Thoughts of an introverted bookworm and avid jigsaw puzzler
Dog Walkers is a 500-piece puzzle from Dowdle. I received this as a gift from a friend and did it now after using the randomizer on my puzzle app to pick my next puzzle.
Honestly, I am not a huge fan of this brand. Something about the artwork just does not appeal to me. I also encountered a lot of false fits with this puzzle, especially in the top section. The top third of the puzzle took quite a while to complete.
Bright Heart is a 500-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games. The artwork is from EttaVee, which is the brand created by Jessi Raulet, an American artist living in France.
If you are looking for a challenge, this is it! I chose this puzzle because of its striking artwork; it has such beautiful colors and patterns!
I started this one with my friend Suzanne, who did the border and a bit of the interior, and then I finished it up by myself. There was a lot of looking at the poster and I decided to sort by shape when I was only halfway through the puzzle.
I’m not complaining, though. Even though it was hard, the image is amazing and the puzzle quality is really good. I highly recommend!
Another note about the artist: when I visited ettavee.com on my phone, a popup gave me the opportunity to access downloadable wallpapers and I now have a bit of her artwork on my phone screen!
Here are some pictures of the progress along the way, along with the finished puzzle.
Puzzle Complaints is a 500-piece puzzle from Workman Puzzles, and the artist is popular children’s book author Sandra Boynton. I had done this puzzle very close to when I started puzzling in 2021 and decided to redo it to bring in the New Year.
It is such a fun puzzle! I love all the different sayings and the complaining chickens. The text around the border of the puzzle is pretty amusing as well.
Winter Lights is a 500-piece puzzle from Galison, and the artist is Joy LaForme. This was a gift from my friend Kim. She is really good at picking out puzzles I like, and this one is no exception!
It is kind of hard to see from a photo, but the puzzle has gold foil accents on it, which are so festive. I enjoyed putting together all of the buildings and vehicles most of all. The image is a bit dark, but it wasn’t too bad to work with.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!
After the Snow Has Fallen is a 500-piece puzzle from Bits and Pieces, and the artist is Joseph Holodook. I have done a couple of his puzzles and like his artwork a lot. This image held a lot of appeal, with Victorian houses and a bustling festive scene.
Even though this is a random cut puzzle, like the Playful Gnomes set, it was much easier to solve because there was a lot of information on each piece to help figure out where it went. Very fun puzzle for the Christmas season!
Earlier this year, I purchased a 4 in 1 set from Bits and Pieces called Playful Gnomes. It includes images of three gnomes in each of the four seasons. It is available in several different piece counts, and I chose the 500 piece set.
The fall puzzle, Fall Gnomes in the Woods, was harder than I thought it would be, probably because of the random piece count. It is an adorable image though!
The winter puzzle, Three Gnomes, was an absolute bear to complete. Not only do you have the random cut pieces, but the background is basically just shades of white. I seriously considered giving up, but I sorted by shape as best as I could and just pushed through and finally finished it.
I’m not sure when I will try the other two. They look like they will be kind of hard too. Maybe by the time spring comes around I will be ready to tackle them!
This was my third month getting a subscription of four puzzles from Completing the Puzzle. I received 4 500-piece puzzles this time. I was hoping to get some 1000-piece puzzles since I have a lot of those on my wishlist. My wishlist only has a couple of 500-piece puzzles on it now, so I should definitely get some 1000-piece ones next month.
I enjoyed all of the puzzles I got with this shipment. A couple of them were pretty well-worn, which makes them feel a bit soft and they don’t click into place. I don’t prefer that, but it’s okay. My friend Renee was over when I did Artsy Cats and helped with it.
Here are the puzzles I got this month:
I’m looking forward to what I get next month. I also have a bunch of winter/Christmas puzzles lined up to start on December 1st.
Park Avenue is a 500-piece puzzle from Puzzle Crush, and the artist is Joy LaForme. Interestingly enough, the first puzzle that I did back in 2021 was from Puzzle Crush. I had some definite quality issues with that one, but I am glad to say that the quality of this puzzle was much better and I had no problems with it.
I found this image to be so pretty that I bought it fairly quickly after seeing it. I knew the pink foliage would be tricky to put together, but I figured it couldn’t be too bad since it was only 500 pieces. And I was right – the bottom and middle parts went together easily, and once I shape sorted, the top part wasn’t too bad.
I would consider more from this brand and from this artist, who I know has a lot of puzzles out there.
Welcome to Spooky Town is a 500-piece puzzle from Mudpuppy, and the artist is Stephanie Birdsong. I picked it up because it was such a fun Halloween image, and it did end up being a lot of fun to put together.
I have always liked Halloween, even though I don’t really decorate for it. I always enjoyed taking my son trick or treating, and I also enjoyed the times I got to hand out candy. Now that my son is grown, he really enjoys handing out candy to trick or treaters as well. The last couple of years, he has done that at his dad’s house because they get a lot of kids in that area.
This was my second box of four puzzles from my Completing the Puzzle subscription. I enjoyed three out of the four, but that fourth one had me questioning whether I want to continue with the subscription! I have decided to give it another month and see how it goes.
The first puzzle I did was Sugar Spectrum from the brand Fred. It was 500 pieces, and the artist was Emily Blincoe. It is a classic rainbow style puzzle and was a lot of fun, as well as being pretty easy. I have done several puzzles of this style, and this one was a good representation of it.
My second puzzle was Le Cinque Terre, which was also from Fred and 500 pieces. This is the one that made me question everything. I really liked the image from Maurizio Santucci and Elisa Certi. I enjoy buildings and this one had adorable ones. At first glance, the sky and sea didn’t seem too bad, but they were actually horrible. I had to take the sky apart several times before finally getting it together – there were so many false fits that I almost gave up. When I finally finished the sky, I found there was one piece missing. Ugh!
I did give up on the sea. The parts with a design on them weren’t bad, but the plain blue pieces seemed to go together correctly until I realized I had two open spots but the two pieces I had left were different shapes than the openings I had. I did find one piece out of place and fixed that, but I couldn’t find the culprits that caused the mismatch at the end. I finally gave up and just left the pieces out.
I had another Fred puzzle in my box but decided to switch it up and do the MasterPieces 300-piece puzzle from Dean Russo called Mad Kitty. This one had large EZ Grip pieces that would be great for someone with arthritis or some other hand issue. It was random cut as well, which was fun. I love cats, so this image was great. I also enjoyed how colorful and chaotic the pattern was. Super fun!
The last puzzle I completed from this month’s box was Beach Trash, also from Fred. It was 500 pieces and the artist was Emily Blincoe, just like the Sugar Spectrum puzzle I did earlier. It was one I had seen online before but never quite liked enough to buy it outright, so I was glad to get the chance to do it this way. It was a good puzzle; the difficulty was medium low so I never got stuck or frustrated.
I find it interesting how I can have such a negative feeling towards the subscription when three of the four puzzles had absolutely no problems at all. That one bad experience almost overwhelms the positive feelings from the other three. But, like I said above, I am not going to cancel just yet. I am going to give it another month and see how it goes.
In So Many Words 