Mother’s Day Puzzle Giveaway

On May 3, 2020May 3, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling24 Comments

Spectacular Peacock by Aimee Stewart – Wentworth – 240 pieces

In honor of my spectacular mother – who gave me life, unlimited and unwavering unconditional love, treasured friendship, a love for jigsaw puzzles and so much more – I am holding this giveaway for Spectacular Peacock, a beautiful 240 piece shaped Wentworth Wooden Puzzle.

My mother and I loved to assemble puzzles together much more than we enjoyed assembling them on our own. Even though putting together a puzzle by yourself gives you some quiet reflective time to de-stress and relax, we enjoyed spending time together talking, laughing, and puzzling; we could spend entire days having the time of our lives with just a few puzzles and each other.

When I started treating myself to some wooden puzzles, she fell in love with them too; we would marvel over the intricate shapes, show each other when we made a connection, and discuss the fantastic quality. I will never forget the months we spent assembling the mystery puzzle box of vintage wooden puzzle pieces that I gave her for Christmas the year before she passed; she told me it was the best present she’d ever received in her life, and we both had the best time assembling that giant 100 year old puzzle and spending extra time with each other. They are cherished memories that will be with me the rest of my life. 💗

So,to bring a little more joy into my life this first Mother’s Day without her – and in honor of her love of Aimee Stewart images and wonderfully made wooden puzzles – I’m giving away this beautiful, gently used wooden jigsaw puzzle. It’s a little challenging, even at only 240 pieces; it’s shaped, so starting with the edges is more difficult than you might think, and it includes several beautiful whimsies of flowers, peacocks, and more. I adored assembling it (even though I was in the hospital at the time), and I hope the winner enjoys it just as much. If you’d like to see the completed puzzle, you can click here to see my original post.

They say if you want to feel better you should do something for others, and I think “they” might be right. When I made the decision to give this puzzle away for Mother’s Day to honor her I immediately started to smile just thinking about how happy it would make someone to win it. And it made me happy too!

To enter, just leave a comment on this post (if you need something to say, I’d be honored to hear about your own mom.) Each comment will be given a number, and I will use a random number generator to determine the winner one week from today on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 10, 2020. This is open to all puzzle lovers, no matter where you live. Good luck!

For my momma – my puzzle posse, my best friend in the world. 💝

What Is It About….

On April 30, 2020April 30, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling6 Comments

What is it about being told you can’t do something that makes you want to do it? After being told that puzzles are hard to find and getting more expensive, and seeing it for myself – all I want to do is find and buy some puzzles!

I don’t really need any puzzles, there are literally hundreds of them here between my house and my mom’s house. Hundreds! Years worth of puzzle assembly. Why in the world do I now have a bee in my bonnet about buying more? It’s my contrary nature, I think. No puzzles for sale? I need to find some puzzles to buy!

Is it just me? Does the lack of availability make you want to buy more? Or is it just that I don’t like being given limitations? I gotta tell ya, I do NOT like being told what to do, or what not to do. Of course no one told me that I couldn’t buy any, but the lack of availability and rising costs made me more determined than ever to find puzzles. Not just any puzzles, but ones that appeal to me and that are not overpriced. Stubborn? Me? Yep.

*There are two orders on their way to my house right now. 😈

Banana Split In Progress

On April 27, 2020April 27, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Banana Split IP — Banana Split by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

Unfortunately yesterday didn’t see much puzzling, but I’m hopeful that today will be better. With an Aimee Stewart image on my board, all I really want to do is get back there and start placing pieces. 😍

It just reminds me how much I enjoy working a puzzle with her artwork; the colors are beautiful, they’re fun to put together, not so easy as to make it boring, and it’s lovely to watch the image come together. I’d tell you more about it, but my fingers are itching to be placing pieces rather than typing!

Are you working on something fun this week?

