much.

The surprise for me was the Thanksgiving candy. I don’t associate that holiday with candy at all, for Americans it’s all about the Thanksgiving dinner; but there were several things shown here that I’ve never seen at all.

Candy 1

I have never seen a chocolate turkey before, or anything like the lollipop shown here. It’s probably the least appetizing “candy” I’ve ever seen. I certainly wouldn’t want to eat it – candy corn and green chocolate – ugh. Does that sound good to anyone?

I’m familiar with most of the candies shown, but I’ve never seen or eaten Turkish Taffy or Abba Zabbas. I’ve seen and tried Lemon Heads, but never knew they make other flavors like Cherry Heads and Apple Heads too!

The quality was a little disappointing with this one, most notably the fuzzy image reproduction. I’ve seen this on several White Mountain collages, but it doesn’t stop me from buying them. It can be a bit annoying, but they have some of the best collages in the business and collages are my favorite type of puzzle to assemble – so I just deal with it. If it’s important to you though, you should be aware.

This White Mountain puzzle was a thrift store find, and I very much enjoyed putting it together, even with the four missing pieces. According to my puzzle friend Nicola, the task is to put together all the pieces you have until there are none left. The puzzle may not be complete and you may have missing pieces, but you have completed your task when you place the last piece. If you look at it that way, it’s a little less frustrating, right?

I try not to get too upset at missing pieces, most especially the ones from the thrift store. In my mind, I’m dividing the time spent by the amount paid for the puzzle. If I spent 8 hours on a thrift store puzzle that I bought for $1.99, then even if there is a missing piece or two I have gotten a fantastic deal! Where else can you get time to yourself, productive entertainment, and all the health benefits that come from assembling jigsaw puzzles for only 25 cents an hour? A bargain at 100 times the price!

Review: Farmers’ Market

On February 11, 2020February 10, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

While I enjoyed the bright colors and interesting image, the very shiny finish and extremely slippery backing made this puzzle a bit difficult to assemble and VERY difficult to photograph. It was entertaining to put together, but I ended up with a negative impression of it partly because photographing the puzzle is the last thing I do, and this one was a bugger to take a picture of!

I work under artificial lights, but with my fabric covered board it’s usually easy to get a good photograph – the chipboard backing on the puzzles sticks to the fabric and doesn’t move when I lean the board up against the wall. Taking pictures this way takes care of glare from the lights, and makes it easier to get a picture of the puzzle straight on. This puzzle though, with it’s slippery paper on the backing just kept sliding right off! Since I couldn’t lean the board even a little bit I had to take a picture with the board flat and ended up with quite a bit of glare. It took many pictures and much more time than usual to get a good picture. It was extremely frustrating. 🤬

The puzzle itself had large, thick pieces that fit together well, but unfortunately that’s where my positives end. The backing didn’t have a good feel in my hands, the finish was extremely shiny and caused glare under the lights, and the image reproduction made it very easy to tell that this was a digital collage. I’ve worked many, many, many collage puzzles – I would say that most of them have been digitally altered or assembled – but this was the first puzzle that made it glaringly obvious.

I’ve been going back and forth about whether or not to recommend this puzzle to my readers. On the one hand I enjoyed the actual assembly, but on the other hand I had several issues with the quality (that didn’t involve picture taking). It all depends on what characteristics are most important to you when assembling a puzzle. I found the image to be bright and colorful – and also too shiny with a very obvious digitally altered image. The chipboard was thick with a good fit – although the backing felt odd and almost sharp in my hands.

Overall the puzzle itself had good quality, and I mostly enjoyed the assembly, so it is recommended (even though if I came across another of these Trendz puzzles by MasterPieces I would pass it on by). It’s not my pile of pieces, but it may be yours. 🙂

Details:

Title: Farmers’ Market
Artist: Unknown
Brand: MasterPieces
Piece count: 300 pieces
Size: Approx. 18 x 24 in. (46 x 61 cm)
Purchased: Used, thrift store

Quality:

Board: Good
Cutting: Good
Image: Good
Box: Average
Fit: Very good
Puzzle Dust: Small amount
Piece cut: Grid cut
Piece shapes: Good variety
Finish: Very shiny finish, lays flat

Overall Rating: Good, recommended

Doughnuts

On February 8, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

It was so nice to open this puzzle and see the fantastic quality of the pieces and feel the linen finish – it was wonderful to get back to a Cobble Hill puzzle, they’re excellent quality puzzles and it was lovely even to sort these pieces!

I got several gift cards this past Christmas, and one of them was for Barnes & Noble; I made sure to use it up in January when their puzzles are buy one get one 50% off – I made the most of my gift! I got plenty of puzzles to keep me entertained and happy for quite a while, and this is the first one that I’ve put together.

I don’t know why it’s been so long since I’ve assembled a Cobble Hill, they’re such nice quality. Part of it is that I’ve been mostly working puzzles from mom’s house, and partly because when I do venture out of the house in search of puzzles Tuesday Morning is where I normally go because it’s so close to my house. Unfortunately they don’t usually carry Cobble Hill. After putting this puzzle together though, I may have to suck it up and drive a little farther now and then, I loved working with these pieces!

Doughnut puzzle images are always fun for me, you can do like I did and separate out all of one color – like blue, or you can assemble it one doughnut at a time. Whichever way works for you is absolutely correct. I started with blue, green, and pink, and then the rest it of was mostly filling in. It wasn’t too easy or too difficult, this one was a total Goldilocks assembly – it was just right.

If you’re looking for a great quality doughnut puzzle, I can definitely recommend this one; big pieces, thick chipboard, linen finish, excellent fit – it’s got it all. 🍩👍

I love a food puzzle, and oddly they almost never make me hungry. Do any of you ever get hungry working with a food puzzle?