Thoughts of an introverted bookworm and avid jigsaw puzzler
Seasons is a 500-piece puzzle from Pippi Post, and the artist is Alexa Zurcher, who is the owner/founder of the brand. I have done several of their puzzles and really enjoy them. The illustrations are so appealing and the quality is very good.
This was a fun, easy puzzle that includes a lot of things I like: buildings, seasons, and grid images. I will definitely do more from this brand.
I have been trying to reign in the puzzle buying after going a bit crazy this summer. I’m not sure how successful I have been, but here are the eight puzzles I have purchased in the last month:
Only the Spaghetti Tree is 500 pieces; the rest are 1000. So I’m not doing very well at trying to obtain smaller piece counts, but I am still happy with all of my purchases.
Monster Mansion is a 500-piece puzzle from Mudpuppy, and the artist is Stephanie Birdsong. This is the same artist that did the Welcome to Spookytown puzzle I did last October. I love her quirky style and her fun take on a Halloween-style house crosssection.
It was fun to do an easy Halloween puzzle after the last two that were both 1000 pieces and on the difficult end of the range. I think this will be my last one for this year.
Happy Halloween is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ravensburger, and the artist is Demelsa Haughton. I find her artwork so charming. I was thinking this was the first puzzle I have done from her, but then I realized my only 2000-piece puzzle Novel Avenue was one of hers.
This puzzle was more challenging than I thought it would be, probably because of how detailed it is. With that said, I love all the fun and spooky details in this image. The pumpkin houses are charming, and I especially love the colors of the sky.
Halloween Crochet is a 1000-piece puzzle from White Mountain, and the artist is Jessica White. This was challenging but fun. It had a lot of the same colors all over the puzzle, but I never got truly stuck.
I have done one other crochet image from Jessica White called Country Life Crochet. It was produced by Cobble Hill, however, and their random shapes combined with the intricacy of the stitches made it a lot harder than this one was. I would consider doing this one again but am not planning on keeping the other one.
Festive Food Truck is a 500-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Stephanie Peterson Jones. This was a redo for me. I needed a puzzle with a sweet treat for a puzzle challenge in a Facebook group, and this one fit the bill.
I enjoy Ceaco puzzles. They are middle of the road when it comes to quality, but they have interesting piece shapes and are usually pretty easy to complete. This artist is a favorite of mine as well.
Dream Library is a 1000-piece puzzle from Villager Puzzles, and the artist is Tara Younggren. I was drawn to this image because of how cozy it looks and how it brings together my two favorite things, reading and puzzling!
The bottom portion and the left side of the puzzle were really satisfying to put together, but things got way more difficult when I got to the window scene with all of the foliage. This puzzle definitely taught me that I don’t like foliage. It was incredibly hard and I was tempted to give up several times. I did persevere, however, and eventually finished.
Even with the difficulty level, it is a beautiful puzzle and the quality was excellent. I plan to buy more from this brand in the future.
The Farm is a 1000-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, and the artist is Charles Wysocki. I love this image so much. My favorite part about his artwork are the buildings, so I love that this building is so prominent in the image. All of the signs and decorations on the front add so much interest and make it easier to puzzle than a plain building would be.
At the end of September, my church held an event called Brunch & Craft. It was open to anyone who wanted to come, and we were encouraged to bring a craft to do and, if possible, a dish to share. This is the second one of these we have had, and it was a lot of fun the first time.
My friend Suzanne and I decided to do puzzles during the crafting time. We did two puzzles, and our friend Brianne joined us for the first one before settling down to color. My friend Renee, who lives about 45 minutes away, came with me as well and she was doing some crochet.
I really enjoyed the event. I brought a sausage hashbrown casserole to share and had some other delicious treats that other people had brought as well. I brought four puzzles and let Suzanne and Brianne choose which ones we would do. For the first one, they immediately chose Cats in Quarantine, which is a 500-piece puzzle from Exploding Kittens. I have done it a couple of times already and love it.
The picture above shows it in progress, and here is the finished puzzle:
For the second puzzle, Suzanne chose Waterfall Camper, a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco. The artist is Stephanie Peterson Jones. I have a bunch of her puzzles and really like her artwork.
This was such a fun event. Usually I get drained being around a lot of people, but I was so focused on our little group and the activity of puzzling that I actually still had a lot of energy after it was done. Renee and I went out for a late lunch/early dinner and then ice cream and hung out for a bit at my place before she went home.
I hope we do it again!
World Landmarks Map is a 300-piece puzzle from Ravensburger. I had bought it a couple of years ago for a puzzle challenge and recently did it again for another puzzle challenge!
The prompt for this challenge was something that reminds you of high school. I wasn’t sure if I had any puzzles with school related items but when I saw this one on my shelf, I had to do it. During my senior year of high school, I took a geography class as one of my electives. Even though the class was mostly full of freshmen and sophomores, I loved it. It was so satisfying to fill in the maps with all the different countries and other geographical items.
Part of the challenge includes an item to add to the photograph of the finished puzzle, and I chose to use my senior high school yearbook. I flipped through and couldn’t believe that my picture had been cut out of it; I have absolutely no memory of doing that and can’t imagine the reason why!
This was a nice, easy puzzle and would be good for kids or families. The quality of the brand is excellent, although they are known for having a lot of blue puzzle dust in their bags.
In So Many Words 