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!

Seaside Jigsaw Puzzles

As part of the puzzle haul I got from the friend from church who moved away recently, I got a set of Ceaco puzzles labeled “10 Seaside Jigsaw Puzzles.” I ended up doing six of them before I got tired of them and decided to stop. I know I could do the others later, but I don’t think I will.

The puzzles I did included two 100-piece puzzles and four 300-piece puzzles. I did not do the four 500-piece puzzles. Here are pictures of the ones I completed:

The Family, 100 pieces
Dolphin Universe, 100 pieces
Saturn’s Messengers, 300 pieces
Swimming Lessons, 300 pieces
Reach for the Heavens, 300 pieces
Tropical Fish Island, 300 pieces

Paris Windows

Paris Windows is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Amanda Haley.

I had *so* much fun doing this puzzle. Buildings are my favorite things to puzzle, and this one has a ton of them! It is a very busy image, so a lot of it was pick and place one piece at a time. The quality was mid, but about what you would expect from this brand.

Here are a few closeups:

Puzzle Haul & Thomas Kinkade Puzzles

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.

Collector’s Cottage – 100 pieces
Stillwater Bridge – 300 pieces
Evening in the Forest – 500 pieces

Disney Together Time Puzzle

This is the Disney Together Time Puzzle from Ceaco. It is 400 pieces.

I have done this image before, but when I saw it in a local puzzle box in this version, I knew I wanted to try it. Together Time is a type of puzzle that has three different size pieces in one puzzle.

The idea is that a group of people of different ages or abilities can work on a puzzle together. I think it is a good concept, and I would be interested to do a puzzle like this with a child to see how they liked it.

ColorStory

I love rainbow puzzles, and this was a fun one. It’s so satisfying to work a puzzle section by section. I got this one at the puzzle swap and assumed I would do it once and pass it along, but I think I might keep it to do again.

The puzzle is from the ColorStory line, but I couldn’t find a specific title. The brand is Ceaco, and the artist is Lars Stewart. It is 750 pieces.

Colorful Harvest

Colorful Harvest is a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Tracy Flickinger. I first did it with friends at Thanksgiving last year, but have been wanting to do it again solo.

For the last few weeks, I have been participating in a puzzle by number challenge in a Facebook group I belong to, and one of the prompts was mushrooms. I had a 1000-piece puzzle picked out to do, but I kept putting it off. I do want to do that puzzle, but I have done some harder 1000-piece puzzles recently and was just not feeling it right now. I had another 300-piece option that I was considering, but then someone in the group posted this puzzle for the mushrooms prompt and I got excited, knowing I had this puzzle and hadn’t remembered it had mushrooms on it.

This is my last puzzle for the challenge, so I am looking forward to what I call “mood puzzling” again. There is actually one more prompt left on the challenge, but I get a freebie for being a subscriber to the YouTube channel run by the group organizer.

Weekend Recap

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?

Christmas Camper

Christmas Camper is a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Stephanie Peterson Jones. This was an adorable, quick puzzle that I have been saving for the Christmas season. I knew it would be pretty easy, so I did it without looking at the image to make the puzzling last a bit longer. I love all of the festive details!