I'm picky about images, too. Found a 1000 piecer with a picture of a pile of buttons at the Dollar Store. I don't have high expectations that I will ever finish that one!
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I'm picky about images, too. Found a 1000 piecer with a picture of a pile of buttons at the Dollar Store. I don't have high expectations that I will ever finish that one!
They go on sale now? Hmm...going to check into that! I just remembered this morning while reading this thread I used to have a co-worker with the neatest, coziest, quirkiest house (it had a turret!!). She collected hooks and they were on the walls all over her house in unexpected places, different shaped, fun. Anyway, she was a puzzle aficionado and after finishing one she especially liked would glue them and use them around her house the way some might use a doily or placemat. I remember she had one on her hearth. She was so clever. She passed away a few years ago, but these little things I remember about her bring fond feelings to mind.
Here's one I just finished. It was hard, but I love the image. Remember those sleds? I don't see kids sledding as much as we did. We had a little hill beside our yard. Unfortunately, at the bottom was a creek.....but we still chanced it.
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Whew.........this one was really hard. But I finally finished......thanks in part to having some OCD. haha
The image was painted by Rosemary Millette. I think it's beautiful. Now to glue it and frame it.
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Well, it's finally up on the mantle. I can't believe what a hassle this one was. After I put 2 layers of glue on it and was about to put on a 3rd, I realized I put 2 pieces in the wrong places. They were exactly the same size and color, but the color was reversed. This puzzle was so complicated, I went by shape a lot of time time. I realized that the one piece could get by where it was wrongly put......but the other one was a partially black piece that was sitting right in the snow! This began a several week process of trying to fix it. 3 trips to Michael's for frames (I figured the size wrong twice!). Then I tried to match the color of the snow and planned on covering up the black. But it's a very strange color and I couldn't match it. So I ended up putting a few pine needles onto that black blob. That didn't look good, so I tried to cover them up with a green color, which was too bright. I bought an X-acto knife, thinking I could cut the 2 pieces out and reverse them, but decided I could end up with a bigger mess. So now, that piece looks like a big black bug on the snow. haha I'm probably the only one who will notice it, and continue to be driven crazy about it.
Then, there is no frame that completely fits this picture (1,000 piece), if the plexiglass is not holding it in. I hate the plexiglass because all it shows is reflections. So I removed the plexiglass, but then had to figure out how to hold the puzzle in the larger frame. After several more trips to stores, I decided to get a giant black permanent marker and fill in the frame's back board sides, top and bottom with it. Then I put double-sided tape around the puzzle, so it would stick to the back board. Then I had to cut a piece of cardboard the size of the puzzle, to help it hold tight more. Then I realized that I had to put it on the back, since the backboard and puzzle were now glued together. So I had to cover up the hanger thing......but that's okay, since I wanted to put it on the mantel. Whew......never had so much trouble framing a puzzle. I just get cheap ones at Michael's on sale. But I hate the reflection in the plexiglass. I looked up how much a custom piece of non glare plexiglass would cost.........and it's over $50.00. Forget that!
So right now I'm on hiatus from puzzles. I need a break from frustration. But I do need to figure out some heavy flat object I can put at the bottom of the puzzle now, so it doesn't slide off the mantel and break in two. haha Wouldn't that be funny? Not!
Here's a pic of it on the mantel.
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Hmmm....after much research, I'm still not sure if it's mantel or mantle. :~)
Mantel. Yours is just like mine. Seventies' house?
That owl looks majestic, if a bit judgmental. :~)
Hi Jane. Yes, the house was built in the early 70s. I love the fieldstone, but we have to keep applying waterproofing to the outside chimney or the rain pours in through the stone. I guess it's very porous. Did you ever have troubles like that?
I think the Owl was ticked that I screwed things up. He tried to tell me those pieces were in the wrong place, but I wasn't listening. :~)
Yes--the rain occasionally soaks the mantelpiece on both sides. Just one of the wonderful quirks of this house--I often say it's like living under a bridge.:~) I think the view is supposed to make up for it...
Here's a pic of my latest one. It was hard, but fun.
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Okay guys.........I guess by now you could call me a puzzle addict. I do love all the nature scenes!
