Category: puzzles

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Country Life Crochet

Country Life Crochet is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cobble Hill, and the artist is Jessica White. She has actually created several different crochet puzzle designs, and I have this one and the Halloween one.

The image is amazing! The stitches are so detailed, and they look so real that you would think you could touch them. That level of detail combined with the random cut of the pieces made this puzzle incredibly difficult, though. It took several sessions to finish it, even with my friend Suzanne helping one evening.

Here are some close ups of a few of the blocks:

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Catching Up – March 2025

March has been one of my busiest months in a while, and I am ready for things to slow down.

One of the things that has been keeping me quite busy is being on the planning committee for the 10th Autism Mother to Mother Luncheon that is taking place this Saturday. I am in charge of registration, which also includes getting everything ready that we are going to hand out in the folders for each mom. I am glad to be working on that and not more people-intensive things like fundraising or recruiting volunteers, but it has still been stressful at times.

I haven’t been able to do much puzzling because of the luncheon planning. I completed two puzzles on my own and two puzzles with friends at the church brunch & craft event. Even with that, one of the puzzles I did on my own was only 99 pieces!

Here is how far I am on my current puzzle:

I did reach a milestone on my puzzle Instagram – I hit 1000 followers! I am quite pleased by that. I only have 150 followers on my Bookstagram, although probably half of those are people I know IRL and I usually average only 10 likes per post on there. I’m not really sure if it will grow much because most of the accounts I look at to consider following are into romance, romantasy, fantasy, or thrillers. On the other end are more literary accounts, which I prefer but don’t feel I can compare myself to. It is harder to find people similar to myself on there, whereas with puzzles it is quite easy to find common ground and even if their tastes are different from mine, I don’t usually mind too much.

I have also started posting my puzzles and book reviews on my Facebook feed. There are a few people who like them and since they aren’t on Instagram, I do it mainly for them. I get nervous posting books that relate to my faith journey because I have a number of conservative friends on there, but no one has said anything mean or argumentative so far. I don’t really want to spark debates; I just want to share what is going on with me and hope maybe it will make someone think a bit.

Michael is still job hunting, but he has had some success in his health journey. He has been climbing stairs during the winter while it has been too cold to go on walks and can really tell a difference in his stamina. He also weighed in at 199 lbs a few days ago when we saw the weight management doctor, which was very exciting! I am very happy for him to be taking care of himself so well. I wish I could say the same about myself.

Here is a screenshot of my puzzle Instagram when it hit 1000 followers:

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Parenthese Enchantee

Parenthese Enchantee is a 500 piece puzzle from Trevell, and the artist is La Jeanette.

Such a gorgeous image! I have been eyeing this puzzle for a while now and am so glad I got it. I love all the beautiful colors and interesting details, and the matte finish on the pieces is so nice. The packaging is wonderful too. It came with a nice poster and a cotton drawstring bag holding the pieces.

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Weekend Recap

This was a fun weekend! On Saturday, I attended a Brunch & Craft women’s event at my church. Everyone was invited to come for brunch and bring any craft they wanted to work on while socializing with each other. I don’t really have any crafts I am working on right now, so my friend Suzanne and I decided to do puzzles together.

There was a good turnout at the event, and everyone was talking about how we would like to do it again. I brought four puzzles for us to choose from, all ones I had previously done. Our friend Brianne joined us for the first one, Mountain Camper from Ceaco. It was a 300-piece puzzle and went very quickly with the three of us working together.

After that, Brianne decided to do some coloring, and Suzanne and I did Paper Paradise from Galison, a 500-piece puzzle. One of the other women at the event who enjoys doing puzzles stopped over and helped for a little while. We finished just under the wire.

This morning I was a greeter at church. The pastor started a new series for Lent called Practicing the Way. It was inspired by the book of that name by John Mark Comer. The sermon was very good and we also had a surprise visit by our bishop. We gave out t-shirts to 5 newcomers today, which was exciting.

This afternoon we had a small birthday celebration for Michael, who turns 23 tomorrow. The party included Renee, Chris, Evan, and Hans. We had lunch followed by the cake Michael has requested – chocolate with chocolate frosting with chocolate chips in the frosting. He got some fun gifts including a metal 100-sided die and a Nintendo 64 t-shirt. After that, the boys played games on the Switch while us old folks napped and chatted on the couch.

I do wish I had one more day to the weekend to decompress a bit, but I am glad I was able to participate in both events. I will get a bit of down time tomorrow after work since Michael’s therapist is out of town and Michael won’t have an appointment like he usually does.

What did you do this weekend?

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Cozy Kitchen

Cozy Kitchen is a 99-piece mini puzzle from Trevell, and the artist is Marion Réau (aka Marion Brouillard). This was my first Trevell puzzle, and I was super impressed with the quality. Some mini puzzles aren’t the best quality, but this one was really nice.

This image was also done in a 500-piece size, but it was a limited edition and is hard to find these days, so I was glad to at least be able to do the mini version. I just love this image – the colors are great and I love all the little details.

