Art Nouveau Poster Collage

On February 25, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles1 Comment

This is an amazingly beautiful collage that mom picked out for us. I thought it would be as difficult as the Santa Collage from Wentworth that we did, but it went together a little bit easier. The colors and artwork are absolutely lovely, and it was so much fun!

The smaller 500 piece Santa collage was quite a challenge, and we thought this one would be too. Don’t get me wrong, it was a challenge, but we were also surprised that it went together as quickly as it did. We enjoyed ourselves very much; we always do when working with wooden puzzles, they’re such great quality and so much fun to work with.

We always start by picking out all the whimsy pieces and seeing all the clever shapes. So many interesting shapes from all over the world – Christ the Redeemer, Sydney Opera House (I think), The Statue of Liberty, The Thinker, a can-can girl, and so many more…

Such lovely whimsies were a perfect compliment to such a lovely puzzle. The vintage art nouveau posters made an excellent collage that was a joy to assemble. The colors were wonderful to work with and mom and I loved placing every single piece!

If you haven’t worked a wooden puzzle, it takes a little getting used to. The pieces don’t fit together like your average cardboard puzzle, the fit is much looser and it takes some time to get the hang of it. I find it’s easier to work with wooden puzzles on my fabric covered board, the fabric makes it a little more difficult for the pieces to move too much. The loose fit of the pieces and the more obvious piece shapes showing in the finished image are the two major drawbacks of wooden puzzles that I’ve found. I don’t find them much of a problem at all actually, and as long as I could afford it I would never hesitate to get myself another wooden puzzle.

I always end my posts about wooden puzzles by telling my readers that if they are able to they should think about treating themselves to a wooden puzzle. I’ll end this one the same way, maybe take a few dollars from your tax refund this year (if you get one) to reward yourself with a beautiful wooden puzzle!

Flower Still Life

On February 5, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles7 Comments

This was a very dark, very challenging wooden puzzle. I bought this for mom for Christmas last year and we finally got around to assembling it. Isn’t it gorgeous? She picked it out herself.

The background color was a little too dark for my taste, but it was still a fun puzzle to assemble, especially since mom and I worked it together. 🙂 They were pretty tricky not to include a picture on the box of the irregular edge, so we had to figure that out for ourselves. It was quite the brain teaser, but we older ladies still have our wits about us (most of the time) and we were able to get it done.

Artifact Puzzles are excellent quality with a wonderfully diverse catalog to choose from. They have many different puzzle designers who come up with amazingly intricate and complex piece cuts. I love that you’re able to see pictures of the cuts for each puzzle, so you have that information before you buy. The puzzles are made from plywood and are laser cut; they are beautifully made!

There were almost no whimsies but the cut was excellent and you can see the pieces formed a beautiful symmetrical pattern….

Mom and I really enjoyed this assembly; it was quite a challenge and we even said that it was “deviously cut” a couple of times. Still, it helps keep the brain cells firing and even if it takes more time than we’d planned on we enjoy the extra time spent together.

I’ve done several Wentworths and a couple of Artifact puzzles in the past couple of months, so I’m hoping to get my hands on a new Liberty puzzle soon. If I don’t, no worries – I can spend an afternoon re-assembling the Dr. Suess puzzle I bought myself last year. 🙂

The Thames at Westminster

On January 28, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

I like this image very much and as usual this micro puzzle was a fun assembly. Looking at this picture now, when the puzzle has already been put away, makes me want to take it out again and check the castle whimsy pieces; I wonder if you can line them up and make a bigger castle. Hmmm. 🏰

I’ve been having such a hard time getting back to my puzzling routine that was interrupted by a weeks “vacation” away from home. Side effects from medications and other issues have made it extremely difficult for me to sit at my puzzle table and puzzle for any length of time. I think because of my limitations at the moment I’m extremely picky about what puzzles I want to do; I want easy puzzles, like collages, where I can pick a small group of pieces and assemble them and feel like I’ve accomplished something. I have well over 100 puzzles here at the house, and hundreds more over at moms to choose from but none of them interest me right now. It doesn’t make much sense to me that with so many puzzles available I still can’t find one I want to do.

