Tag: Glow in the dark

Dino Glow

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

Dino Glow (?) – Ceaco – 100 pieces

Yes, dear readers, I assembled a Ceaco puzzle. It’s from the thrift store, and came taped up with another glow in the dark puzzle (both new and unopened) from the same brand. Since it’s second-hand, and Ceaco gets none of my money, in my mind it was perfectly fine to buy it.

I always like to have a few kids puzzles here at the house; when I’m in a mood and feeling b*tchy it’s better for me to do something quick and easy than to try a much larger one that I would normally assemble. Plus, kids puzzles are fun!

Glow in the dark pictures are always difficult for me to take. The lights are turned off and even though I try my best, it’s challenging to get both the puzzle itself centered and the actual glow. I’ve gotten some good pictures before; this one is alright, but it isn’t one of my best.

It was a good quality puzzle, although the fit was a bit loose. I took it outside to “charge up” the glow in the sunlight, and had to be quite careful because pieces wanted to come apart when the puzzle was moved. Happily for me, the glow on this puzzle wasn’t the sandy-feeling chemical that all the previous GITD puzzles I’ve assembled have – it feels more like lines of dried hot glue. If you have a tactile aversion to GITD puzzles like I do, this type of glow was much nicer to puzzle with.

Rainbow World

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Rainbow World by Michael Searle – MasterPieces – 300 pieces

This image is quite an assault on the senses (my son picked it out), but the puzzle was excellent quality and I enjoyed the assembly very much – in spite of the eyeball blistering artwork. 😲

This was the best quality MasterPieces puzzle that I can remember assembling. The pieces were quite thick with a very good variety of shapes, the fit was excellent, the reproduction is bright and crisp – overall just a great quality puzzle and I was duly impressed.

The fit was so impressive that I even got one of my favorite types of pictures….you guessed it!

I was so confident in the fit that I took this picture first, before making sure I had a good “normal” picture for the post. If I’m not mistaken I have never been able to take one of these pictures with a MasterPieces puzzle before – this puzzle really impressed me!

Also, this is a glow in the dark puzzle. I’m not always a fan of these types of puzzles, only because of the tactile feeling of the pieces. They can feel grainy, almost like there is sand glued to the puzzle, and this one did as well. I can usually deal with it, as most GITD puzzles are smaller piece counts; but I’m not a fan of the way it feels in my hands.

Grainy feeling or not, I got a FANTASTIC glow in the dark picture!

Moon Fairy

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

Moon Fairy by Garry Walton – MasterPieces – 300 pieces

This puzzle went together very quickly, it’s a beautiful image and was truly entertaining to assemble. It reminds me of a puzzle by the same artist that I completed almost five years ago called Dancing Fairies. Same colors, same fairy – they’re very, very similar – so much so that I remember it all these years later.

The puzzle had very good quality, with thick pieces that were slightly warped, but that could be because of where I live. The humidity does weird things to puzzles if you don’t store them properly (and this is a thrift store purchase). Otherwise I was quite happy with this puzzle and it’s assembly. Lots of fun!

Got a beautiful glow in the dark picture too!

I worked on this puzzle in bed, on my white board – and hubby helped. Of course, he had a bit of an ulterior motive for helping me finish it as soon as possible; we needed the board for something else and he didn’t want to have to wait.

We also use my white board as a table so that we can play Yahtzee in bed. I’m stuck there a lot of the time, and to keep our minds from going completely to mush from watching too much tv we also having a Yahtzee tournament going on. We play several games at a time, and keep track of our cumulative score; the first one to reach 100,000 points is the winner. Loser has to do the cooking on the winner’s night for a month (each of us in the family has one night a week where they are responsible for dinner). We’re up to almost 70,000 points at the moment.

Once we finish this tournament we’re planning on starting again – and we’re shooting for 250,000 points next time, although we haven’t thought about what the winner’s prize will be. It’s gotta be something good! 🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲

Toadstool Brook

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles8 Comments

Toadstool Brook

This was such a fun puzzle, with absolutely beautiful artwork by Steve Read. It’s been on my shelf for quite a long time, I’m not even sure how long. While looking for a puzzle with less than 1000 pieces I spotted this one way in the back; thank goodness!

Quality-wise, this puzzle was only good/fair. The fit was pretty loose, which is always a bit disappointing. But, as a whole it was still entertaining to put together, that is more than half the battle! The artwork by Steve Read is stunning, and I’m kicking myself for not getting a good closeup picture of the fairies’ faces – they are absolutely gorgeous!

Toadstool Brook 1

There are 22 fairies in total for you to find, some of them took me quite a while to locate. If you’re not paying attention this fairy hidden in the toadstool is easy to pass over. Of course you’re seeing it right away – I’m showing you right where it is! 😉

Toadstool Brook 2

This fairy wasn’t too difficult to find, but it did take me a little longer than I’d like to admit. My glasses needed to be cleaned. I’m not old. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I got a really great glow in the dark picture with this one, which surprised me. This puzzle has been on the shelf for at least 2 years, possibly more. I was pretty sure that the chemical that makes it glow would have petered out, but this puzzle produced an awesome picture.

Toadstool Brook 3

I don’t usually get such good glow images, so this one really pleased me. I love a good glow in the dark picture!

Firefly Friends

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

Firefly Friends
Firefly Friends – Creative Edge – 100 pieces

This is a thrift store puzzle that was pretty awful in the quality department, but was still extremely cute, which is why I bought it in the first place. And as a bonus I got the second best glow in the dark picture I’ve ever been able to take. Intrigued about the best one? Check out Creepy Crawlies. 🐛🦟🐜

Firefly Friends – Creative Edge – 100 pieces

By itself the glow picture looks a little odd, so for me it’s better to put them side by side. It’s a pretty good one, don’t you think? The hard part is being certain you’ve got the whole image in the frame when you’re taking the picture in the dark – it’s dark, so you can’t see much of anything! Part of the very bottom edge may have been cut off, but I’m sure I got almost all of it.

You know when you finish a puzzle how you run your hands across all the pieces, making sure they’re all pushed down and just reveling in the feeling of all the pieces connected together? DO NOT do that with a glow in the dark puzzle if you are at all like me and have some tactile issues. The additive they use to make the ink glow is grainy, almost like sand. The grainy feel on top gives me the shivers, I didn’t like it at all!