I also ordered another Trevell puzzle with this one, Parenthèse Enchantée. It is 500 pieces, so I’m looking forward to doing that one.

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Completing the Puzzle – February 2025

I only did two of the puzzles from my Completing the Puzzle subscription this month. I decided to put my subscription on hold and they asked that I send the puzzles I had back within 7 days, so I only had time to do two of them. I wasn’t too upset about it, though, because the other two weren’t from my wish list and I didn’t mind skipping them.

The first one was Paris in a Day from eeBoo, and it was 1000 pieces. It was the first rectangular eeBoo puzzle I have seen. This was right up my alley with all the different buildings and windows; it helped that there were so many different colors and textures in the image.

The second puzzle I did was Paris from Galison; it was a 1000-piece puzzle and the artist was Michael Storrings. It was a bear to complete, especially compared to the Paris in a Day puzzle I just did. The building colors were all very similar, as were the windows.

I am always drawn to Michael Storrings artwork, but I hesitate to get his puzzles because they seem hard. I do have a 500 piece that is pretty doable, but I wouldn’t want to do this one again.

Once my puzzles are confirmed back at the warehouse, I am planning to cancel my subscription. I have enjoyed getting to do some puzzles that would have been harder or more expensive to obtain, but I am ready to go back to puzzling whatever I want on a given day instead of having to prioritize the subscription puzzles.

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Beach Huts

Beach Huts is a 1000-piece puzzle from Magnolia, and the artist is Olivia Gibbs. Gibbs is one of my favorite artists for puzzles, and I have several other puzzles that she has designed. This one was on my wish list for a while because it was a bit pricier and harder to find. I eventually found it on Fairplay Puzzles, which carries a curated selection of jigsaw puzzles celebrating diversity, equity, and inclusion. Beach Huts is sold out at the time of this post, but they do have an interesting selection of puzzles worth checking out.

The quality of this puzzle was exceptional. The fit was great, which always makes it so much easier to solve. Magnolia has a difficulty rating on their boxes, and they rated this one 3 out of 5, which I would agree with. It was a bit of a slow start but eventually got moving at a decent pace. The pieces have a matte finish, so glare is not an issue. There was a lot of puzzle dust, but that doesn’t bother me now that I have my little desktop vacuum to deal with that.

The image was just perfect for me. It didn’t have too much sky or sand, it had lovely buildings to put together, and it even had some signs with words on them, which I always enjoy. The colors were vibrant and the scene made me happy during one of the coldest weeks of winter so far.

I have one more of her puzzles on my to do shelf, so I am looking forward to that. Do you have any favorite puzzle artists?

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Dog Walkers

Dog Walkers is a 500-piece puzzle from Dowdle. I received this as a gift from a friend and did it now after using the randomizer on my puzzle app to pick my next puzzle.

Honestly, I am not a huge fan of this brand. Something about the artwork just does not appeal to me. I also encountered a lot of false fits with this puzzle, especially in the top section. The top third of the puzzle took quite a while to complete.

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The Artist’s Desk

The Artist’s Desk is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ravensburger. I picked it up at a thrift shop and was pleasantly surprised upon opening the box to find a small ziploc bag with the edge pieces separated out. It was nice to be able to jump right into puzzling!

This was a fun image to put together. I did have to shape sort for the darker areas, but it still wasn’t too hard. And, of course, the Ravensburger quality is always excellent!

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Completing the Puzzle – January 2025

The first puzzle I did from my four-puzzle subscription this month was Envelopes by Tania Wicks. I have wanted to try one of her puzzles for quite a while, but they are pricey and not readily available here in the state, so I was excited to get this one to do.

I absolutely loved it! The image is stunning; I love the subject matter and the colors are so rich and peaceful. The puzzle quality was really good as well, and it was a joy to solve.

My second puzzle was Copenhagen from eeBoo. I always enjoy their puzzles. I like the size and shape of their pieces, and I don’t mind that they are glossy – I have never had a problem with that.

This image is so charming with all the different buildings. I like how some of them are slanted and how they have different textures. So fun!

My third puzzle was Asian Oil Paper Umbrellas from Eurographics. It is a stunning image with lots of bold colors and lovely details. I really enjoyed doing this one. It was challenging without being frustrating, and I’m glad I got the chance to do it.

The quality was okay, but it has definitely been done many times; one of the pieces was smashed and one was missing a corner. Despite that, I had a lot of fun solving this one.

My fourth and final puzzle for this shipment was The Greatest Bookstore in the World, also from Eurographics. I love books and bookstores so was immediately drawn to this image. It started out pretty easy with a few of the larger objects and color blocks but then got tricky with all the tiny little books.

The pieces were all two in, two out, so I couldn’t shape sort. Thankfully they were all unique and I didn’t have any false fits. It was secondhand and there was one piece missing. Overall still a nice challenge.

Closing Thoughts

All four puzzles this month were 1000 pieces. I like that because it feels like I am getting my money’s worth out of the subscription. I am definitely doing one more month of the subscription, possibly two.