Tag: Whimsy pieces

The Seven Chakras

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles7 Comments

The Seven Chakras by Phil Lewis – Liberty Puzzles – 661 pieces

This is the puzzle my husband gave me for my birthday this year, and it’s bleeping amazing! When assembly started on the first of the seven puzzles my thought was that there would be just one post showing all of them together. Nope. There’s so much going on with each small puzzle that I decided right away that each puzzle needed it’s own post.

There are multipiece whimsies in each puzzle that are near impossible to pick out unless you see the puzzle assembled, and even then I wasn’t able to find and figure them all out. So, my usual routine of picking out all the whimsies and taking one big picture before assembly just wasn’t gonna cut it this time. It may need to be assembled more than once. (Such a hardship! 😎)

Seven small puzzles mixed together in one box – that’s all the description said about this puzzle. There is much, much more to say! So buckle up buckaroos, there are seven more posts about this puzzle, with plenty of details and amazing shapes to see. This post was just to give you background info on this puzzle; each chakra/puzzle will be getting it’s own post to show you the image close up, the elaborate whimsies, and the view from the back.

Also, all pictures are taken with my phone and try as I may the images do NOT do justice to the colors, they are bright and deep and overall just stunning. Genuinely stunning.

Gingerbread Jumpers

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Gingerbread Jumpers by Cobble Hill Puzzles – Wentworth – 40 pieces

Although this puzzle is named Gingerbread Jumpers in this Wentworth version, Cobble Hill’s puzzle (in a 1000 pieces) is named Ugly Christmas Sweaters. Whether you call them jumpers or sweaters, it’s a great puzzle image – and I have to say, whatever bakery Cobble Hill uses for these cookie puzzles does AMAZING work!

I chose this puzzle for the first day of Hanukkah, because it’s the only holiday puzzle I have that isn’t only Christmas or generic winter themed – there’s a blue “jumper” with a menorah on it so it’s the puzzle for today.

There have been several of these cookie puzzles from Cobble Hill, Sugar Skulls and Easter Eggs come to mind, and they’re always so much fun. I haven’t done this image in a larger piece count, but I couldn’t resist it in the micro puzzle size from Wentworth, it’s just too adorable! (Plus, there’s so much green in this image I thought it would be much easier in a smaller piece count puzzle)

There’s not much more I can say about Wentworth puzzles, you’ve heard it all before. They’re fantastic quality wooden puzzles and I love assembling just about any image they’ve got. Mostly I get their micro puzzles because I’m in bed a lot due to my chronic pain issues, and their small puzzles are perfect for assembling on a cookie sheet while I’m laid up. They’re more expensive than cardboard puzzles (obviously), so I usually only splurge once in a while; but when I order them I always get quite a few, to make the shipping from across the pond worth it. 😉

The reindeer is very cute, as is the snowman; and love that they’ve put a “jumper” in here too. I think I like the word jumper better than sweater. It sounds happier, “I’m putting on a jumper!” Is that just me?

My mind is weird – welcome to my world.

It’s a little chilly here today, has anyone seen my jumper? 😁

For those of you who celebrate it, Happy Hanukkah! I’m sending out wishes for a joyous eight-day festival, and a lifetime of light. 🕎

Imagination

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles8 Comments

Imagination by Robert Williams – Mr. Bob Puzzles – 525 pieces

Oh my. This puzzle. What a FANTASTIC image for puzzling! I had the best time putting this one together, and I’m sorry that it isn’t still being produced because it was an amazing assembly and I loved every single piece. 💖

Even though I picked it out myself, sort of, (told hubby which images of Mr. Bob’s puzzles I liked best), when it arrived I was a little scared of the image and thought it would be really difficult. It was put away for a while, then – well, you know. Finally, it was pulled out from it’s place in the to-do pile and….HOLY GUACAMOLE was it fun! I was completely wrong about how difficult it would be. It turns out this is, in my humble opinion, a perfect image for a jigsaw puzzle.

You may not think so looking at it, and to be honest neither did I at first. To me it is beautiful art, but I thought it would be an extremely demanding assembly, especially with the deceptively difficult cut of Mr. Bob’s puzzles. It wasn’t. It was the perfect amount of challenging. I know I am repeating myself, but this puzzle was the best, most entertaining puzzle I’ve done in quite some time. Click the link above to check out their website if you’re interested, they have many unique images that you won’t see anywhere else, and they are excellent quality wooden puzzles.

As usual, it began with pulling all the whimsies while laying out the pieces. There were some special ones in this puzzle – hubby asked them to put the name of my blog in the whimsies! (He must have remembered when they cut my name into a puzzle and I said “Wouldn’t it be cool to have the name of the blog cut out in puzzle pieces?” What a sweet, thoughtful husband I have!)

Having thick wooden pieces means that you can cut out wonderful shapes; and part of the fun is seeing them – and the interesting shapes of the pieces around them. Mr. Bob’s logo and his silhouette are cut into every puzzle, along with a whimsy of Australia. The rest of the whimsies are different depending on the image of the puzzle itself.