Assorted News 2

On April 24, 2020April 24, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Just a few bits of news…

I’ve been contacted by several people who are starting or have started up new jigsaw puzzle companies and websites, and I am passing the information on to my readers. I am not promoting any of these puzzles or sites, this is informational only as I haven’t had a chance to assemble or review any of these puzzles.

Perhaps if you are feeling like playing along on a tournament website or your to-do pile is getting low you may be able to find some out of the way places to perhaps do a little puzzle shopping or even just looking around. Remember that smaller companies have much higher costs to produce and ship their puzzles, so the prices are normally quite a bit higher than puzzles from big companies that are mass produced.

Even if none of these is your cup of tea, it might be entertaining to spend some time looking around these sites to see what they’re offering. If you’re anything like me, you enjoy reading about and window shopping for puzzles as well as actually assembling them.

This puzzle company was started by a former teacher with a graphic arts background who began publishing these puzzles upon her retirement. She created these puzzles for middle school students; they are all 513 pieces, and teach concepts in math, science, English, and social studies. I love the idea, and the images are fantastic! (I especially love the look of the math puzzles) Each puzzle also includes a downloadable lesson plan, which is great if you’re a teacher or homeschooler, or if you feel like going back to middle school for a weekend. 😉

Check them out at standardsinpuzzles.com – according to the owner they are still shipping puzzles daily. I can’t speak to their quality as I haven’t assembled any of the puzzles themselves, but if anyone tries them out I’d love to hear from you.

Attention Buffy fans…

Jasco Games has been a board and trading card game publisher for over 10 years, and they are now applying their art foiling techniques to new lines of Buffy jigsaw puzzles that they are launching.

They have launched their first jigsaw puzzle project on Kickstarter featuring Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is also their most popular board game. If you’re interested you can check out their Kickstarter page here, today is the last day of their campaign. It’s already completely funded, but there’s still time to get in on it and order some Buffy puzzles if you’re of a mind to. Again, I haven’t assembled any of these puzzles, so I have no direct knowledge of their quality. I’m hoping they’ll be good, because they look like fun.

Marshall Rhinehart has started a free website, to help do his part to encourage people to stay at home. His wife is a nurse educator, so keeping people at home (and perhaps puzzling) helps keep his wife and thousands of other healthcare workers like her a little more safe.

You can create an account, participate in tournaments or just time yourself when you assemble your puzzles and post your stats on the site. You can also post or find available puzzles in your area for swap or sale, or just spend your time looking around at the puzzles others have completed. He’s just getting things up and running, but if it takes off it might be a fun place for puzzle junkies to hang out a bit. Check it out here at pandemicpuzzleplayoffs.com

I think it’s a great idea to encourage people to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus, which helps to keep our healthcare heroes a little bit more safe and keeps the system from being overwhelmed. And you know for sure that I think spending some time puzzling is a fantastic idea!

Fresh Picked Flowers In Progress

On April 21, 2020April 21, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

Fresh Picked Flowers IP — Fresh Picked Flowers by Jane Maday – Sunsout – 500 pieces

I have to say I’m having a much better time with this Sunsout puzzle than I did with the last one I assembled. This one has larger pieces, and the quality of the fit is so much better than the last one. Fit makes all the difference!

It’s been going together very quickly; I’m loving the bright colors, the beautiful image, and the random cut that keeps things interesting. It’s one of those puzzles that’s hard for me to walk away from – which means it should be done very soon. 🍒

That’s part of the reason that I usually only purchase Sunsout puzzles second-hand, the quality is hit or miss. Sometimes you get a great puzzle like this one, and sometimes you get quality like I had on Rainy Day Sketch. I don’t like to gamble on whether or not the puzzle I buy will be good quality, and for me Sunsout puzzles are a gamble.

This puzzle perfectly demonstrates that premise. I bought the two puzzles – Fresh Picked Flowers and Rainy Day Sketch – at the same time, at the same store; it turned out 50/50, I got one good one and one bad one. They were both 500 piece puzzles, why such a difference in the way they fit together? Get it together Sunsout!