Tag: Jigsaw Puzzles

Creatures of the Cosmos

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Creatures of the Cosmos by Sarah Walsh – Mudpuppy – 500 pieces

This puzzle was more enjoyable than I anticipated, and the pleasant surprise of having more than one piece shape was fantastic. Easy to sort, relatively easy to assemble, this one was lots of fun!

My daughter insisted I buy this one, and to be honest I wanted nothing to do with a Mudpuppy puzzle, but I couldn’t refuse my baby girl. Good thing too, because other than the “sharp” white backing I thought the quality of this puzzle was very good. My last Mudpuppy puzzle (a birthday gift) was good quality as well, but still had just the one piece shape; the fact that this one had a variety of shapes made me quite happy. Perhaps the fact that it had foil accents had something to do with the difference in pieces.

The stars in the constellations and the lines that connect them were all foil accents in this image. It’s hard to capture in a closeup picture, but it wasn’t difficult to work with at all.

Creatures of the Cosmos was enjoyable to assemble, and happily I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would! 🌟

Northern Lights

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Northern Lights by Nancy Wernersbach – Ravensburger – 500 pieces

This wintery image with the gorgeous Northern Lights in the background was pretty darned entertaining to assemble, and isn’t it just a beautiful puzzle? Loved it!

Ravensburger quality – as usual. This one had a fantastic fit though; in addition to the thick pieces, crisp image reproduction, variety of shapes, and wonderful cut. The pieces are larger than normal, and the finished image is approximately the size of a regular 1000 piece Ravensburger puzzle. The larger size made it even more surprising that I was still able to get one of my favorite, silly pictures…

Look at that edge, it’s barely distorted at all and standing up almost perfectly straight. I almost never get to do this with such a large puzzle, and this made me happier than it should – I was pleased as punch to be able to stand this one up. 😁

You know I love to see a beautiful canine fur baby in a puzzle; and I can’t resist getting a close up picture of them either.

Precious puppy puzzles please this passionate puzzle practitioner. 🤎🐶

Bed of Clouds

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

Bed of Clouds by Schim Schimmel – Ceaco – 100 pieces

Quick little kids puzzle that didn’t take long at all to assemble. It was a thrift store purchase, taped up with another 100 piece GITD puzzle – both were new and unopened. To me, there’s no problem buying it there because Ceaco isn’t actually getting any of my money.

It’s sometimes sad for me when I see a beautiful image on a Ceaco puzzle, the quality and their customer service is just not up to snuff – but some of their puzzle images are just stunning! Oh well, I’d rather work a puzzle with better quality from a company that I know will take care of things if there’s a problem.

The quality on this one wasn’t great, you can see along the border where the pieces are bent at the corners and sticking up, and the fit wasn’t great either. Still for about 99 cents it was a good purchase and my youngest son and my hubby enjoyed the GITD aspect of it. They took it outside to “charge” in the sunlight and had a good ole’ time finding the darkest spot in the house to check out how much it actually glowed. Love💖my boys!

For me the glow was a little disappointing, the entire top portion of the puzzle had no glow at all. Still, it’s cute, right?

Color Dream

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles14 Comments

Color Dream by Nadieh Bremer – Artifact – 403 pieces

Oh man! This was a challenging, beautiful, fantastic puzzle to assemble! It was quite difficult, as I didn’t use the image on the box – but I absolutely adored both the challenge, the image, and the assembly itself. 🧡💜💙💚

This was my third puzzle with an image by this artist, and I am completely smitten with her work – it makes for such fun puzzling! And I also have to give a shout out to the designer of the pieces, Chandler Millwood (who designed all three of Nadieh’s puzzles), whose design was like artwork in itself. Stunning!

Look at all those loops and swirls, it was such a challenge, but so much fun! The groups of stars in each corner, the connectedness of everything – just a wonderful design to go with such a lovely image.

The star in the center and the loops that form the flower-like image around it aren’t visible from the front. It made for such an interesting puzzle! I know, my use of exclamation points is getting ridiculous, but this puzzle made me so happy that I just can’t help myself!!

There was a surprise in the box, the description on the website alluded to it, but I skipped right over it when I was ordering the puzzle. It said “Tools included to make your own tiny orbit artwork.” Whatever does that mean?

It came with it’s own tiny little wooden Spirograph! Does anyone remember those from when you were younger? I certainly do, and let me tell you there have been a LOT of little pictures made with this already. I have to fess up and tell you that it didn’t occur to me until I was probably 50% through the assembly that all the little images on the puzzle are ones that you could make with a Spirograph. I was looking at the shapes and putting together colors and suddenly realized that all the loopy, swirly, interesting shapes are ones you could make with the toy in the box. DUH!

This puzzle was unbelievably difficult, entertaining, beautiful, and FUN!

The Flintstones

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

The Flintstones – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

My sweet, beautiful daughter got me this puzzle for my birthday, and she did such a good job picking it out – it was so much fun! It was definitely a Goldilocks puzzle; not too easy, not too challenging – it was just right. Of course I loved it. ❤

Wonderful Ravensburger quality, as usual. The feel of a Ravensburger puzzle massage (running my hands over the completed puzzle) is like no other, it’s so satisfying. Perhaps that’s just my little ritual, but the feel of a great quality puzzle when it’s finished makes me very happy.

Maybe I’m just being pedantic again, but if it’s 3,000,000 BC – how would they know? Wilma is reading a “magazine” with that date on it; but B.C. means before Christ, so how do they know he’ll be born in exactly 3 million years? It’s such a minor detail, I know, but these things jump right out at me and I can’t stop myself from seeing these little, insignificant details and then pointing them out to you. I think it’s the former executive secretary in me, I’m hard-wired to find mistakes.

All the black and white sections were the hardest to do, and the last bits to be assembled. After putting together the colorful scenes I assembled the slightly colored frames, and ended with the grayish sections. I really enjoyed every part of this image, it was VERY entertaining.

Alright, it’s time to reminisce. Anyone watch The Flintstones when it was was a prime time cartoon? How about in reruns during the 70s? The series was no longer being made when I was born, but I remember watching the reruns when I was younger. The theme song has permanent residence in my brain; I think most of my generation could sing it from memory. It’s iconic.

The opening of the show, which changed several times, at one point had the family going to a drive-in restaurant where Fred ordered a slab of dinosaur ribs that tipped over the car when they were brought. Also an iconic image that is forever stuck in the far recesses of my brain. Nostalgia, huh?

This puzzle was so much fun, it is definitely recommended. If it looks like something you’d enjoy – go for it – it gets two Brontosaurus ribs way up!🍖🍖