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?

Good Housekeeping Collection

On February 6, 2020February 6, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

GH Collection — Good Housekeeping Collection – New York Puzzle Company – 1000 pieces

I absolutely loved this puzzle, both because it was a collage and great fun and because it brought back memories. It was assembled once already. My mom and daughter did the majority of the assembly and I came in at the end and helped out; I didn’t feel as though I actually assembled it since they did most of the work, so it didn’t make it onto the blog. I have great memories of the three generations of women working on this together, and it’s a puzzle I will never get rid of.

I’ve done quite a few NY Puzzle Company puzzles, and I really like them. Their catalog has a lot of magazine covers, and I find they are great fun to assemble. The quality is very good too; thick pieces, very nice fit, and great image reproduction. I’ve never had a bad experience with this brand, which is something I can’t say about most of the brands I’ve assembled.

GH Collection 1

I just loved the look of this cover, how both the woman’s dress and the dog’s coat blend into the background color. (Plus, you can’t go wrong with a dog!) Several of the covers were the same, where the background color is the same as the clothes of the women so that they blend together.

GH Collection 2

I also was glad to see that not every cover is about fashion or cooking or some other “ladylike” pursuit – we ladies can do so much more than that! There were several covers of women doing things like working on a car tire, and even what I think was a suffragette being hauled off to prison. I like it!

My mother loved this puzzle, and that’s probably part of why I loved it too. It was great quality, a fun assembly, and a wonderfully challenging image – but even more than that it reminds me of her. She put this one together with my daughter and I before, but she loved it so much that she didn’t re-donate it, I found it at her house with her things. It’s a keeper for me, definitely.

Pixar Posters

On February 2, 2020February 1, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles7 Comments

I know, it’s a Ceaco, what in the world am I doing assembling a Ceaco so soon after the Christmas debacle? It was a gift, and I love the image, so why not? I can’t very well have a bonfire and torch all the Ceaco puzzles I have here…..although…….🤔.

The fit was terrible, it was very loose and even moving three connected pieces was pretty hard to do. On the plus side the pieces were a workable thickness and the image reproduction was very good. Again, this is one of those times where the image overcame the quality and I enjoyed myself anyway. It’s a collage, there are lots of words, and each of the posters is bright and fun. I had a great time with it, despite it’s issues.

*I tried to be impartial and just judge the puzzle on it’s own merits, and I think I was, but I’m still a little perturbed at the brand in general and so I may have been specifically on the lookout for any problems.*

These were my two favorite sections to assemble, though pretty much all of them were fun. I loved the movie Brave – Girls rule! – and it was the first section I put together; all that red hair was the most logical place to start after putting together all the words and titles. Coco was much more entertaining to assemble than I thought, and although I haven’t seen the movie I found myself enjoying it very much. My son tells me I should see it and that it was an excellent movie that I will love; he and I have VERY different tastes in movies, so I’m not so sure about his recommendation. 😉

My kids are older now and so I haven’t seen many of the newer Disney-Pixar movies. Of all the movies shown here I have seen just over half of them, nine out of seventeen. There was a time not so long ago that when a new movie came out on DVD (or VHS) that we would all take a trip to the store and get ourselves a copy; then we’d go home and watch it together that evening – or sometimes we couldn’t wait and we watched it in the afternoon. I have great memories of watching Disney movies with my kids, and so perhaps I haven’t watched the newer ones because my kids are all adults, off living their own lives, and not always available to watch movies with mom.

Pixar Posters 3

This is the last section I put together, only because everything is blue, and most of the pieces just looked blue – even the teeth! It was still good fun though, especially because at the end of the puzzle when the pieces are dwindling down to nothing it gets more and more exciting. You’re almost there, and every piece you find gets you that much closer to the end, and you’re finding each one faster and faster – almost more quickly than you can put them into the puzzle!

As many puzzles as I’ve done, the end is still as exciting to me as it ever was. Getting down to the last few pieces is entertaining, full of anticipation, fast-moving, thrilling, dramatic, and always fun. I hope it never gets old.