I’m planning to buy a new chair for puzzling very soon in the hopes that it will be a little more comfortable to sit for more than a minute; which means perhaps soon I’ll be back to my regular puzzles. Yesterday I went on a quick puzzle run with mom and my daughter; I got a couple of cool collages (and a few others) and I’m hoping they will help me get my puzzle juju back soon! 🛍

This is the last of the hospital puzzles – hooray! There are still about 10-15 micro puzzles left I haven’t assembled, but I can pepper them in here and there; there’s no need to do them all at once.

It was such a blessing to me to have puzzles to do to break up the boredom and take my mind off of everything stressful going on. The micro puzzles are small enough to do all at once, which is nice because for some reason laying in bed all day is exhausting; the larger puzzles I assembled took a day or two, but it didn’t matter – I loved them all. Wentworth Wooden Puzzles helped save my sanity. Thanks Wentworth! 💕

Kitchen Cats

On January 27, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles3 Comments

This was my least favorite of the micro puzzle images so far. Unlike many little old lady puzzlers, I don’t have cats and am not a huge fan of cat puzzles either. Still, when I want to puzzle I’ll try just about any image; it’s a real stress reducer for me, and it really works!

Every whimsy in this puzzle was a silhouette of a cat, again not really my cup of tea but absolutely perfect for this puzzle. Otherwise the assembly was the same as most of the other micro puzzles I’ve done, more challenging than you think it will be and ultimately very fun. When I first saw the cut of the Wentworth puzzles I thought they looked too easy, and not challenging at all but they are sometimes quite devious with their cuts and every puzzle has the right amount of difficulty in my opinion.

Cute image, fun to assemble, small enough to take and put together just about anywhere. What’s not to love?

Pavo Bengala

On January 26, 2018January 26, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

IMG_E4148 — Pavo Bengala by Catalina Estrada – Wentworth Wooden Puzzles – 250 pieces

Look at this gorgeous puzzle; it is absolutely, unbelievably magnificent! How can you look at this image and not want to assemble it? Mom and I fell in love with the image the moment we saw it and we had to purchase it – in fact we tried to also get it in a micro puzzle, but they were out of stock. 😦

This puzzle is only 250 pieces, but by no means was it easy in any way. It’s a mirrored image, so that increases the difficulty; and it’s full of detail and color which makes it beautiful, but challenging. I loved working this puzzle, and it was so wonderful to assemble. The whimsies are so special as well – peacocks, flowers, birdhouses, etc., so pretty!

I think a 250 piece Wentworth puzzle is just about the perfect size. It’s a challenge, but not too much so; and it is small enough that you don’t feel overwhelmed by that challenge. And even better, the 250 piece puzzles that we purchased were absolutely the best size for working on my small bedside table when I was stuck in bed for a week. Perfection! We have a 500 piece and 750 piece from Wentworth that we have yet to do, but I’m not quite feeling up to working on those yet. Hopefully soon!

I tried to look up what Pavo Bengala means, and I think it basically means peacock. Pavo means “turkey” in several languages, and bengala means “sparkler” or “flare” – so perhaps pavo bengala means peacock – a turkey with sparklers on it’s butt. I love it! 🎆 🦃🎆

I started to feel bad when writing this up that I’ve been doing so many posts about wooden puzzles lately. I know that most puzzlers only do cardboard puzzles, and it occurred to me that they might not want to keep reading posts about puzzles they’re not going to ever buy or assemble. But then I had to tell myself that this probably was only a problem in my own head.

I love reading about puzzles, pretty much any puzzles. I don’t have Facebook, but I read all the posts from the Facebook group my mother is a part of because I just love jigsaw puzzles and everything about them. Even if a puzzle isn’t one I particularly like the look of, I still enjoy reading about it; even if it doesn’t look like fun to assemble, I still want to hear about it. So although there have been a lot of wooden puzzles in a row and there are still more to come, I hope you enjoy reading about them almost as much as I enjoyed assembling them.