Recently in Fun Stuff Category

Jigsaw making has slowed down quite a bit in the past couple of weeks - it's just been too cold downstairs and I stalled on one I was doing upstairs.

From work - Keukenhof Gardens.  Dave2's been there and I'm pretty jealous.

One I got from Marylon in Sydney when we used to do jigsaws together on Friday lunches.  She didn't want this one, but it's taken this long to get around to doing it.

A little 300 piece puzzle from work.  This was slightly unusual in that all the pieces were the "odd" shapes.  But the pieces were pretty badly cut so kept making mistakes even on something so simple.

Another in the series of the 4x4 (16 total) repeating pattern of pieces.

A1500 piece jigsaw from work that they couldn't do because they don't have the space for it.  They hadn't even opened it! It was a bit hard because of all the purple and brown.

Last Saturday we went up Black Mountain Tower (I don't call it by its official name, no free advertising for that company on this blog thankyouverymuch).

Spent half an hour outside taking photos.  As you do.

Ever wonder what approximately $15000 in cash looks like?  Wonder no more!

Luc had withdrawn it for some reason or another I can't remember (it was while I was still in Sydney).  I remember feeling super nervous carrying a couple of thousand dollars of shop takings to the bank when I was young, but this was just insane :)

Found the photo during a lot of work I've been doing recently sorting out photos into something more meaningful than by month.

For Christmas in 1992 I received a small counted cross stitch kit.

I finished it last weekend.

(sorry about the dodgy photo)

These were taken with my iPhone...  *my iPhone* !!!

Slightly cropped, but otherwise just resized

More closely cropped, a little bit resized

Actual pixels

Actual pixels

When we were up Mount Ainslie the other day I went up to the aircraft beacon, and was promptly covered in lady bugs.  They were clustered on the post and kept taking off and crashing into me.  I ended up covered in them and had to get the sweetie check I had all them off me before I got into the car so that I didn't squish any!

As well as "Life", here's the other jigsaws I completed in March..

Waterfall jigsaw from work

Lord of the Rings

Lighthouse, one from my parents from over Christmas

Toybox.  One of the $1 jigsaws from Kmart, the one I raced Nat with

Hot air balloons from Annie, but the box was split and had had kid involvment so a few pieces missing.  This was 750 pieces, but I completed it in about 3.25 hours - probably the fastest I've ever finished at 750-piece puzzle.

New York.  One of the horribly cut jigsaws in the same series as the swans and the fish.  The pieces are so similar that I couldn't do the top edge until the rest of the sky was done, and even then there were mistakes that I couldn't fix.

This was a $4 1000 piece jigsaw from Kmart.  Very flimsy pieces.

Got a few crappy photos of the ISS flying over.  Had trouble getting it focussed in the dark... will try harder next time!

Today I finished the fourth quarter of the "Life" jigsaw (but only the third quarter I've done - there's still the third quarter to go).

I might have cheated a bit when it got to all the blue goo.  Place one section on top of another and work off the template below (does make colour matching harder).

And so fifty hours later ..

I set a timer to limit myself to half hour blocks (otherwise I could just sit there for hours).  The breakdown was:

• 4.5 hours - sorting the pieces into sections
• 0.5 hours - edge (three edges on this section)
• 3.0 hours - planets
• 6.5 hours - pink sky
• 4.0 hours - sails
• 1.0 hours - marlin or whatever that big fish jumping is
• 4.5 hours - night sky
• 1.5 hours - boats (the hulls)
• 5.0 hours - water (the horribly rippling stuff - quite hard)
• 8.0 hours - coral and fish
• 11.5 hours - all that horrible blue stuff

Might get some other jigsaws done before finishing it off!

A little late getting this post out ..

One from my parents

Nelson Bay.  I actually gave up on this one.  Only the second time I've ever done that.  There were only 42 pieces left, but the jigsaw was cut so badly and the piece colour had deteriorated that it was getting impossible.  I got to a point where I'd tried every piece in a spot but none of them fit, because there were mistakes elsewhere.  I couldn't be bothered trying to find the mistakes so gave up.

A carousel in Germany.  Another $1 one from K-Mart

Fishies.  As horrible as the swans :(