Butterflies II

On July 28, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

These beautiful shaped puzzles are such fun for me to put together, and even though I have 9 of the series there are still a few that I don’t have and would love to get my hands on.

The colors on these butterflies are absolutely gorgeous and they were interesting to assemble. Unlike the cupcakes and shoes that I’ve already assembled, these were of varying sizes and shapes. The smallest of the butterflies had only 8 pieces, and the largest had 52 pieces! It was quite an entertaining assembly, and I can’t stress enough how stunning the colors are, they are so beautiful. 🦋

Each butterfly was delightful to see and put together, the varying sizes made sure that each was not a cookie cutter of the same shapes. The colors were bright, and the fit was very good. All in all I had a great time with this puzzle.

These are two of my favorites, although I had a hard time choosing only a few. All of them were interesting, challenging, beautiful, and fun!

I Found It!

On July 27, 2018July 27, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

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This is Pattern 1, I’ve been looking for it for months, and mom and I finally happened upon it at Tuesday Morning!

I’ve already assembled Pattern 3 and Pattern 4, and loved every moment of putting them together. I don’t know what happened to Pattern 2, I can’t even find an image of it online. Perhaps it was never made into a puzzle, or possibly they love to keep us guessing by just skipping a number and making us crazy trying to find it. All I know is I’m thrilled we found this one!

I haven’t touched a puzzle piece for 2 days now, but hopefully today I’ll feel well enough to start puzzling again. I’ve gotta catch up and get some puzzles done, I’m running out of puzzles to post! 😱

Holiday Parade

On July 26, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

I didn’t want to like this puzzle, but honestly I had a really good time assembling it. Even though all the pieces were what I call “ballerinas” it was an entertaining puzzle to put together.

This is the 3rd Briarpatch puzzle I’ve assembled, and all 3 had differing levels of quality. I wonder why it is that some companies seem to have no consistency in the quality of their puzzles? Perhaps they have particular manufacturers for various puzzles; I can’t really say. What I will say is that it’s disappointing at times, if I’ve done one of their better quality puzzles and feel confident purchasing another – I end up becoming discouraged by the inconsistency.

The quality of this particular Briarpatch was fair to middlin’ (technical term 🙂 ) The pieces were a good thickness and the fit was excellent – you could pick up the entire puzzle from just the middle and nothing came apart. Unfortunately that’s where the good ends; there was no variety in piece shape at all, the image reproduction was fuzzy in places, and the finished puzzle did not lay flat.

At first glance it doesn’t really look like a Christmas puzzle with Uncle Sam and the giant clown balloons, but once you take a second look there are wreaths everywhere and Santa is in the parade. By the way, why on Earth is Santa sitting on a giant swan atop his sleigh? I find that a little odd. Is that just me?

Not being a fan of Christmas puzzles, and having only fair quality you’d think this would be a puzzle I wouldn’t have enjoyed. I thought I wouldn’t enjoy it either, in fact I didn’t want to enjoy it – it just didn’t look like a fun puzzle to me. Turns out, I had a great time with it in spite of myself. 👍🎄

Interconnection

On July 25, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

This puzzle is the last in a series of 3 by Richard Welker, all the images were so much fun to assemble! I love the look of all of them, and all three made for excellent puzzling. (Sorry about the glare, I usually do a better job with the pictures)

The quality was fair, but how I wish it were better! The board is made of many layers of board, and right out of the box some pieces were split and peeling. Why can’t Ceaco up the quality even just a little bit? They have some fantastic images, but the quality is great on one puzzle and terrible on another. The image reproduction was very good, as was the fit; but the quality of the chipboard used is a major component with puzzles, and it’s hard to ignore when it’s bad. 😦

These images by Richard Welker are eye-catching and interesting, and I bought them knowing the quality might be less than optimal. I’m not sorry I did, the image made up for a lot. There’s one more image by this artist that I’ve found, it’s not in the same series, but it’s been produced by Ceaco/Brainwright….

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I think it looks like fun! Hopefully I’ll run across it one of these days, it’s interesting and calming and full of bright, beautiful colors. 🙂

The Village Tree

On July 24, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

This puzzle has a wonderfully bright color scheme, it was fun to assemble and a pretty finished image. I love these micro puzzles; I can put them in my purse and take them anywhere that I know I’ll be waiting for a while. It’s much more fun to pass the time putting together a puzzle than just sitting and reading old magazines or staring at something on my phone.

I was a little disappointed that the whimsies were a rerun of the whimsies in the Yuletide Puppies micro puzzle that I assembled earlier this month. I also realize that there must be a limited number of whimsy pieces per subject. They probably didn’t think someone would go crazy and buy all of the micro puzzles they’ve got in one shot like I did!

This image would be fun to assemble in larger piece counts too, but it isn’t really my taste. It’s pretty and bright, but the subject matter just doesn’t do it for me. If you like Christmas puzzles, this might be a good one for you. It’s available up to 1500 pieces by Wentworth, and was also produced in a 1000 piece count by White Mountain. There’s also a slightly altered image (with no presents under the tree) from Gibsons in a 500 piece. It really is a beautiful puzzle, I would recommend it from any of these companies.

After putting together 4 of these winter themed micro puzzles in one day I remembered that I still have four more 250 piece Wentworth puzzles yet to assemble. I’m recovering today from another all day car trip to a doctor’s appointment yesterday – perhaps today’s the day to start one of those. 😎