Tag: Rose Art

Pepsi In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling1 Comment

Pepsi – Rose Art – 300 pieces

Another fun collage of sorts, this time it’s Pepsi – one of my favorite drinks. Penny sent this one along for me to do, and I don’t think I realized until I was laying all the pieces out just how much of a challenge this one would be. It’s harder than it looks!

Here’s the best part, the difficulty seems to be what is making it so much fun for me.😁

I sat down to just get started and put a bit together to be sure I had something to post today; but I couldn’t seem to tear myself away from it. I stopped only because I had to get it photographed and typed up before 8 am. All my posts are set to go live at that time, even the in progress ones; and every third day it will automatically be published – whether I’ve typed anything up yet or not. (Yes I could set things up differently, but this way keeps me on my toes and gives me incentive to get myself out of bed, even on those off days when I’m not feeling like it)

That’s just to say that it’s almost 8:00 this morning and I had to make myself stop puzzling and start typing. This puzzle will be done now before you know it, there’s just over two trays left to go!

Family Dinner

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles8 Comments

Family Dinner by Ed Wargo – Rose Art (Back to the Past) – 750 pieces

The Back to the Past series from Rose Art has some amazing artwork, and if this puzzle is any indication they make for challenging and wonderfully entertaining puzzling. This puzzle was a great time, and I don’t know where else a person can pay $2.99 and get hours and hours worth of amusement, enjoyment, relaxation, and distraction out of it. Adored this one!

Rose Art puzzles can be hit or miss in the quality department, and luckily this one was a hit. The very blocky grid cut pieces made for some false fits, but if I’d really been paying attention maybe I’d have realized my mistakes more quickly. The image reproduction is lovely, but the painterly style made some pieces look like blotchy blobs of color – it was the image itself though, not the reproduction. There were a good variety of pieces that fit together well and the chipboard was relatively thick and sturdy. Overall this was a good quality puzzle, and I was quite happy with it.

If any of you grew up in the 60s and 70s this might be a familiar looking thing – all the side dishes and casseroles. My mother had sooooo many casserole dishes, it was quite a thing at the time; the number of beautiful Corning Ware dishes she had was amazing, and I wish I had more of them here. We never had a giant roast like the one in this oven, we weren’t that well off (and honestly the number of little side dishes shown here for a family dinner seems a bit excessive to me) but the first thing I noticed in the oven were the two casserole dishes in the smaller left-hand oven. They immediately made me think of my mom. 💜

The first thing I put together was this refrigerator with all the wonderful little drawings on it. They were easy to pick out during the sorting, and it’s always fun to have something to assemble immediately after you put together the border.

I really had a good time with this assembly, and it’s making me want to get my butt back to the thrift store to see what other treasures I can find. This beauty has been sent on to Penny soon so she can assemble it too; when I texted her a picture of the puzzle I was doing she immediately asked if she could have it after I was done. Hope you love it my friend! 📦🧩

Old Friends

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Old Friends by Anthony Kleem – Rose Art – 300 pieces

This went together quite quickly, but unfortunately the quality wasn’t quite up to snuff. It was brand new, but there were several problems with the chipboard and the image coming up at the corners of the pieces. It’s a lovely bit of Americana artwork by Anthony Kleem, I just wish it had been sitting on top of a better puzzle.

Rose Art puzzles can be hit or miss, and I was hoping with this being an unopened one that the quality would be better. The chipboard however was starting to split on several pieces and although it seems sturdy there were one or two tabs that had to be bent back into place before they would fit properly. In addition the image was lifting on the corners of many pieces, it was a bit disappointing to be honest.

I wish I had better things to report, but the quality was lacking on this one. It’s a great image though, and it made for fun puzzling too.

Family Dinner In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

Family Dinner by Ed Wargo – Rose Art (Back to the Past) – 750 pieces

There’s a bit of glare on this picture, my apologies. Otherwise though, it looks pretty good, and the assembly is going very well. It’s a challenging puzzle, with both the painterly style and the block-type pieces, but I’m having fun figuring everything out.

This is another thrift store puzzle, and I’m hoping it’s complete because I absolutely adore this artwork by Ed Wargo. I can also tell you that it isn’t for sale anywhere that I could find. There are quite a few Rose Art Back to the Past puzzles available, but this is NOT one of them, it seems to be out of print (or at least out of print for right now). It makes me so thankful for thrift stores and people who pass along their puzzles for others to do; what a gift to allow others to find puzzles that make them happy at a discounted price while also helping out local businesses or charities. Thrift store puzzles are awesome!

*Someone please gently remind me of that the next time I have a thrift store puzzle with many missing pieces. You haven’t seen the post about it yet, but maybe check out the June completed puzzles page for this year and see my Sunflowers puzzle.🤬*

And so today after a lazy Sunday of napping, puzzling, napping, and shopping online for puzzles it’s time to get back to it. I’m hoping to have this one finished this morning. Only three trays of pieces left to go!

Hello Kitty and Friends – Day 4

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Hello Kitty and Friends – RoseArt – approx. 125/500 pieces

And now we’ve come to the final day of the Hello Kitty puzzles; it’s two friends, and Miss Hello Kitty herself! I enjoyed putting these puzzles together, but if you ask me there’s so much white that they all seemed harder to assemble than they look.

The quality was pretty good actually, much better than the last set of these puzzles I assembled – the Peanuts gang. No missing pieces, no pieces still attached to each other by the backing paper, and a relatively good fit. The finish is quite shiny, but even under artificial lighting it wasn’t too difficult to work with.

It was difficult to get pictures though, as the backing is quite slippery. Because my puzzle board is covered with fabric most puzzles grip the fabric and stay put when I stand the board against the wall to get good pictures with no glare from the artificial lighting. With the backing on these little puzzles, each one would just slide right down the board when I attempted to photograph them. That’s why quite a few of the images are at an angle, I couldn’t stand the board up at all.

And now, the final three characters…

Pochacco is a white dog with floppy black ears and a sporty, playful personality. He loves soccer, basketball, and skateboarding. Although he walks upright, Pochacco is clumsy and trips over himself quite a bit; this usually results in a head injury with an accumulation of bandages. He was born on February 29 (Leap Day) and lives in Airy Town.

Other than his red shirt, it was all black and white and not simple to assemble (even though it may look easy). Still, he’s a cute little guy, isn’t he?

Kuromi, whose name translates to “black beauty” in English, is a rabbit with a black jester’s hat with a pink skull; the skull’s facial expression apparently changes to match Kuromi’s mood. Her birthday is Halloween (October 31), which is fitting seeing that she also has a devil’s tail. She enjoys cooking and writing in her diary, and her favorite colors are black and hot pink.

This one wasn’t as difficult as the others to assemble, and it went together pretty quickly. With the placement of her eyelashes and that little smile, she looks as if she’s up to something, doesn’t she?

And last but certainly not least is Hello Kitty herself! She is a white Japanese Bobtail Cat who was born on November 1. Surprisingly she dislikes catnip, but she does enjoy baking cookies and collecting cute things, and she loves her Mama’s apple pie. (The backstory on her even tells us her blood type, if you can believe it – just….wow).

The clothes and hairbow made this one a little easier to assemble, but she’s got a very large, very white head! Good thing these puzzles were only a few pieces each, any larger and they wouldn’t have been much fun at all.

Overall this set of puzzles was enjoyable to assemble, but much more difficult than they look; the predominance of white with black lines made for a bit of a challenge even with only a few pieces per puzzle. Still, they are all adorable and were fun to assemble.