When using lasers to cut wooden puzzles the only real limits are the designer’s imagination. (Plus, they can cut out fun things like the name of a puzzle blog!)

How cool is that? So cool! But I have to tell you that even without these words in the puzzle I would still be in love with it. The colors and textures, the movement, the lines running through it, the fabulous quality, the perfect amount of challenge – everything worked together to make for the most pleasurable puzzling this professed puzzle geek has had in a quite a while.

Love, love, LOVED IT! 😍

Mr. Bob’s Puzzles has grown significantly since I reviewed two of their puzzles two years ago – almost to the day! It seems like much more time has gone by; through our email correspondence I feel as if I know Mr. Bob himself personally and we’re old friends. After my reviews I gave suggestions to improve their products, and it was unbelievably well received; they truly wanted to make the best puzzles they could.

I encouraged him to put more of his own artwork on his puzzles: because I adore his digital art, it is most definitely my pile of pieces! This puzzle is one of his creations, and it made for such a fun assembly that I couldn’t stop gushing to him about it. I’ve done several of Mr. Bob’s puzzles, and the ones I’ve enjoyed the most have been the ones with his artwork; Save the Whales, Art City, and now Imagination joins the club.

Last year Mr. Bob’s Puzzles received an order for 53,000 custom puzzles from a major Australian corporation as gifts for their staff – it called for renting a new, larger space, establishing a bank of laser cutters, and a production facility to cope with the higher output. They got them all produced and shipped in about three months – on time and on budget. Bob tells me that it amounted to cutting around 8,000,000 pieces (approximately 375 miles of laser cutting)! 😮

Well done everyone at Mr. Bob’s Puzzles, you’re going places! And we knew you when…

Jamie the Polar Bear

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Jamie the Polar Bear by John Francis – Wentworth – 15 pieces

This was the first of the kids puzzles from Wentworth that I assembled; it was delightful to work with the large pieces and bright colors to put together this adorable ice skating polar bear. Funny though, he doesn’t look like a Jamie to me; he looks like a Michael – but his parents call him Mikey. Then again, who am I to challenge the artist? He says Jamie, so Jamie it is.

It’s a good thing I have some young children in my life to gift these puzzles to, otherwise it would just be idiot me with kids puzzles that were ordered because I failed to make sure what exactly I was purchasing. I’m not that upset with myself though, these are the first premium wooden puzzles for young kids that I’ve ever tried, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to put them together. (I’m not counting those wooden puzzles in a wooden tray that are mass produced, although those can be good quality as well)

The whimsies are very cute, although I might be worried about the snowman’s pointy nose if I were a mom. But, if my children had this beautiful puzzle when they were little they would only be playing with it when they were being supervised by an adult. Because these puzzles can last for years if they’re taken care of and treated well. The cardboard box they came in might be a little worse for wear after a while, but the puzzle will definitely last.

I took a picture of one piece from each of the puzzles to show the size. EXTREMELY large just about covers it, don’t you think?

Perry the Penguin

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Perry the Penguin by John Francis – Wentworth – 15 pieces

How adorable is this little guy? According to my father the Christmas season doesn’t start until after Thanksgiving. But I’ve got a ton of Christmas puzzles this year to share with everyone, so according to me the season is now. My Christmas tree has been up since 2019, so the season is always. All the time. ❄

This little guy wasn’t supposed to show up on the blog until early December, but I’ve decided he’s too awesome to wait. And I don’t want to bombard everyone with micro puzzles and mini puzzles for the whole month of December, so I’m starting now. Because I can.

To be completely honest I wasn’t paying close attention when I was ordering a bunch of micro puzzles from Wentworth; if they were cute or had images that weren’t the ordinary holiday themes they found themselves in my cart. If I had read everything completely I would have seen that I ordered three children’s puzzles – ones with EXTREMELY large pieces for little hands to assemble. It was pretty surprising to find them and their great big pieces in my delivery of mostly micro puzzles, but since I love puzzles of all shapes and sizes these little guys were adopted into the posse for the time being.

They’ll be going to their forever home soon. Where little hands can have fun and learn to love puzzles like Grandma Stacey does. Hopefully. Well, maybe not like Grandma Stacey – I can be a little bit obsessive about jigsaw puzzles. Maybe we’ll just hope they learn to love puzzles. 💜🧩

Such cute whimsies, and ones that children can easily identify. Each of these kid’s puzzles have a whimsy piece of the character, so sweet!

I wanted to show you how VERY large the pieces are. They are made for small hands to grasp easily, and made of wood so they’ll last for years if they’re taken care of.

Even though these puzzles only took me a minute or two to assemble, they are beautiful – and beautifully made. And I enjoyed putting them together. If I’m lucky, when I visit my honorary grandkids I’ll get to put them together again, with a little help. 💟