Flutter & Bright Beauty

On August 25, 2023August 25, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Flutter & Bright Beauty – Andrews & Blaine/Pintoo – 48 pieces each

It isn’t very often at all that one comes across a brand new type of jigsaw puzzle that they’ve never seen before – this is one of those rare times. Have you seen a “Double-Sided Brainteaser” jigsaw puzzle before? This was my first time.

My Dad found two of these puzzles in Mom’s things about a year after she passed, and although I started playing with them soon after he brought them to me, they inevitably got put aside. They were lost in the shuffle of my crazy life for a bit, and recently I took them out again. I finished the first one in July of this year.

Here’s the concept…

The box tells you that it’s easy to play anywhere since there is no tabletop required for laying out pieces – it’s all supposed to be handheld as there is only one piece out of the frame at a time.

The way to solve it is knowing when you take a piece out exactly where it belongs. Which leads to the next piece, etc. That isn’t the way I usually do it, and I couldn’t seem to get my set-in-her-ways-old-lady-brain to cooperate.

If I know where the first piece I take out belongs, that leads to me having to know where the piece that it’s replacing goes. I tried, believe me; but it just isn’t the way puzzles go together for me and it wasn’t something my brain seemed to want to help me with. I found it unbelievably frustrating. I felt stupid because I’m good at puzzles, so why couldn’t I just solve them in a different way?

At only 48 pieces I thought it would be quick and easy to assemble correctly, but my brain doesn’t work in the fashion required to solve this brainteaser puzzle the way it’s meant to be solved. Perhaps it’s old age, or OCD, or just years of assembling jigsaw puzzles differently – whatever the reason, I found that the best (or only) way for me to put this puzzle together was to take all the pieces out of the frame first. As I’m always telling you, whatever way works best for you is what’s best, right? 😉

In addition, unlike every other double-sided puzzle I’ve completed, when one side is correctly assembled the other side is not; there is no “cheating” and only finishing one side and getting two complete images. That’s a first for me too.

This seems to be a collaboration between Andrews & Blaine and Pintoo. The pieces are extremely thick plastic, and the fit is incredibly tight. It takes some work to push the pieces out of the frame, but it would have to be quite snug if you wanted the pieces to stay put at all. The pieces are all ballerinas (2 prong/2 hole) and all exactly the same shape. It’s a well made puzzle.

It’s quite small, very easy to throw into a backpack or a purse and take with you…

It’s quite the interesting concept, and even with my frustration I enjoyed trying out it even though it wasn’t made for the way my brain works. It seems as though these are no longer being manufactured, and the only place I was able to find them online was on eBay. Perhaps the price had something to do with the decision to stop making these – the box says it was originally $14.95 for one 48 piece puzzle!

I have one more of these yet to assemble, but it will definitely go faster now that I’ve realized the best way for me to put it together. The images are both photographs, this time of sea life. Nothing overly exciting, but it’ll still be fun. 🧩💚

What do you think? Is this something you’d want to try if you found one of them out in the wild? Is your brain wired so that you could assemble a puzzle this way?

Lights, Camera – Puzzle!

On May 11, 2023May 10, 2023 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Lights, Camera – Puzzle! – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

This was the companion image to the 3D puzzle that I posted back in March 2022. It was a difficult image for me, and I found myself constantly checking the online image to see where the tiny things made of two pieces went.

This one was apparently too hard for hubby as well, because after many days of no progress I had to take it out of the bathroom and work on it under better lighting in the puzzle room. Oh well, that’s alright, it got completed, and it must have been somewhat entertaining because I didn’t just give up on it.

All recollections were either typed up when I composed the draft of this post, or found from my blurb on the completed puzzles page of the blog. Thank goodness there’s something around to jog this aged old memory!

Love a double sided image!

Fallingwater

On February 11, 2018February 11, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles5 Comments

This isn’t my typical choice for a puzzle image, but the fact that this is a double sided puzzle and that the blueprints for this building is the image on the back piqued my interest and I couldn’t walk away from it. What an excellent idea!

I had a couple of issues with the quality of this puzzle, the first being the very shiny finish on the picture of the house; there was way too much shine, making it very difficult to work on under artificial lights. In fact the shininess of the pieces was part of the reason that I did the majority of the assembly with the blueprint side facing up. Secondly, the fit at times seemed a little mushy; when you tried to fit the pieces together you couldn’t always tell if the fit was correct.

I looked at other Galison puzzles at the store, luckily I was able to take the lid off and look at the pieces in the bag. There was another image that I liked very much, but the pieces were all ballerinas (2 prong, 2 hole) Blech! I prefer pieces to have more than one shape. On the plus side this puzzle had a good variety of piece shapes and once it was assembled correctly the fit was good enough to lift the entire puzzle. Here’s the image on the back…..

I was all over the place when I assembled this, the edge was put together picture side up then I flipped it over to assemble the blueprint in the center. I thought assembling the blueprint would be interesting, and it was! Once the majority of the blueprint was assembled and the only pieces left were all blue I flipped it over again and let the image assist in completing the remainder of the puzzle. I make no apologies – it was fun!

Tudor Portraits

On November 11, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

Portrait of an Unknown Lady (French School) – Past Times – 500 pieces

Isn’t this a lovely puzzle image? I think so, and there’s another image on the back; although he’s not as pretty as she is. Mom and I don’t usually do fine art puzzles, but this beauty spoke to me and I just had to assemble it on our puzzle/visit day. It seems as if there have been more double-sided puzzles in my orbit lately, and I’m really enjoying them. Plus, there’s the added bonus of being able to flip it over and use the opposite image for help with assembly. (When we got down to only black background on the Unknown Lady, we were able to flip it and use the wording along the edge of The Earl to help us finish! 😉 )

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester by Nicholas Hilliard

I loved assembling this puzzle with mom, we had a great time. The images are so different from what we normally puzzle, it made it a little more interesting for us. I still love my cartoon and collage puzzles, but there’s nothing wrong with switching things up every now and then to keep it fresh. I’ve learned from reviewing puzzles that I can’t always tell whether or not a puzzle will be an entertaining assembly. Many times I’m surprised by how much I enjoy puzzling an image that I would not normally choose for myself.

It was a bit of a challenge with all the darkness on both sides, but we got there in the end. The pieces were of a good thickness and fit together well. (It wasn’t difficult to lift and flip over) I’ve found it’s nice to have a friend to help when you’re working on a more challenging image, I’m less likely to give up or become frustrated if there’s someone sitting next to me working on it too. Plus, every piece they put in is one less you have to look through, right? And there’s no one better for me to assemble puzzles with than my mom – she’s the best!

My puzzle “dealer” always find the most interesting and different puzzles to feed our addiction. We’re very lucky to have so many thrift stores in our area, and even when there are slim pickings they usually have at least a puzzle or two that looks like fun. I try not to take it for granted, I know many places don’t have thrift stores/charity shops; we’re certainly fortunate to have so many close by!