Tag: Jigsaw Puzzles

Monsters

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Monsters – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

This was a wonderfully entertaining puzzle that was even better than I’d hoped. I enjoyed every part of this puzzle – even the sorting if you can believe it. 😮 I’m letting my weird brain take over while I’m puzzling these days, and whatever way it decides it wants to assemble is what I do.

Don’t want to sort? Don’t! Want to puzzle without using an image to assist? Go for it! Want to let your OCD out to play and revel in lining up pieces on the trays and keeping everything neat and tidy? Of course you should! (See, I told you my brain was weird)

Re-marks has such a wonderful catalog of collage images; book covers, travel posters, movies, decades, themes like this one, etc. Almost every one of them looks good to me. The quality is good/very good, and this puzzle especially had an excellent fit which made me quite happy. The image reproduction was crisp and clean, and the random cut made for piece shapes that were varied and interesting. This was one of the best quality Re-marks puzzle I’ve assembled in a while.

There were so many sections that brought back memories that it was difficult to decide which ones should get a closeup. This collage isn’t just movie monsters, it has novels, comic books, tv shows, cereal, songs, albums, and even candy! If I let myself go on and on about all the panels that I wanted to talk about this would be an unbelievably long post and you would most likely get quite bored before the end. In the end I narrowed it down to only three, but trust me I could talk about MANY more than ones shown below.

As a dyed-in-the-wool comedy nerd, of course Young Frankenstein (pronounced Fronkensteen) was going to be one of my choices. It’s an excellent movie, and besides being extremely funny it also makes me think of my boys – they both love this movie and they also love to quote from it, sometimes ad nauseam. Additionally, seeing the movie poster has me feeling my age a bit today, as every one of the talented actors shown here are now gone and it’s a bit sad.

Still, the movie makes me happy and I can’t hear “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and not think of Peter Boyle and Gene Wilder singing and dancing and in general being ridiculous. It makes me laugh out loud every single time I see it. 😂

My youngest son picked out this puzzle for me to assemble, and after I said I would do it he went to his room and brought me back a copy of Frankenstein with this exact cover that he had just gotten out of the library that day. He then proceeded to tell me ALL about the book, Mary Shelley, and the many Frankenstein movies that have been made. I got a 15 minute Frankenstein lecture! None of this was new to me, when I assembled The World of Frankenstein almost three years ago I got almost the same lecture about the book, it’s origins, the author, etc. But any time my baby boy wants to engage with me is good and I’d happily sit through the lecture again to spend time with him talking TO me instead of AT me.

When I saw this section of the puzzle it made me so happy! I can’t even begin to count the number of times I read this book to my kids – complete with voices and over-the-top acting on my part – they loved it, and so did I. We didn’t read it much at bedtime though; they got more excited the closer we got to the end of the book, I got louder too, and it wasn’t really conducive to winding down and going to sleep. This puzzle brought back such a good memory of sharing this book with my babies. 💕

I had the best time with this puzzle, the whole process made me happy. I don’t really want to take it apart yet, it was too much fun!

I Love America

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

I Love America by Charlie Girard – White Mountain – 1000 pieces

This was an “okay” assembly for me, for some reason I wasn’t as entertained as one would hope. I chose this puzzle only because I was looking for a patriotic puzzle for July 4th, not because I was really wanting to put this one together. Mood definitely affects how much I enjoy a puzzle, and I was definitely in the wrong mood for this one.

The quality of this puzzle left a bit to be desired, which is a bit of a bummer because I just took advantage of a sale on their website and ordered a few puzzles. Here’s hoping they’re much better quality than this one. The fit was a little floppy and care had to be taken when moving pieces around, in addition the image reproduction seemed fuzzy in many parts and it was very difficult to distinguish between the darker pieces. A horse, a chocolate chip cookie, a group of beer bottles, and the rocks near a lighthouse – they all seemed to be the same blotchy colors and it was hard to know what went where. It wasn’t terrible quality, but it wasn’t great either. It was passable.

Love the look of a lighthouse, but I’m wondering, why is this “American”? Aren’t lighthouses used around the world? Or is it just this specific lighthouse? Can anyone tell me where this is?

NASA, muscle cars, Betty Boop, Moon Pies, Disney World and what we call football – now there’s no question that these things are American. I enjoyed the license plates spelling out American muscle cars, it was a fun section to assemble, along with the buffalo nickel.

The flag in the shape of the country was easy enough to sort and lots of fun to put together. I wish there were more things to say about this one, but my little old lady brain is failing me at the moment – I’ve got nuthin’.

Happy Fourth of July to those who celebrate, Happy 250th Birthday America, and to everyone else, Happy Saturday!

Hummingbird’s Treasure

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Hummingbird’s Treasure – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

This little beauty was more difficult than it looks, but so much fun! After seeing just how many MicroPuzzles were here that still needed to be assembled, when I was looking for a smaller piece count puzzle I decided to look through my mini puzzles to find an image that spoke to me. This gorgeous hummingbird carrying a puzzle piece caught my eye and I’m so glad it did. It’s just beautiful. 😍

The image made for an interesting assembly. There were several times that I placed pieces that I was sure were correct, but they were not. If I had picked up the pieces and checked the back I would have seen that it wasn’t the correct placement, but I don’t always do that. Many people these days seem to be calling these “false fits” online, I do not. I call it putting a piece where it doesn’t belong. If a piece can fit into a spot that doesn’t mean it belongs there, many pieces can be made to fit in many places. A true false fit is when there are multiple pieces that are exactly the same shape and can fit perfectly in more than one spot. Placing a piece incorrectly is just that, not necessarily a false fit; you have to look at both the image and how the pieces fit together. False fit seems to be the new buzzword for puzzlers lately, and my hormonal menopausal brain finds this very annoying.