Cats Around the World

On January 28, 2020January 28, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles7 Comments

We were sorting through some of mom’s puzzles, and my daughter said to me “here’s one with a lot of cats”. My response was “Ugh, no thanks”, but then she said it was funny, so I had to take a look at it. I’m glad I did because this is not only a funny image, but was an entertaining assembly too.

I haven’t done a Dowdle puzzle in quite a long time, when did they start using just the one piece shape? And why in the world are so many companies using only one shape? It’s really frustrating, do they think that’s what we like or want? News flash puzzle companies – we like variety in shapes even if it’s only within a ribbon or grid cut – only one piece shape is BORING to work with.

This puzzle came with a legend that names all the cats and tells where they’re from…

Cats 1

Starting at the bottom in the middle and going around clockwise…

Sheriff “Cat” Masterson – Dodge City, Kansas
Audrey Hep-PURR-n – Belgium
Trojan Mouse – Greece
Fat Cat – Wall Street, New York

Cats 2

Starting at the top left and continuing clockwise…

“Mew”-stafa – Egypt
Mr. “Meow”-gi – Japan
MVP (Most Valuable Pussycat) “Go Kitty Wampus!!!”
“Feline” Nightingale – England
Yassir Ara-“cat” – Saudia Arabia

Cats 3

Starting at the top left again, clockwise…

Guillermo del “Gato (gato is Spanish for cat) – Mexico
Maurice “Chat”-velier (chat [pronounced shot] is French for cat) – France
Bat Cat – Gotham City
Coot Cat – Magnum P.C. (Pussy Cat) – Hawaii, USA

Cats 4

Starting at the top in the middle and continuing clockwise…

Captain Cat Sparrow – England
Lady Lib-PURR-ty – a gift from France to the United States
Big Lou – known for his cat calls – New York City
Chaim “khah-Tool”-evsky (khah-Tool is Hebrew for Cat) – Israel

Just for clarification, the explanations of the words for cat in different languages were part of the legend, and I copied them exactly.

While I was disappointed in the lack of variety in piece shape, I still enjoyed the puzzle and especially the names and silly faces of the cats. Chaim khah-Tool-evesky makes me laugh every time I look at him, that grumpy face is hysterical! Feline Nightingale’s cranky face is pretty funny too – the ones that make me laugh made this puzzle completely worth it. Just looking at the picture of the puzzle makes me smile. 🙂

Dog’s Life

On January 20, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles9 Comments

Is that not the cutest puzzle? It’s so adorable!!! My darlin daughter gave me this one for Christmas, and I couldn’t wait to get at it. It’s truly a dog’s life in this puzzle, and if you have dogs or have had them in the past you will relate.

It’s not the best quality, and if you ask me Eurographics is backsliding in the quality department. They used to be very good quality randomly cut puzzles, but this one piece shape with terrible cutting leaves a lot to be desired. The finish is super shiny and there is glare no matter if you’re working with dark pieces or light.

Dog's Life 1

This is basically dog ownership in a nutshell. Always looking at you for food as if they’ve never eaten a meal in their lives; that’s how Buddy looks at us anyway.

We only have one dog, just Buddy, but he certainly enjoys a ride in the car, and there is plenty of hanging out the window going on! And more than any other little vignette in this puzzle, the one on the right definitely shows how Buddy gets comfy in bed with my husband and me. He takes the middle – all of the middle!

My youngest son surprised me by coming in at the end of this puzzle when I was finishing the middle, there were about 7 or 8 pieces left, and he just grabbed one and put it in. He NEVER wants to do puzzles with me, so it was a bit of a shock, but a very happy one. He kept on going and I let him place all of the final pieces. He stopped at the last one and looked to me, knowing that putting in the very last piece makes a hard-core puzzler like me very happy, but I told him to go ahead and finish it. It was so lovely and I was truly pleased that he came in and wanted to be with me in my puzzle room working on one of my puzzles – even if it was only for a couple of minutes! He’s so sweet, and I love that he helped me put in the last few pieces. 💖