Tag: 1000 pieces

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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!

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Poolside

Poolside from Cloudberries is a 1000-piece puzzle, and the artist is Matt Lyon. This is my first experience with this company. I have been interested in the particular puzzle for quite a while and finally added it to my collection.

I was nervous that it might be difficult, but it was actually quite fun. It has a lot going on to provide an interesting puzzle experience. At the end, I did have a number of solid pink and blue pieces that I had to sort by shape and try one by one, but there really weren’t too many of those.

The image was very crisp, the fit was good, and the puzzle has a nice matte finish. It also came with a very large poster that my cat was intrigued by and kept wanting to walk on! My friend Renee said that the image reminded her of Florida, which I thought was apt.

I would definitely do more from this brand. Highly recommend!

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Cat in a Bird’s Nest

Cat in a Bird’s Nest is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cross & Glory. This is my third puzzle from them, and it was a lot of fun. It looked like it would be hard because of all the blue and white pieces, but it was actually pretty easy. Most of the pieces had a pattern which made it easy to see where they went.

I’m still a bit ambivalent about the fact that they use AI to generate their images. I usually search to see if I can find similar artwork on a traditional brand before buying one of theirs.

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Jane Austen’s Book Club

Jane Austen’s Book Club is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeboo. I got it from Ollie’s (a local bargain store) for only $4.99! They had a pretty good selection of puzzles and even had two that I had already purchased. Too bad I hadn’t gone there first as they would have been cheaper.

This was a bit harder of a puzzle due to the amount of detail in it. I didn’t find it frustrating at all; I was able to keep working through it section by section. I like the distinct qualities of eeboo puzzles, with the glossy pieces that are small but not too small and the square shape of the finished puzzle.

I would have loved to be a part of this book club, as it appears to include Jane herself as a member. It would have been fascinating to talk about books with her!