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Woodland Magic

Last weekend I did the puzzle Woodland Magic by Elena Essex. It’s a 1000 piece puzzle showcasing a variety of mushrooms and toadstools. I absolutely loved this puzzle! The colors are so vibrant, and the design was beautifully done.

I would say this puzzle was low to medium in difficulty. There were only a handful of pieces that were solid cream for the background – almost every piece had some amount of color on it. And the different color sections didn’t have so many pieces that they became overwhelming; plus there were a lot of different textures even within each color.

Here’s a picture of the finished puzzle:

This was such a fun puzzle to do – it was really perfect for me! I have already put more of her puzzles on my wish list.

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A Trio of Puzzles

I was so happy with the way my last puzzle turned out that I decided to do some of the puzzles I had been loaned from my ex-husband’s girlfriend. This weekend I actually completed three of them.

The first one was Peddlin’ Posies by Cardinal, which is a 500 piece puzzle. The artist is Mary Irwin. It’s a charming scene of a flower cart in front of a window. There were a few sections that were a bit challenging, but overall it wasn’t too bad.

The second one was Moonlight Serenity from Bits and Pieces. This one is a 300 piece puzzle, which was a first for me. The artist is Larry Jones. The low piece count and really large pieces made it super easy, so even though it wasn’t a design I would have normally picked out, I enjoyed putting it together.

The third puzzle I did was Afternoon Tea, also by Bits and Pieces. This one was a 500 piece puzzle, and the artist was Tracy Hall. I felt like the pieces were still pretty big and the puzzle was fairly easy to put together. I did it all in one sitting, which did make my back hurt a bit, but I really wanted to get it done before the weekend was over.

I haven’t decided which puzzle to do next. I still have two more loaner puzzles, but I’m not sure if I want to do them or not. I may do one of the puzzles from my Christmas/birthday haul. I have four puzzles waiting to be done, and they are all 1000 pieces, so will be a bit more challenging than these were.

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Steeped in Tradition

Today’s puzzle is Steeped in Tradition, a 550 piece puzzle by Ceaco. I received this puzzle from a friend who got it while she was helping another friend clean out his dad’s house after he had passed away. It had belonged to his mom, who had passed some years earlier. I knew going in that it was missing two pieces, as she had written the information on the back of the box, as shown in the picture below.

After doing the border and a couple of small sections from the middle, I moved the puzzle to our sunroom to be safe from our dog Baxter while we were out of the house. However, I got sidetracked and left the sunroom door open, so he got to it anyway. I ended up losing a corner piece and a few of the border pieces. I have no idea where they went, so I’m guessing he ate them!

I let the puzzle sit for quite a while before finally deciding to tackle it. I was worried it would be hard because the colors were so muted, but it wasn’t too bad and I actually enjoyed it. The other day my friend who had given me the puzzle came over and helped me finish it. By that point, I had progressed to sorting the pieces by shape and was working one by one to figure out where each piece fit. With two of us working on it, we got it done fairly quickly. Here is the finished puzzle:

You can see the two original missing pieces as well as the pieces Baxter got a hold of along the bottom edge. I still think it is a charming puzzle, though. I probably won’t keep it to redo since so many pieces are gone now, but I’m glad I got the chance to do it once.

Next up are some puzzles that were lent to me by, of all people, my ex-husband’s girlfriend. She has sent five puzzles home with my son. I’m not sure if I’ll do all of them, but I will likely do at least a couple.

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Rainbow Crystals

For my next puzzle, I chose Rainbow Crystals, which is a 500 piece puzzle by Galison. The artist is Julie Seabrook Ream. This was one of the puzzles I got for Christmas from my wish list. It has everything I like – an object present in a rainbow of colors with very little white space or solid color areas with no texture.

Here are the pieces, sorted by color with the edge pieces in their own pile. So pretty!

I did this puzzle in two days. I think the total time was about 3 hours. Here’s the finished puzzle:

When I posted a picture of the puzzle on Facebook, one of my friends thought it looked like candy!

This was a very fun puzzle to do. It was very easy but still satisfying. I think the next one I’m going to do is an image of a bunch of different teacups. A friend was helping another friend clear out his dad’s house and grabbed it from there for me.

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Christmas Carolers

Well, I might have to call this one a puzzle fail, but I’ve gotten as far as I am going to on my newest puzzle. It’s called Christmas Carolers, and it’s a 1000 piece puzzle by Galison. The artist is Louise Cunningham Starling. My son Michael got it for me for my birthday (which is on Christmas Day).

It was a few weeks after Christmas when I decided to start it, but at least it was still winter so there was some snow here and there! I did the border first and started on the houses, but one day my dog Baxter got hold of the puzzle and I lost most of the lower part of the border.

I did the rest of the houses, then the windows with the Christmas trees, then the big Christmas tree, and finally the people down in the snow. Then I was left with only white pieces for the rest of the snowy ground, and it got pretty slow going. After a while, I decided that I had done enough and would call it done.

If I still had the whole border intact, I might have pushed through to finish the entire thing, but with so many pieces already gone, I lost my will to complete it.

