Tag: 500 pieces

Posted on

Rockies Explorer

Rockies Explorer is a 500-piece puzzle from Villager Puzzles, and the artist is Anja Jane. This was my first experience with Villager, which is a woman-owned Canadian brand featuring artwork from Canadian women artists.

The puzzle came in a box with a magnetic closure and a reusable plastic bag. It included a nice size poster as well. The pieces have a lovely matte finish and fit together beautifully, and the art was great. I loved the colors, especially the sky and mountains, and I am looking forward to doing more of their puzzles.

Posted on

Solena

I ran across this puzzle at a local thrift store recently and was intrigued enough to bring it home. It was packaged in a cylinder, which is unusual for puzzles, and the brand was called Remember, which I had never heard of. After a bit of Googling, I found out that it is a German brand featuring design and gift items. They currently have 8 puzzles on their website, all of which have abstract designs like this one.

The puzzle was fun to put together, but the pieces do have a fairly loose fit. Because of this, I had some false fits in the beginning. Once I knew to look carefully at whether a piece actually fit where I was trying it, I got better at recognizing when it was in the right place. The pieces were rigid and had a black backing, both very different from the puzzles I am used to.

Here is a picture of the packaging the puzzle came in:

I would enjoy doing more Remember puzzles, although I don’t know if I will ever get the chance. You can get them through Amazon, but they are prohibitively expensive. I didn’t realize the deal I was getting for $4.99 at the time I bought it!

Posted on

Diamond Dahlia

Diamond Dahlia is a 500-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, and the artist is Josie Lewis. I think this is a perfect example of a rainbow puzzle. It is so satisfying to do a puzzle where I can start with one color and work my way around.

The white lines in the design along with the shading of the colors made it easier to place pieces than I thought it would be, although the red and pinks were very similar and took a bit longer than the other colors.

I really want to get one other puzzle of hers, Rainbow Sunrise. It is out of stock everywhere I’ve looked, though, so I’ve got an alert set up on ebay in case one shows up there. Here’s a picture of that one:

Posted on

Spring and Summer Gnomes

Spring Gnomes and Summer Gnomes are 500-piece puzzles from Bits and Pieces. They are part of a set of 4 puzzles I got a while ago. Last year I did the fall and winter puzzles, and I was recently inspired to finish these ones off.

These two were definitely more fun than the other ones. The fall one was tricky, but the winter one was diabolically hard between the random cut pieces and the many shades of white and gray. The summer puzzle was the easiest of the four because it has more colorful elements that are spread out more throughout the design.

While these are very cute puzzles, I don’t think I would want to do them again, so the set is going in the stack for the next puzzle swap I am able to attend.

Posted on

Village Toy Shop

Village Toy Shop is a 500-piece puzzle from Sure-Lox, and it is part of their Touch of Frost series. I got this one for free from the friend who recently moved away, and I was very happy to find that it had all of the pieces.

Don’t let the picture fool you, it was quite a bit darker than it looks and very difficult. I knew it was going to be a hard one when the sky and snow were the easy parts, lol! The building pieces were extremely dark and it was slow-going putting them in, but I did eventually get it finished.

Posted on

Love in the Wild

Love in the Wild is a 500-piece puzzle from Mudpuppy, and the artist is Katy Tanis. I did this with my friend Suzanne recently. We both really loved how cute it was and were happy to be able to finish it in one sitting! I tried to pick a favorite square, but they are all so adorable that I really can’t.

I really appreciate having a friend who enjoys doing puzzles. We are hoping to get together again soon with one other friend so that we can all puzzle together. I would love to find local puzzle events or even more puzzle swaps. I have thought about starting something but I’m not sure I would know how to go about it.

Posted on

Japan Map Puzzle

Japan Map Puzzle is a 500-piece puzzle from Hardie Grant Travel. A new puzzle challenge started a few days ago in a Facebook group I belong to, and it has a new prompt each week. The first prompt was castle. On a quick glance through my stash, I couldn’t find a puzzle that had a castle, so I made a trip to Community Aid to see what was available.

I was so happy to find this adorable puzzle with a map of Japan that featured Osaka Castle. I had never heard of this company, but I was impressed with the quality of the puzzle. The pieces were on the thinner size, but they fit together well and there were very few completely solid pink pieces.

I enjoyed putting together the map portion, and I also loved all the little images of Japanese things. The “beckoning cat” is so cute, and the Harajuku crepes look yummy!

Posted on

Seaside Village

Seaside Village is a 500 piece puzzle from White Mountain, and the artist is Lois B. Sutton.

This was a charming puzzle with a lot of fun details. The pieces are pretty large and decent quality. There were two connected edge pieces that hadn’t been cut through all the way but no problems other than that. I enjoyed this one very much.

Posted on

Recent Puzzle Hauls

I have acquired several puzzles over the last few weeks that I am excited about doing. Most are new but a couple are used.

  • Balloons from Ravensburger, 300 pieces – part of their Moments line and it’s just so pretty
  • Diamond Dahlia from Buffalo Games, 500 pieces – looks like a lovely rainbow puzz!le
  • Wine Country Camper from Ceaco, 750 pieces – hard to find puzzle from the Happy Camper series, had to get off Poshmark
  • Amsterdam Weekend from Antelope, 1000 pieces – have wanted this one for a while and decided to take the plunge
  • Whimsical Village, Concord, 500 pieces – saw this and loved it, found on ebay
  • The Tree of Hope, Pintoo, 300 pieces – this brand is new to me and is famous for their plastic pieces
  • Coastal Harbour, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces – recently did one by this artist, Georgia Breeze, and really enjoyed it. This came from the UK but was sold on Amazon, so I didn’t have to mess with high shipping or customs fees
  • Simple Joys, 1canoe2, 1000 pieces – I have done one other by this brand and liked it a lot, this one just looks so relaxing

I am going to try buying fewer puzzles for the next month or so and try to focus on the ones I already have. That is a really difficult challenge for me, though, so we’ll have to see how I do!

Posted on

Pride & Prejudice Map

Pride & Prejudice Map is a 500-piece puzzle from Pippi Post, and the artist is Alexa Zurcher. This puzzle was so delightful! I am a big P&P fan and grabbed this one as soon as I could. (I also got the Little House on the Prairie Map.)

The image is totally enchanting, with the cute buildings and other fun details. If you look closely, you will see that the border is made up of quotes from the book.

I was also impressed with the quality. There was no puzzle dust and no false fits. I’m sure I will do this puzzle again and again!