This one was hard, but the image is really neat........of wood ducks.Attachment 1734
Nice! Puzzles are a great simple living activity. I used to not care for them. But at work people do puzzles during lunch break. I started hanging out with then. After a bit I picked up the puzzle habit too. hahaQuote:
Originally Posted by CathyA
We did a 1500 piece recently. We're gluing it and framing it. :)
That's cool, about people doing them at work during break. I think I would have trouble "sharing" my puzzle-making though. I'm a puzzle loner. haha
I find it interesting that I'm so attracted to doing them. It must fulfill something in me. Maybe it seems like a reasonable alternative to housecleaning. haha
I'm not at all artistic and paintings/drawings seem like magic to me. So maybe I feel a little artistic by putting these beautiful images together....if only in puzzle form.
Here's my latest. Started out pretty easy, but then got kinda hard. It will look better after I glue it. I keep looking at a cross-stitch I started a couple years ago and feeling like I need to finish it. I've done lots of cross-stitch patterns, but puzzles seems funner. :)
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I could see where that bottom left half would have been tough because of the colors being such subtle variations of each other.
We're doing puzzles here more too since the Phoenix summer hibernation has started with the 105+ degree heat. Found a great one at the Goodwill last week for $1.50, so this hobby has to qualify as definitely simple living.
We put together a 2000 piece puzzle at my work recently. Puzzling is super popular with my coworkers. They do them at home and at work during lunch break.
I found that the Dollar Tree had a nice bin of puzzles for $1. I went ahead and bought 1 to give it a try and it was really good color and well fitting small pieces. The one I did was a collection of doors. Finished it in 3 settings over 3 days. I'll have to stop in and see if they have more. Moving on to one I picked up at Goodwill in a sealed box (overstock from Target I assume) for $1.50 that is a tray of marbles!
I prefer the ones that are pictures of places--I enjoy seeing photograph of places I have seen or want to visit someday.
I'll have to check out some of those less expensive places.
I have my eye on a wooden puzzle, but it's sooooo expensive. I don't know why I'm attracted to the image. It just seems so rich to me.
Here's a pic of it: I'm sure the puzzle wouldn't be quite as vibrant as this image though.
I've done a couple smaller wooden puzzles, and they're very interesting
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That's a beautiful image. but I've had trouble with doing puzzles of paintings for the same reason - the subtle variations of color make it harder for me so if it becomes too frustrating then it's not fun. Have to find the sweet spot between slogging through a difficult one and breezing through an easy one. That's why picking out the right puzzle in the first place becomes the goal.Quote:
Originally Posted by CathyA
I agree Lainey........no sense in being tormented! Sometimes I do 300 piece ones, just to be sure to have fun! ha ha
It's funny, one of the first ones I did last year was a christmas gift from my daughter. I think she bought the wrong one......not the one I mentioned. It was the hardest one I've ever done. I think I posted the puzzle pic......it was an owl on a tree in winter......all grays/whites. It drove me crazy. It actually started depressing me......but since it was from my DD, I kept on and finished it. I know this sounds nutty, but I've learned, if I really like the image, I can keep going, even if it's days until I find just a couple pieces. For some reason, that seems to be good for me, rather than quitting. I think my OCD helps me through too. hahaha
My son is a pescatarian, who sometimes eats red meat, but not often. Anyhow........he loves hotdogs. Go figure! Anyhow, I bought him a puzzle of hotdogs for him to put together, since I thought he'd enjoy that. Well, it drove him crazy and he quit. I told him to send it home and I'd go crazy for him. hahaha It was the worst puzzle to put together. Everything kept coming apart so easily. I ended up putting heavy coasters on different areas to keep it together. I finally finished it, glued it and put it in a frame for him. hahaha I find it really curious that I like doing them so much. Oh well......there are worse addictions!
deleted. Photobucket wouldn't let me post a pic without paying to do so.
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CathyA, Apparently photobucket won't leave up past things you've posted. I started at the begining of this thread and here was what was in place of the first photo you posted. Was it a photo you took or a stock image on-line? I just use the little photo icon and the basic uploader to add my own pictures now.
I've been decluttering diligently, and have arrived at the games and puzzles department of my life. I MUST know all pieces are there before I decide whether to keep, toss, or send to resale. This has resulted in me putting together quite a few puzzles. The last one was 500 pieces and a landscape. The colors of the wildflowers in the foreground were so similar, I had a hard time distinguishing...the parts seemed to be primarily like a human with two "outie" bumps for the arms. I tried to piece the outer edge first, and ended up with two that don't hook together in the bottom row... I even counted to ensure I still had 500 pieces. In the end, I gave up. I had two days into it and even dh could see my frustration. It should be fun, right?