Thus endeth today’s rant.

I placed several pieces incorrectly in this puzzle; the darkness of the image in some places along with the shiny coating made it difficult for these old eyes to know for sure if the placement was true. Of course it became obvious when I tried to place adjoining pieces that I was wrong, but I found the challenge to be entertaining. This build was very enjoyable for me.

Of course when the fit is right we always try to get a picture of the puzzle on it’s edge, which hilariously (to me, anyway) has been named the “Stacey Stance” by fellow puzzle blogger Puzzle Momma, who is also my puzzle bestie Penny. I’m flattered! Getting this picture is more of a challenge when the image is oriented in portrait style like this one, but I got it done.

I absolutely adore this image, it’s so dang pretty!😍

Puzzle Complaints

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

Puzzle Complaints by Sandra Boynton – Workman – 500 pieces

Here’s a new one for me – I checked this puzzle out of the library! My youngest asked for a ride to a library about 8 miles from home (because I don’t like for him to ride his bike that far in serious traffic), so being the fabulous momma that I am we took a ride to the library. Not wanting to sit in the car during the Florida summer while waiting, I looked around inside and to my surprise found that they have quite a few puzzles that can be checked out. I’ve been wanting to do this one for a while, so I jumped at the chance; it’s just too funny not to give it a go.

This is my first Workman puzzle, but I don’t think it’s fair to speak too much to it’s quality as it has obviously been assembled many times, and it looks like it wasn’t treated very well at some point. But I think I can confidently say if this puzzle were new it would most likely gotten a good/very good rating from me. There are a good variety of piece shapes, the image reproduction is very nice, the pieces are a good thickness and sturdy, and the backing actually feels soft if that makes sense. It’s got a blue paper on the back but it doesn’t feel “sharp” like that white paper backing on many puzzles, it actually feels soft to me. I can’t speak to the fit other than to say if it were new I think it may have been good. Again, this puzzle has been at the library for more than three years and has most likely been put together a LOT.

I had to show you this close up, it makes me smile. This puzzle was assembled with no help from the box image, so this random pieces was floating around, at first I thought I’d be able to find the pieces that went around it – no luck. Then I checked the back of the piece and it had the same backing so I figured it was definitely part of this puzzle, I just missed the surrounding pieces. It wasn’t until the very end of the assembly where I actually processed the words I had put together and tried it next to the words “quality control”, of course it fit. They did VERY well setting up the die, there was absolutely no help from any other pieces, this piece was all it’s own and fits perfectly. That can’t be very easy to do.

As I was assembling the border these pieces jumped out at me, obviously. First I thought perhaps they became delaminated and someone tried to fix them and did a crappy job. Then during the assembly I found the whole section in the upper right hand corner was warped and didn’t fit together well at all. My theory is that something was spilled on the puzzle and someone fixed it poorly; I don’t believe this had anything to do with the puzzle’s original quality at all, it was definitely user error; or as my husband calls it – an ID-10-T error. 😉

I’ve seen this image around for years and have wanted to assemble this puzzle, but not enough to spend money on it apparently. Not sure why. But finally I got the chance and I’m glad I did it. Even though this puzzle has been pre-loved a LOT it was still in relatively good shape, was missing only one piece, and it was very entertaining. I really enjoyed it!

Check out the library, there may a puzzle or two you could check out! 📚✔🧩

Nevertheless, She Persisted

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles10 Comments

Nevertheless, She Persisted by Feitzky LLC – Cobble Hill – 1000 pieces

This thrift store find is a puzzle I’ve been wanting to do for a while and I finally found it. I wish I had better things to say about it, but my copy had either been VERY pre-loved and assembled many times or it was an extremely loose fit to begin with. Love the image – love it – but the fit left a bit to be desired.

Cobble Hill is a brand I consider to be towards the higher end of the quality scale: their linen paper makes for an excellent hand feel, their random cut makes for an entertaining assembly, the image reproduction has always been stellar, and the fit is usually good/very good. This puzzle may have been cut at the end of a run when the die is becoming duller making for a looser fit, I can’t be sure as this is a thrift store purchase. I still consider Cobble Hill puzzles to be very nice quality and I never hesitate to buy one if the image speaks to me.

To say I’m shocked that the puzzle is complete would be an understatement. The pieces were loose in the box, which was not taped up well at all. When I got to the checkout at the store and starting putting my puzzles on the counter I reached for the box under this one to find two puzzle pieces sitting there, they had come out of the box when I put it in my cart! The look and feel of the pieces told me they were Cobble Hill, so back into the box they went; but I was thinking about it all the way home and had convinced myself that there were going to be missing pieces in this one. When it came to putting in the last few pieces, I saw that their were four left – and four spaces – and I said, out loud, to no one, “I can’t believe it!”.

The piece shape is very prominent in this puzzle, which doesn’t at all detract from the enjoyment of the assembly for me, but does make getting a good picture difficult. I took several close up pictures of the puzzle but even close up it’s challenging to see the image behind all the lines. I wasn’t happy with any of them, even after messing with them in editing, so I’ve just taken a picture of the poster that came with the puzzle.

As a woman who supports women I love the thought behind this image. Without getting too political however, I question the inclusion of one of these women (who did NOT support females), and also the exclusion of the woman whose persistence in the face of bullies and having things “mansplained” to her before being silenced is the reason that Nevertheless, she persisted became a rallying cry for feminists. Just my own personal opinion of course – we ladies are still allowed to have our own opinions about things.

The loose fit was quite a bother to work with, but I still found myself lost in the assembly at times, completely focused on the pieces and where they went. I’m glad I finally got to assemble this puzzle and I did enjoy it, just not as much as I’d hoped. Still, Cobble Hill puzzles are good quality and I never hesitate to recommend them.