Which to do?

On July 12, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling4 Comments

I finished a puzzle yesterday morning, and then spent a great deal of time trying to decide which one was next. A decision didn’t seem to present itself, and then a lovely man in brown shorts dropped off a package at the front door!

After working the Cupcakes puzzle I was VERY interested in getting more of this series. Naturally, as one does, I ordered as many as I could find in one place. The nice man with the brown truck brought me 8 of them yesterday! Wooohooo!

In another chapter of today’s story, mom was coming over to bring me a prescription and timed it perfectly; 20 minutes after my delivery mom arrived carrying a Goodwill bag with recent thrift store purchases for me to check out. 😎

The dalmatians puzzle from the thrift store is intriguing to me, I’ve never done a Springbok family puzzle before and I’m interested to see how it goes. And it’s so adorable! The 12 shaped high heels are amazing looking, and I know they’ll be great fun. I want to do them both right now, but there is only one board to work a puzzle on in bed. Which to choose?

Review: Snowfolks

On July 5, 2018July 5, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Puzzle reviews, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Snowfolks by Bill Bell – Springbok – 60 pieces

This is a cute, wintry puzzle for my Christmas in July here on the blog. Unfortunately it had one of the tightest fits I’ve ever worked with, it was quite difficult to assemble – not because of the image, but because it took so much effort to connect the pieces.

Springbok puzzles usually have a tight fit, some much tighter than others; I’m not a fan of having to have upper body strength to complete a puzzle. Sometimes when working with a super tight fit my thumb starts to hurt from pushing so hard to put the pieces together! Springbok has some excellent, fun to assemble images though, and so I sometimes take a chance and hope that the fit isn’t too snug. You can see above that the finished puzzle doesn’t lie flat, it curls up along the edges because of the fit – this made it difficult to get a good picture.

Other than the fit this puzzle was good quality; good variety of piece shapes, thick pieces, and excellent image reproduction. I love the image – it’s very cute, and great for a kids puzzle.

Below are a couple of my favorite “folks”….

All the different snowfolks were adorable, but these were my favorites. The first one is perfect for Christmas in July, and the fisherman and the golfer are just plain cute. There’s also a hockey player, clown, gardener, firefighter, and many others. So fun!

This puzzle is recommended, with the warning that the fit on the puzzle I assembled was extremely tight. Perhaps not all of these puzzles will be this snug, but be forewarned.

Details:

Title: Snowfolks
Artist: Bill Bell
Brand: Springbokk
Piece count: 60 pieces
Size: Approx. 14 x 19 in. (35 x 48 cm)
Purchased: Used, thrift store

Quality:

Board: Very good
Cutting: Very good
Image: Excellent
Box: Average
Fit: Poor, much too tight
Puzzle Dust: Small amount
Piece cut: Grid cut
Piece shapes: Good variety
Finish: Slightly shiny finish, doesn’t lie flat

Overall Rating: Good, recommended (beware the rigid fit)

Review: Seams Likely

On June 28, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

When mom first showed me this puzzle I was very excited, doesn’t it look like fun? It was! The bright colors and big numbers made this an excellent assembly; I enjoyed it very much. 🙂

This was a very good quality Springbok puzzle, although the fit was somewhat tight. You know I’m not a fan of the super tight fit; this one wasn’t too bad, but it was tight. The pieces are thick, the image reproduction is bright and beautiful, and the random cut gives a very good variety of piece shapes. Overall the quality was very good, and I enjoyed the assembly.

I started with the red thread, and then moved on to the yellow spool. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens with a thrift store puzzle, one of the pieces was damaged…

Someone’s child, pet, or maybe even a vacuum cleaner got hold of one of the pieces. I’m glad they included it in the puzzle and didn’t throw it away; technically all the pieces were there.

The rest of the puzzle wasn’t too difficult to assemble, all the measuring tapes weren’t as difficult as I thought they might be. It was just as much fun as I’d hoped and I really enjoyed the assembly. Mom has a knack for finding awesome puzzles at the thrift stores, and I’m the beneficiary of her amazing talent.

This is a discontinued puzzle and no longer available from puzzle sellers, but if you find a copy somewhere I highly recommend it – it’s a quick, fun puzzle and the end result would be great framed in a sewing or craft room. 👍

Details:

Title: Seams Likely
Artist: Allied Products
Brand: Springbok
Piece count: 350 pieces
Size: Approx. 18 x 24 in. (46 x 61 cm)
Purchased: Used, thrift store

Quality:

Board: Very good
Cutting: Very good
Image: Excellent
Box: Average
Fit: Good, somewhat tight
Puzzle Dust: Moderate amount
Piece cut: Random cut
Piece shapes: Very good variety
Finish: Slightly shiny finish, lays mostly flat

Overall Rating: Very good, recommended

Private Library

On April 27, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

I usually have relatively strong feelings either way about the puzzles I’ve assembled. It’s usually “loved it” or “where is the lighter fluid?”. For some reason this puzzle just makes me think “meh”; I’m even feeling blah about typing up this post. 😐

Springbok has some great puzzles, and although I’m not a fan of the super tight fit I’ve had a great time putting together many different Springbok images. There’s something about this one though, it just seems neither here nor there. It’s pretty, but wasn’t overly inspiring or entertaining to assemble. It could very well be that I was just in the wrong state of mind when putting it together; or it might be that this image just didn’t make for the kind of puzzle that I enjoy.

This puzzle is from the late 80’s, and the quality was good. The fit was extremely tight, but the pieces were very thick with an excellent variety of piece shapes. The image itself is quite dark, but the finished puzzle is actually very pretty.

You can’t fall in love with them all; if there aren’t any valleys you wouldn’t know how much you should appreciate the peaks, right?

Songbird Symphony

On April 14, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

This isn’t the typical image that I prefer, but mom assembled it first and even though it’s missing a couple of pieces she recommended that I put it together too. She thought I would really enjoy it, and she was right. (She usually is – it’s annoying sometimes!) There’s just something about collages that push all the right buttons for me, they’re the perfect type of puzzle for my weird little brain and I absolutely love them!

Photographic images are not my favorite, they’re pretty far down on the list of preferences. But as usual I enjoyed this one in spite of myself. Each section was like it’s own little mini puzzle and I got lost in it, only concentrating on the next piece or the next color and found myself relaxing and de-stressing. It was a wonderful distraction in a very trying and busy week.

Springbok puzzles can sometimes fit a little too tightly for my taste, but this one wasn’t too bad. The pieces were thick, and didn’t have the fuzzy edges that you sometimes find on the backs. It’s a beautiful puzzle with very good quality and I found it the perfect puzzle at the perfect time for me. Thrift store puzzles make me so happy! 💗