100 Elephants and a Mouse

On July 30, 2017February 5, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Ugh, this was the worst assembly for me in a while. Ceaco isn’t a favorite, but this was awful! I muddled through it because I like the image, and ended up with 2 missing pieces. 😐 Normally Ceaco isn’t that bad, perhaps this was the end of the run.

The fit of this puzzle was horrible, the best way I can describe it is “spongy”; you could place a piece and it felt almost soft and spongy going together. It was easy to place a piece incorrectly because the fit was so ambiguous. The image reproduction was sharp in some places, and in others it looked almost fuzzy, like a mimeographed picture from my elementary school days. (Yes, I’m old)

I picked this puzzle up several times to start it, liked the image so I pulled the pieces out of the box – then I put it back down because the pieces did not look great. It’s finally assembled so I won’t be having that argument with myself anymore!

I always try to find something positive; with this puzzle it’s making me think very hard. Um, we saved someone else from buying a puzzle with missing pieces, there were a nice variety of piece shapes, and I enjoyed the image very much. Oh, and I found the mouse! 🙂

To the Barns

On July 29, 2017July 29, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Another nice thrift store find and fun to assemble. Alas, 3 missing pieces. Oh well. Mom did the majority of this one, I only helped bring it home. 🙂

Buffalo usually has very good quality, but with this puzzle there was image lift on many of the pieces. You can see at the top of the puzzle there are several pieces with the image raised up on the tabs. I’ve worked enough of this brand to know that this isn’t typical, Buffalo makes very good quality puzzles. Perhaps it was well-loved before someone donated most of it to the thrift store?

What’s funny was we were working on it together and there were about 7 or 8 pieces we were CERTAIN were missing. They were definitely not there. Definitely not. Except they were! We missed them – over and over again. Guess this July heat is boiling our brain cells!

We haven’t had good luck with thrift store puzzles lately, many have been missing pieces. But perhaps that means that we’re about to find a whole bunch of excellent puzzles with all pieces present and accounted for! No matter, this puzzle was a fun assembly, even more fun because we worked on it together. 😊

Garden Bridge

On July 23, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Pretty puzzle from Masterpieces, sadly missing a piece. Oh well, at least we saved someone else from having to buy an incomplete puzzle. 🙂

Mom and I had started a whole different puzzle this day, and after about 100 pieces we gave up. The other puzzle was an awesome image, but unbelievably tedious and un-fun. We tried to like it, then we remembered that doing puzzles is supposed to be fun and why in the world were we doing a puzzle we weren’t enjoying?? Sometimes we think that we have to finish a puzzle, just because we bought it. Nope. If it ain’t fun, it ain’t worth it! We spent our money to learn a lesson. That day’s lesson? Sometimes the coolest pictures make the worst puzzles!

So, we gave up on that one and decided to try this uncomplicated, beautiful puzzle with only 300 pieces. It was MUCH nicer to work.

The large pieces were nice and thick and fit together well – we both enjoy a large piece puzzle every now and then. The quality was good and the picture was lovely and we both enjoyed the assembly. It’s nice to work an easier puzzle once in a while, it makes you feel like a puzzle master. Look how fast I completed this entire puzzle! 😉

The scene by Alan Giana is beautiful and serene and it makes me think of summertime in the north. Blooming flowers and butterflies, birds and a small stream – lovely and calm. Extremely nice puzzle that was unfortunately missing a piece. Darn.

Holiday Treats

On July 21, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

A nice collage from the thrift store, it was a bit of a challenge but we powered through only to find there were 3 missing pieces. Sigh. Oh well, those are the chances we take with thrift store puzzles – if we get a $20 puzzle for 69 cents then we have to expect that sometimes it won’t always be complete. It was still fun to do! 🙂

Another chilly puzzle for Christmas in July. It took us a while, but mom and I finally got this one finished last week. It was moderately difficult, but quite fun to assemble with a friend.

The cut was random which mom doesn’t really care for, I don’t mind it so much but I do prefer a grid cut most of the time. With the randomness sometimes you think you know what shape piece you’re looking for and it turns out you weren’t even close! It’s nice to change things up once in a while though, I think it makes my brain work differently – it takes me a bit to make the change in how I’m perceiving the pieces and how they fit together. It’s excellent exercise for the brain cells!

The pieces felt thick and sturdy and fit together well, the image reproduction was lovely and made me hungry for Christmas cookies! The finish was quite shiny, but the puzzle wasn’t dark so it didn’t present a problem.

All things considered a good quality puzzle that mom and I had fun assembling together, even with the 3 missing pieces. Merry Christmas in July!

Love To Sew

On June 20, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Another missing piece puzzle, but it was still fun to do! I was hoping all the pieces would be in this one because mom likes and collects buttons. I was wanting to glue and frame this one for her, but I guess I’ll just have to wait till we find another one that’s worthy.

I was surprised at the pieces of this puzzle, my previous experiences with Andrews + Blaine puzzles was that all the pieces were ballerinas, which doesn’t always make for the most fun assembly. But the previous puzzles worked were 1000 pieces and this one was 550. There were a very nice variety of piece shapes in this 550 piece, and they were slightly oversized which made for a nice large finished puzzle. They fit together quite well and the piece shape isn’t overly obvious in the finished image. The image reproduction seemed a bit fuzzy on this one, not as crisp and clean as I’ve seen with other A + B puzzles. Perhaps it was in the photograph itself, but it did seem a bit blurred in places.

I did this one over several days as I was having a tough time with sitting and standing, and it took me much longer than a 550 piece would normally take – partly because it was a bit challenging and partly because I wasn’t able to work on it as much as I would have liked. Then my daughter came to visit one day near the end and finished it up while I was on a phone call. I turned around and it was done!

This was a fun assembly that was about moderate difficulty and it looks great finished except for that darned missing piece. I enjoy the Andrews + Blaine puzzles, but for me with this brand the image is everything – especially when there is a 1000 piece puzzle and all the pieces are the same shape. You’ve got to have an image that doesn’t have a lot of sameness, with plenty of color changes/shades and textures to help find pieces. 😉