Thoughts of an introverted bookworm and avid jigsaw puzzler
Dream Universe is a 500-piece puzzle. It is unbranded.
I got this at the puzzle swap I attended recently. Originally, I had thought I might skip it and just put it back in my swap pile, but then I saw that it had letters on the back of the pieces so that I could sort it into smaller sections. So I did it that way and quite enjoyed it.
The quality was pretty good, especially for a no-name brand.
Colorful Harvest is a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Tracy Flickinger. I first did it with friends at Thanksgiving last year, but have been wanting to do it again solo.
For the last few weeks, I have been participating in a puzzle by number challenge in a Facebook group I belong to, and one of the prompts was mushrooms. I had a 1000-piece puzzle picked out to do, but I kept putting it off. I do want to do that puzzle, but I have done some harder 1000-piece puzzles recently and was just not feeling it right now. I had another 300-piece option that I was considering, but then someone in the group posted this puzzle for the mushrooms prompt and I got excited, knowing I had this puzzle and hadn’t remembered it had mushrooms on it.
This is my last puzzle for the challenge, so I am looking forward to what I call “mood puzzling” again. There is actually one more prompt left on the challenge, but I get a freebie for being a subscriber to the YouTube channel run by the group organizer.
Garden Allotment is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ravensburger, and the artist is Georgia Breeze. When I first encountered this puzzle, it seemed to only be available in the UK, but a few months later, I found it on the Ravensburger US website and ordered it immediately.
I loved this puzzle from beginning to end. The quality of the puzzle is fantastic, as always with this brand, and the art is so inviting and engaging. It has a lot of flowers without being too difficult as flowers sometimes can be, and it even has a few buildings, which I especially love.
Here are a few close ups. So cute!
I just heard of a new puzzle from this artist called Coastal Harbour (shown below). I am really hoping it becomes available in the US as well.
Easter Eggs is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cobble Hill. I had hoped to do it for Easter this year but ran a little bit behind! Oh well, it was still a lot of fun to do.
Cobble Hill puzzles are excellent quality with thick, matte pieces, but I am always amazed at the sheer volume of puzzle dust. I had to get out my mini desktop vacuum after sorting and then again after building the border!
I was a bit nervous about doing another random cut puzzle from this manufacturer after how hard Country Life Crochet was, but Easter Eggs was a lot easier than that one. The details were much easier to pick out on these pieces than the intricate stitching on the other one.
Here are some closeups:
Such a fun, festive puzzle! This might have to be a spring staple for me.
Blackbirds Roost at Mill Creek is a 500-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, and the artist is Charles Wysocki. I just love his images, especially ones like this with a lot of buildings and other interesting elements. I love the coloring of the sky as well.
This was a nice, easy puzzle that was very enjoyable to put together. Here are a few closeups of some of the details:
Cozy Retreat is a 500-piece puzzle from Ravensburger, and the artist is Nancy Wernersbach. It is one of their large format puzzles with oversized, easy-to-grip pieces, and it has a nice matte finish.
I have done a few other large format puzzles from Ravensburger and enjoyed them very much. This one has been on my wishlist for a while, and I’m glad I got it. It was a nice, relaxing puzzle to put together, very low difficulty and such an interesting image.
Here are some closeups:
I can definitely see myself revisiting this puzzle many times!
Hue Wormhole is a beautiful puzzle by Wenjia Wang. This is a 1000-piece, circular puzzle from Antelope Puzzles, and it was a lot of fun to put together. I have never done a circular puzzle this big and it actually ended up being too big for the puzzle board I was doing it on. I had to carefully transfer it to foam board to get photos of it.
The colors in this puzzle are gorgeous, and the quality is impressive! The pieces were a nice thickness and fit together well. I started with the border and then worked my way from the outer green and blue up to the purple edge. The greens and orange went pretty well, but then I got a big bogged down in the reds. I kept working it and eventually got to the purples, which were a lot easier.
All in all, this was a joy to assemble and I highly recommend it!
On Friday afternoon, I attended my very first puzzle swap! It was held by Susquehanna Township Parks and Recreation, and it was a lot of fun.
Each person who brought puzzles set them up on a table or on chairs around the room and then walked around the room checking out all the puzzles. Once you found a puzzle you liked, you would ask the person to see if there was a puzzle of yours they would like to trade for.
I took six puzzles but several people brought quite a few more than that, and it was fun to see all the different options. I ended up trading five of mine and donating the last one to the township summer camp program. The picture above shows the puzzles I came home with after the event.
It was a great event and it sounds like they might do it again, which I would really enjoy.
Last Friday night, our good friends Bill & Jenn came over and, while they were there, Jenn and I played two rounds of puzzle chess. We used two 100-piece puzzles I had on hand. It was a lot of fun! I did manage to win both rounds, but the first one was only by ten seconds!!
Here are our results. We started with 20 minutes on each of our clocks.
The first puzzle was Beautiful Wild Animals from a generic Amazon brand, MJPHDM. It was a surprisingly good quality. The pieces were sturdy and fairly thick, and it came with a nice, big poster.
The second puzzle was Cosmos, and it came from Ceaco. The quality was decent, but the pieces were thinner and there was no poster.
In case you are wondering how to play puzzle chess, here’s how it works. You pick a small puzzle (we used 100 pieces) and you build the border together and lay out all the other pieces. Then you start a chess clock, which you can get on your phone, and take turns putting one piece into the puzzle. Once you have placed your piece, you tap your clock to end your turn and start the other person’s time. Whoever has the most time left when the puzzle is done is the winner!
Spring Tea Party is a 500-piece puzzle from Galison, and the artist is Victoria Ball. It is such a sweet image, and it was very easy to put together. The colors are a bit muted compared to what I normally prefer, but I still enjoyed it a lot.
Here are some closeups of the bunnies:
