Tag: Galison

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Harvest Feast

Harvest Feast is a 500-piece puzzle from Galison, and the artist is Kathryn Selbert. I fell in love with this image when I saw it on Instagram a few weeks ago and starting tracking it on ebay until I found one that had a price I was happy with.

I am so glad I got it. It is such a charming image with all of the adorable woodland creatures sharing a feast together. I especially like the little mouse standing on a ladder so he can reach the table.

The only downside was that the pieces had a weird feel to them. It is hard to describe, but it was almost kind of oily. It was unusual for this brand to be unpleasant, so I’m not sure what happened. I still enjoyed the puzzle, but it was odd.

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Spring Tea Party

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:

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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?

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Completing the Puzzle – February 2025

I only did two of the puzzles from my Completing the Puzzle subscription this month. I decided to put my subscription on hold and they asked that I send the puzzles I had back within 7 days, so I only had time to do two of them. I wasn’t too upset about it, though, because the other two weren’t from my wish list and I didn’t mind skipping them.

The first one was Paris in a Day from eeBoo, and it was 1000 pieces. It was the first rectangular eeBoo puzzle I have seen. This was right up my alley with all the different buildings and windows; it helped that there were so many different colors and textures in the image.

The second puzzle I did was Paris from Galison; it was a 1000-piece puzzle and the artist was Michael Storrings. It was a bear to complete, especially compared to the Paris in a Day puzzle I just did. The building colors were all very similar, as were the windows.

I am always drawn to Michael Storrings artwork, but I hesitate to get his puzzles because they seem hard. I do have a 500 piece that is pretty doable, but I wouldn’t want to do this one again.

Once my puzzles are confirmed back at the warehouse, I am planning to cancel my subscription. I have enjoyed getting to do some puzzles that would have been harder or more expensive to obtain, but I am ready to go back to puzzling whatever I want on a given day instead of having to prioritize the subscription puzzles.

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Winter Lights

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!

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Completing the Puzzle – September 2024

I recently saw a review of the subscription company Completing the Puzzle on one of the YouTube channels I follow, The Casual Puzzler. For a monthly fee, you can borrow puzzles to do and then return. Their standard subscription is for one puzzle at a time, and the next puzzle is sent once you return the first one (like the original Netflix model). The review I saw also mentioned an option to get four puzzles at a time once a month, and I decided to go with that to minimize trips to the post office.

When you create your account, you set your preferences for puzzle size and puzzle type. You can also add puzzles from their catalog to your wish list, and then they will prioritize sending you puzzles from your wish list if they are available.

I got my first shipment earlier this month and have since completed all of the puzzles. Each puzzle is in a zippered pouch and there are laminated pictures of the puzzle images. They are packaged in a zippered container that can be shipped as is. They included a return label that could be slipped in the clear pouch on the outside of the box.

The first puzzle I did was Wonder & Bloom from Galison. It is a 500-piece puzzle, and the artist is Victoria Ball. It was still in really good shape, although it was missing one piece. I emailed the company and they had me send them a photo of the puzzle and said they would remove it from rotation once I sent it back.

The second puzzle I did was Amish Country from Dowdle. For some reason, I thought it was going to be a larger piece count, but it was actually 300. That was okay since I have been doing more 300 piece puzzles recently. This one was less enjoyable because the puzzle had definitely been done many times. Some of the pieces had a very narrow area on them, and several were close to breaking and one was actually broken into two smaller pieces. It was still a nice image though.

The third puzzle I did was Tale of Two from Art & Fable. It was 500 pieces, and the artist was Maria Brzozowska. I have seen this puzzle online before and been intrigued by the image – it is quite whimsical and unique. I don’t really know what the title refers to; I wonder if it might be the two people in the lower right corner. The puzzle was well-loved – the pieces felt kind of soft from much use, but the fit was good and it was enjoyable to do.

The fourth, and last, puzzle I completed was Summer at the Amusement Park from Galison. It was a 500-piece puzzle, and the artist was Michael Storrings. I have done several of his puzzles and enjoy his style. I liked the fun details in this image.

I feel that this subscription was a good value based on my experience this first month. I am looking forward to what puzzles I get next month. There were several in their catalog that had been on my Amazon wish list, as well as some that I hadn’t seen before and liked. They have even added a few larger count puzzles recently (1500 and 2000 pieces).

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Beside the Sea

Beside the Sea is a 500-piece puzzle from Galison, and the artist is Laura C. Moyer. I got it a few days ago at Books A Million, although I had first seen it on Amazon and added it to my wish list.

I found it very relaxing to put this one together. The colors were so pretty, and it had a lot of elements I like – words and buildings, especially. Everything came together to make a charming image.

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Flowers (Repeat)

I wanted to do another rainbow puzzle to enter in the monthly contest on Reddit and chose this one from my stash. Flowers is a 500-piece Galison puzzle that I first did in 2021; it was actually my second puzzle. The artist is Julie Seabrook Ream.

This reminded me how much I enjoy Galison puzzles. The pieces were a nice size and good quality, and the image is so pretty!

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Edible Flowers

Edible Flowers is a 1000-piece puzzle from Galison, and the artist is Olga Akbarova. It’s so pretty – I love it!

One of my other new friends from church, Suzanne, came over to puzzle with me, and she picked this from my to-do shelf. She started with the border, which was challenging because it is mostly black. After a while of doing that, she worked on the signs for each flower.

I started with the words in the center of the puzzle and then moved onto different flowers depending on which color had the smallest amount of pieces. Once we each had a few things completed, we started putting them into position. This picture shows how far we got that evening.

I asked her if she wanted me to set it aside until she could come back and work on it some more, but she was fine with me finishing it up. So I did that the next day! Here’s the finished puzzle – isn’t it pretty!

I really enjoyed this puzzle. It was a nice level of difficulty and was good quality. The colors and textures were easy to separate into the different flowers. There wasn’t too much solid black, and the border was pretty easy once the rest of the puzzle was completed. Highly recommend!