I haven't figured out how to post pictures on here, since Photobucket started charging an outrageous user fee.
I've been doing puzzles, but couldn't post them, but I'm going to give it another try. This one was extremely challenging, but I love the image so much, I kept on. It was 1,500 pieces........which is probably not that much to some people. But there were so many areas that were similar in color, it was really, really hard.
It's called "Autumn Bridge".
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CathyA,
I'm very impressed. I've discovered that for me, if the puzzle image is very similar to a painting then it's much harder. I'm still at the amateur stage where I need sharper colors and more delineated lines.
But this week we picked up a 200 piece puzzle from Goodwill for .99 that is 3-D! Haven't seen that before. It's all different-colored beautiful butterflies. Thought it would be easy because it's smaller than we usually do, but of course the 3-D imaging is making us just a bit dizzy so we have to walk away from it. Will be fun when it's finished though.
Hi Lainey. Now, I won't do 3-D puzzles! I find them much too frustrating. I guess I'm just a 2 dimensional person! (maybe even just one? hahaha)
Here's a fun one that tickled my funny bone. I've always like tractor pulls and when I saw this one, I laughed. It's the kind I do in-between the hair-pulling-out larger ones.
Yeah, I've discovered that I tend to pick nature images that end up being pretty hard. And I think the more pieces a puzzle has, the more it looks like a painting......Sort of like cross-stitch. The small the squares are, the finer the image appears.
The last 2 puzzles I did, 2 pieces were missing and I talked to the company and they said it was an older puzzle and didn't have an extras. I could order one from somewhere else, but the chances of those 2 new pieces fitting were pretty low. She said I could just buy a new puzzle and put it together again. No thanks..........even that one might have missing pieces. So I cut a few areas of the pic on the puzzle box and tried to match them. Doesn't look great, but it won't be visible if I hang the picture further away.
Then the last puzzle.........the pieces were horrible, having all sorts of tags on them. I contacted the company and they said they would send me a new one.
Oh.....and another one I did, the printer/cutter left out about 2" around the entire perimeter, so that some of the image wasn't even there. They determined that the printer/cutter had made a mistake. So they will send me a new one, when he fixes the problem.
I think a lot of people (at least from puzzle reviews), don't go through the trouble of contacting the company when things are wrong with it, but being the great complainer that I am, hahaha........I usually get results.
Anyhow......here's that Giant Pumpkin Tractor Pull puzzle.
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Oh.....I just realized that that's just the pic of it on the box. I already disassembled it. I save and glue way too many of my bigger puzzles, so I figured this one could go back in the box.
Love this thread revival! It's a great reminder to me to start my holiday puzzle(s). I usually do 1 if not 2-3 every year during the holidays. I have two 1000 piece puzzles waiting in the wings. If I get my decorating/cleaning done this weekend, maybe I'll start them! Thanks for the reminder and love the pictures posted!
I actually found two jigsaw puzzles this summer at a yard sale that are black and white, from WWII, marked with an ad to buy Victory bonds. I will pull those out this holiday season--at least see what they look like completed.
Here are my last 2. They were both a lot of fun.
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Sometimes my puzzling scares me a little. Sometimes it seems like my arm works without me.........like it sees a piece that belongs somewhere before "I" do and it picks it up and puts it in the right spot.
Tonight was bizarre. I'm doing a neat puzzle of a sunset, a snowy cabin with a couple cardinals in the tree puzzle. Snow is usually blue in puzzles. So I have probably 800 blue pieces. I'd been looking and looking for a piece and couldn't find it. I wanted to show DH how hard it was and picked up the container of all the blue pieces. While I was waiting for him to come look, my hand went into this mass of blue pieces, pulled out the first piece I saw and put it in the exact right spot. It was so bizarre, I almost felt sick to my stomach. How could that have happened? Maybe it was just total luck/coincidence, but it sort of freaked me out!
I find that if I let my mind wander, I do this too--only with online puzzles. It's a little unsettling.
I've had something similar: if I'm stuck and then walk away for 10 or 15 minutes, when I return I can immediately pick up 2 or 3 pieces and put them in their right spot. Seems like our brain is processing these shapes and designs even when we're not conscious of it.
