Thoughts of an introverted bookworm and avid jigsaw puzzler
I just love Charles Wysocki, and this image made for the perfect puzzling experience. The mix of buildings and horse-drawn carts with the landscape elements was ideal for puzzling without getting stuck on any one area.
This one is called Gull’s Nest, and it is a 500-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games.
The Colours of Spring is a 500-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, and the artist is Terry Redlin. Redlin is a new-to-me artist, and I thought the image was kind of charming on the box, but I found it to be darker on the puzzle than it was on the box, which made it somewhat difficult.
This was another one I got for free from the friend who moved away. She had told me she couldn’t guarantee the puzzles were complete, but I was still quite surprised to have a total of eight missing pieces! There was also so much dog hair in the box – more than I’ve ever seen before in a used puzzle.
This one unfortunately had to go in the trash. I am not willing to pass it on to anyone with so many pieces missing.
Mothers Day at the Park is a sweet Americana image by Sharon Ascherl. This puzzle was 500 pieces and came from Sure-Lox, and I am pretty sure this is my first puzzle from both the brand and the artist.
I was impressed by the quality of this puzzle, especially given that they aren’t very expensive. I got this one for free from my friend who moved away recently and enjoyed it quite a bit.
Check out my puzzle haul! A woman from my church is moving and gave me a bunch of puzzles she didn’t want to take with her. Of course, I said I’ll take them all! I’ll do the ones I like and them pass them all to other puzzlers.
The first ones I chose to do were the set of Thomas Kinkade puzzles. They were from Ceaco, and there were 3 of them. I have never done any of his artwork and thought I would give these a try even though they are not my normal style.
I had a pleasant time doing them. The largest one was a bit tricky because there was a lot more sky and also the border has a lot of false fits. I had to mess around with the border a few times to get it right.
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.
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!
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:
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.
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?
In So Many Words 