Tag: Holiday Puzzles

A Christmas Story Leg Lamp

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

A Christmas Story Leg Lamp – USAopoly – 500 pieces

Well ya’ll, the holiday for Americans to gorge themselves on dinner and fall into a tryptophan coma has passed. It is now – according to my father – officially the Christmas season. What better way to kick it off than with a puzzle from the quintessential holiday movie … A Christmas Story.

This puzzle was first assembled over four years ago; back then mom wanted to assemble it too so I took it apart and off it went to her house. The plan was to glue it after she was finished, and then I would hang it in the window or on the door as a Christmas decoration. She never did get to it, and so it came back to my house and this year it was finally reassembled – it is already glued on both sides and ready to show everyone my oddball Christmas spirit! 🤪

Reading through my previous post about this puzzle, it was a little surprising that I didn’t mention the edges and how in some places the pieces just sit together instead of attaching to each other. It’s a big pet peeve of mine, and assembling the shaped edge was hard enough without the added annoyance of having to find the piece to make it all click together. Either I was much more excited about this puzzle four years ago, or I am much crankier these days. Or both.

Probably both.

But, if you’ve got this puzzle and are going to assemble it, here’s a tip…. When you’re sorting for edge pieces take every piece that has any bit of the white border. Then, when you come to edges that don’t connect you can help anchor them with the inside pieces

It was simple to sort ; edges, lampshade, fringe, fishnets, and shoe/base. The assembly was pretty simple as well, but nonetheless enjoyable. Truly a fun puzzle, and I’m excited to finally have it as a holiday decoration.

As I sit here typing up this post I’m thinking of where exactly to hang my new Christmas decoration. Hubby wants to build a custom frame for it, complete with LED lights! We gotta show it off – “It’s a major award!” 🤶

Sprouts Sprouting

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Sprouts Sprouting by Assaf Frank – Wentworth – 30 pieces

So adorable! This is a lovely holiday image if you ask me; no Santa, no perfectly decorated tree with exquisitely wrapped presents, no falling snow – this is my kind of Christmas puzzle. Brussels Sprouts in winter hats. Perfect!

As usual, a fantastic Wentworth puzzle; the image and interesting cut made it a little more challenging than their usual micro puzzles. But I absolutely enjoyed assembling this one.

I love the artwork, and am looking forward to finding more of puzzles with Assaf Frank’s images if they’re as fun as this one!

**Can someone from the UK tell me what it is with brussels sprouts and Christmas? Are they just one of the traditional holiday foods or do you all (generally speaking) love them?

A Christmas Story

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

A Christmas Story – Ceaco – 300 pieces

There hasn’t been a Ceaco puzzle on my board in quite some time. **Flashback to the terrible, awful, very bad, horrific 12 days of Christmas advent calendar of 2019😱**

Anyway, this puzzle was a Christmas gift from that same year, and it’s taken me a while to get to assembling it. But even though I still have beef with this brand, I am NEVER ever ungrateful for puzzles that I receive as gifts. It isn’t so much about the actual puzzle itself, but more that someone cared about me enough to pick out something they thought I would like and appreciate. And if the brand isn’t a favorite or the image isn’t exactly what I would have chosen for myself, it is still loved and appreciated by me. Always.

This movie is a favorite in this house; we start watching it on Christmas Eve, and have it playing in the background most of the day on Christmas. All of my children adore this movie, and it makes a momma happy when your grown kids want to watch a movie with you. Everyone’s tastes in movies are very different these days, but this movie will bring us all together for a couple of hours – what’s not to love? 💖

If you’re a regular reader here you may know how much assembling words makes me happy. You’ll be surprised to learn that the letters in this puzzle were the very last things to be put together. Each letter is quite large, and if I had pulled all the pieces it would have been close to half of the whole puzzle! So I started with the pieces that were all red, then the red pieces with a bit of the border that surrounds the images from the movie and any pieces with a face on them.

After that, I let the pieces take me wherever they went and ended up waiting until the very end to get those words put together. Once all that was left were letters it was much easier to find whichever piece I was looking for.

This puzzle was really enjoyable, it’s a great image too – and not as easy as it looks. A good time was had, and I am so grateful for the gift. (I love you Baby Princess 💕)

Jamie the Polar Bear

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Jamie the Polar Bear by John Francis – Wentworth – 15 pieces

This was the first of the kids puzzles from Wentworth that I assembled; it was delightful to work with the large pieces and bright colors to put together this adorable ice skating polar bear. Funny though, he doesn’t look like a Jamie to me; he looks like a Michael – but his parents call him Mikey. Then again, who am I to challenge the artist? He says Jamie, so Jamie it is.

It’s a good thing I have some young children in my life to gift these puzzles to, otherwise it would just be idiot me with kids puzzles that were ordered because I failed to make sure what exactly I was purchasing. I’m not that upset with myself though, these are the first premium wooden puzzles for young kids that I’ve ever tried, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to put them together. (I’m not counting those wooden puzzles in a wooden tray that are mass produced, although those can be good quality as well)

The whimsies are very cute, although I might be worried about the snowman’s pointy nose if I were a mom. But, if my children had this beautiful puzzle when they were little they would only be playing with it when they were being supervised by an adult. Because these puzzles can last for years if they’re taken care of and treated well. The cardboard box they came in might be a little worse for wear after a while, but the puzzle will definitely last.

I took a picture of one piece from each of the puzzles to show the size. EXTREMELY large just about covers it, don’t you think?

Perry the Penguin

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Perry the Penguin by John Francis – Wentworth – 15 pieces

How adorable is this little guy? According to my father the Christmas season doesn’t start until after Thanksgiving. But I’ve got a ton of Christmas puzzles this year to share with everyone, so according to me the season is now. My Christmas tree has been up since 2019, so the season is always. All the time. ❄

This little guy wasn’t supposed to show up on the blog until early December, but I’ve decided he’s too awesome to wait. And I don’t want to bombard everyone with micro puzzles and mini puzzles for the whole month of December, so I’m starting now. Because I can.

To be completely honest I wasn’t paying close attention when I was ordering a bunch of micro puzzles from Wentworth; if they were cute or had images that weren’t the ordinary holiday themes they found themselves in my cart. If I had read everything completely I would have seen that I ordered three children’s puzzles – ones with EXTREMELY large pieces for little hands to assemble. It was pretty surprising to find them and their great big pieces in my delivery of mostly micro puzzles, but since I love puzzles of all shapes and sizes these little guys were adopted into the posse for the time being.

They’ll be going to their forever home soon. Where little hands can have fun and learn to love puzzles like Grandma Stacey does. Hopefully. Well, maybe not like Grandma Stacey – I can be a little bit obsessive about jigsaw puzzles. Maybe we’ll just hope they learn to love puzzles. 💜🧩

Such cute whimsies, and ones that children can easily identify. Each of these kid’s puzzles have a whimsy piece of the character, so sweet!

I wanted to show you how VERY large the pieces are. They are made for small hands to grasp easily, and made of wood so they’ll last for years if they’re taken care of.

Even though these puzzles only took me a minute or two to assemble, they are beautiful – and beautifully made. And I enjoyed putting them together. If I’m lucky, when I visit my honorary grandkids I’ll get to put them together again, with a little help. 💟