That really happens to me too, Lainey. But for me, it's the first thing in the morning when I can sit down to the puzzle and find many pieces that I gave up looking for the night before. When I start not being able to find any pieces, I know I'm tired and need to quit for awhile..........but it's like gambling..........just one more try!
But last night, I hadn't even been looking in this big container of hundreds of dark blue pieces. I just picked up the container, my hand went in and pulled out a piece........and it fit the place I was looking to fill.
But like you said, our brains are probably picking up a lot as we go, without us even being conscious of it.
I wish I was this obsessed with housework. hahaha
My memory works like that now--kind of like a Magic 8 Ball. I ask it a question, and twenty minutes later the answer floats into consciousness. If I try to force it, it balks. Not on everything, thankfully, just on the occasional item just out of reach, like "What was the name of that character actor in Nine to Five?"
That's funny Jane......same thing happens to DH and me. There's no way on earth I can remember a name of a person or place.......Then suddenly, out of nowhere later on.....there's the answer. I blame it on having almost 68 years of info crowded the highways and biways of my brain and it just takes time for the stored info to come out. But dang, it's frustrating. You should hear DH and my dinner conversation........It's usually a constant "hmmm.....I'll have to get back to you on that." Sometimes we just have to laugh at how ridiculous our conversations have become, because of all the missing words we can't think of.
Ha, we have those ridiculous conversations, too. I love it!
One day for some reason I was trying to remember the NBA player Meta World Peace's name before he changed it. No way. DH couldn't remember either. About 6 hours later at work, I texted him, "Ron Artest." He said it was really non sequitor to him for a minute, then he put 2 and 2 together.
For some reason I’d never given this thread much thought, which is kind of odd because puzzling is something that has been part of my life experiences since a child. I just gave my mother a 1000 piece beachscape puzzle for Christmas. During the winter she doesn’t get out much and that big house of hers seems like a prison to her. Now I think she gets her interest in puzzles from my aunt. My Aunt K. was a frugal, thrifty, minimalist out of necessecity. She literally lived in a tiny house before they were called that. Her and Uncle H. shared a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. They always had a puzzle being worked on and any time I visited, we would sit around the puzzle and talk.
We talked about firewood, gardening, canning, baking, what their childhood was like. I learned that often, the Christmas gift was a popcorn ball and an apple. In between talking, we’d pick up pieces and try to fit them in where they didn’t belong and laugh about it. Sometimes, somebody would point out a spot and magically it would fit right in. Then we would maybe talk about the farmers almanac predictions or how Aunt K was doing on the blanket she was knitting for someone else for Christmas or a baby shower.
There were times my Uncle would excuse himself and go out to the kitchen table where he had boxes and boxes of old envelopes sitting waiting for the stamps to be removed by soaking in water. He collected the stamps and sent them somewhere and somehow money would be sent to missionary’s in Africa. And that’s what got me into stamp collecting. But that’s another story.
I don’t know what my Aunt K and Uncle H would have thought about my iPad or the self parking vehicles but I’m pretty sure they would still be doing puzzles if they were still alive. Technology and improvements aside, I’m glad puzzles are still around. They connect me back to a simpler time. A time when it was okay to just sit around and exchange ideas face to face while you worked on something that likely was going to be put back in a box with one piece missing.
And I do miss Uncle Hs pickled beets in mid February and Aunt Ks crescent cookies by the platefull. Here’s to puzzlers everywhere.
Friends of mine recently came back from a rainy weekend on Orcas Island with family where, beside enjoying the lovely scenery, one of their pastimes was working on a large jigsaw puzzle well into the night. There are some simple pleasures left.
I love how your write, Williamsmith. You have such a talent for writing. I do miss the simpler times......even though I get caught up in today's "must do/must have" world.
But I so love sitting down to the puzzles. I have to admit, I'm not sure I could function with someone else working on it with me. I find it all so curious........I think it's just finding the right place for the piece, but also having a beautiful image when I'm done. I love thinking about shape, color, texture, size, etc., to find the right piece.
I don't remember doing puzzles when I was young. I did a big red apple one about 35 years ago, but none since. Then I saw that my favorite wildlife artist (Robert Bateman) had several of his images on puzzles, so I did those. Then the bug bit me hard.
It's just such an enjoyable, quiet hobby. And I do get lost in the beautiful rural images that I'm putting together.