I’m not sure which puzzle I am going to do next, as I have several options from the ones I got for Christmas and my birthday.

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The Sewing Box

It’s been a few weeks since I did my last puzzle, but last weekend I did a new one called The Sewing Box. It was a 500 piece puzzle from Springbok, and the artist was Polly McMillan. I started it by myself one night. The border came together pretty easily with just one piece missing, and I was able to put together parts of several of the sections from the sewing box as well.

The following evening my friend Renee came to visit, and we ended up finishing the puzzle that night. It was a lot of fun working on it with another person. The puzzle was harder than I thought it would be but was still very doable. The puzzle piece shapes were pretty wild, with lots of unique shapes. That actually helped on some of the sections that were difficult to do.

Here’s a picture of the finished puzzle:

Not only did Renee help me finish this puzzle, but she also gave me a new puzzle for a birthday gift. It’s one that was on my wish list, so I was very excited to get it. The new puzzle is The World of Jane Austen, a 1000-piece puzzle by Laurence King Publishing.

I love Jane Austen and am really excited to tackle this puzzle!

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Love Stamps

It’s been a few weeks since I did a puzzle, but this weekend I finished Love Stamps, a 1000-piece puzzle from White Mountain Puzzles. The artist is Lois B. Sutton.

I started it when my friend Renee was over, and we did the border and got a couple of the stamps started. Because of the number of pieces and the size of the puzzle, I didn’t have a lot of room to lay out the pieces or even sort them. I had been looking at some puzzle sorting trays on Amazon for a while and decided to order them to help with this puzzle.

Here’s what the trays look like all stacked together. Using them to sort the pieces was very helpful and made doing the puzzle much more enjoyable.

This was a very fun puzzle to do. It was basically lots of mini puzzles connected with different styles of borders. It was interesting to see the different styles of art used for these stamps throughout the years. I even used it as an educational tool to explain to my son the difference between stamps that had the postage printed on them and the Forever stamps that we use now.

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Sandra Boynton: Puzzle Complaints

Sandra Boynton’s Puzzle Complaints by Workman Puzzles is the fifth puzzle I have completed. It was by far the easiest as well as the most fun puzzle that I have done. The puzzle is only 500 pieces, and the pieces are quite large, making them very easy to work with.

The design is comprised of chickens who are expressing their various complaints about the puzzle. The text for each area was either a different size, different color, or different font, making it pretty simple to find the pieces for the area I was working on at that time.

I did the chickens last, but even they weren’t really hard. This would be a great puzzle to do with a child. My son thought it was very clever and enjoyed reading the border especially.

Here’s the finished puzzle:

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Frederick the Literate

So I did buy a 1,000 piece puzzle called Fantastic Fashionista from Ravensburger Puzzles and even finished about half of it, but I never completed it. I had finished all of the colored parts and was left with the white walls and floor to do, so it was definitely getting pretty tricky. Then we went out one day and left Baxter in the kitchen/dining room, and he pulled the puzzle down off the dining room table and completely dismantled it!

I had no way of knowing how many pieces were ruined or missing after that, so I decided to just trash the puzzle. At least I got to do the fun parts of the puzzle before it was wrecked! Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of my progress, but here’s a picture of the front of the box.

Before starting my next puzzle, I went to Michael’s and bought some foam board to put the puzzle on. That way I could move it to the sunroom if I needed to leave Baxter alone in the house (since we close that door when we leave him alone).

The puzzle I just did was Frederick the Literate by Buffalo Games. It’s part of the Cats of Charles Wysocki line. It was super cute. If you look at the picture closely, you can see that the book titles are all fun, made-up titles related to cats. The cat fur was definitely the hardest part, but because the puzzle was only 750 pieces, even that wasn’t too bad.

I am still really enjoying spending time doing puzzles, although I don’t think I have the patience for large difficult sections, such as single color areas. I want to be making progress all the time, even if it’s a bit slower some of the time.

My next puzzle is Sandra Boynton’s Puzzle Complaints. It’s 500 pieces and just looks like a lot of fun.

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It’s a Tie

My third puzzle was It’s a Tie by Springbok. It was 500 pieces like the first two, but the shape of it was round. I started it on a Friday night when my friend Renee was visiting. She enjoys puzzles, so we decided to open this one up and give it a try.

I did sort out the edge pieces first, but they were mostly black so we ended up starting by putting some of the ties together. Once we had several mostly together, we used the picture on the box to put them where they should be. We worked on it for a couple of hours and then decided to take a break from it.

I returned to the puzzle on Saturday morning and was able to finish it within another couple of hours. It wasn’t very difficult to do the border once the center part was together. Here’s a picture of the finished puzzle:

This puzzle was a lot of fun to do. I enjoyed the subject matter of neckties and it was fun seeing all of the different patterns and how they came together.

Puzzling is turning out to be a good hobby for me. I ordered another puzzle on Amazon but it was going to take a few days to arrive, so Joe & I went to the mall so I could get a new one right away. It’s 1000 pieces, so it should be a bit more of a challenge!