Tag: 1000 pieces

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Love for Holiday Baking

Love for Holiday Baking is a 1000-piece heart-shaped, Christmas-themed puzzle from Callie Danielle. I got it at Target several months ago and have been holding onto it until now when it would fit the season.

My friend Suzanne came over one evening last week and this is the puzzle she chose to help with. She worked on the border, which is her favorite part, and I worked on some of the larger items pictured in the puzzle. Once I was on my own, I spent several evenings working on this puzzle.

Pros:

  • Adorable image
  • Fun heart shape
  • Unique take on a holiday puzzle by focusing on baking related items

Cons:

  • Very small, random-cut pieces
  • Thin pieces were hard for me to pick up
  • Extremely loose fit, came apart if bumped even slightly

I went on a journey with this one. Starting out, I felt hopeful that it would be pretty easy, but that quickly shifted into feeling overwhelmed. Once I got all of the larger items in the image put together, I sorted by shape and started working piece by piece. After a while, I started to make some progress on the big open spaces and felt better about the experience. As always, once it was finished, I felt a sense of accomplishment and appreciated how adorable this puzzle was.

I will admit that having done a few harder puzzles recently prompted me to go through my wish list and remove some that I thought might be on the harder side.

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Vintage Main Street

Vintage Main Street is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cobble Hill, and the artist is Diane Dempsey. This was my second Dempsey puzzle; I find her art style very appealing.

I have done a lot of puzzles with buildings this year, and this one provides a fresh take on the concept with the vintage store fronts. The classic cars and fun holiday theme are also a lot of fun.

I did end up with one missing piece, which I was very bummed about. This could very well be my fault, as I did drop a couple of pieces on the floor. I thought I found them all but might not have. I’m still hoping it will show up sometime.

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City Sidewalks

City Sidewalks is a 1000-piece puzzle from 1canoe2. This is a new brand for me. It was a bit pricey, so I treated myself to it as an early Christmas present, along with the mini and micro puzzle I did recently.

I really enjoyed this puzzle. I had to get used to the pieces, which felt almost like plastic, but once I did, everything went very smoothly. There were a few darker areas that took a while; thankfully, there weren’t any false fits so it just took a bit of patience. This was a great choice for the holiday season!

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Valladolid

Valladolid is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ravensburger, and the artist is Marie Boiseau. This puzzle was designed especially for the 2024 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship in Valladolid, Spain, and I was very happy to be able to get a copy of it for myself.

This puzzle was harder than I thought it would be, and now that I have finished it, I am even more impressed by how fast the puzzlers at the competition were able to complete it. I have noticed when puzzle with friends that I am faster than they are due to the amount of time I have spent puzzling, but I am nowhere near a speed puzzler!

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Swedish Fishing Village

Swedish Fishing Village is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Monika Forsberg. I have had this one on my shelf for a while and finally got around to doing it. It was a lot of fun. I find eeBoo puzzles to be very consistent. The quality is always good and the challenge level is just right – not too hard and not too easy.

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Marrakesh

Marrakesh is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Miranda Softoniou. It is a delightful and colorful image showing a street in a market area, and I had a lot of fun solving it. I really enjoy puzzles from this brand, especially the ones featuring scenes from various cities around the world. Even though there is a lot going on in the image, it was not overwhelming.

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Trick or Treat Hotel

Trick or Treat Hotel is a 1000-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, and the artist is Charles Wysocki. I purchased this several months ago and have been holding onto it for Halloween puzzling. My friend Suzanne was over one night and helped me get it started. She did the border, which she loves doing, and I started on the house.

It took me a few days of puzzling to finish this one, mainly because the colors are so dark and similar to each other. I figured that would happen going into it, though, so I wasn’t upset by it. I really loved putting the house together. The rest was okay, but the house was great.

Happy Halloween!!

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Mid-Century Modern Dream Home

Mid-Century Modern Dream Home is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cobble Hill, and the artist is Diane Dempsey. The quality of this puzzle is outstanding. I chose it because I liked the image, which shows a variety of mid-century modern homes, along with some cars from that time frame.

With all that said, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked. There were a lot of the same colors spread across the puzzle, so it was hard to pick out a section to work on. It also had more brown and beige than I like. I do still plan to get some of their retro Christmas puzzles, though.

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Midnight in San Francisco

Midnight in San Francisco is part of the Cities at Midnight series from KI Puzzles. It is 1000 pieces, and the artist is Mandalina Tantareanu. This was my first puzzle from this brand, and I was impressed by the quality. The pieces fit together well but weren’t too hard to take apart when I was done.

I was drawn to the beautiful color palette. The colors are vivd and soft at the same time, if that makes sense. I also love doing buildings, which this puzzle has several of, as well as a cable car and a suspension bridge. This was a nice challenge and a very enjoyable puzzle.

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The Gardener’s Palette

The Gardener’s Palette is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ravensburger. The artist is Anne Searle.

This one had been on my wish list for quite a while. I think the image is so pretty, but I also thought it would be doable since each type of flower has its own block within the puzzle. I stopped at Barnes & Noble before my last therapy appointment and picked it up then. Last week, I had a tooth pulled and my friend Renee brought me a dinner of soft foods and hung out to watch some Grey’s Anatomy. I had already seen the episodes and was getting restless, so I decided to start this puzzle. After sorting the pieces, I was glad I had my little vacuum because of course there is so much puzzle dust with Ravensburger.

I worked on the puzzle little by little over the next several days and it was such a joy to do. I love the quality of Ravensburger puzzles. It was so much nicer than some of the puzzles I have done recently (either because of poor quality or having been done so many times that they were soft and breaking apart). The image is just beautiful and it even has words to put together to identify each flower. (I love puzzling words!)

So pretty!