Tag: puzzling

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Floral Reflections

Floral Reflections is a beautiful 500-piece puzzle from Ravensburger that I have had my eye on for quite a while. My friend Jessyca came over on Memorial Day to hang out and after lunch we decided to do this puzzle together.

We sorted by color but didn’t pull the edges out and then started working at different ends of the puzzle. It worked out well because there are six sections so we could each do three of them. I finished a little bit ahead of her, so I helped with her last section.

This is such a gorgeous image, and it was very enjoyable to put together. The Ravensburger quality is always good, and it was especially nice to be working on it with another person.

After we finished the puzzle, we talked for a while and then decided to watch a movie. We settled on Falling for Figaro, partly because she had seen and liked the main actress in another movie (Patti Cake$). We both enjoyed the movie, and I plan to watch the other movie whenever I start up my Apple TV subscription again (that will be once Foundation and Silo have new seasons available)!

While she was there, I got a delivery of another puzzle I had ordered off Amazon. It came in a brown paper envelope, and the puzzle box was so mangled that it had torn open on one corner. There were even loose pieces in the packaging! I immediately contacted Amazon to initiate a return!

I had such a nice, relaxing day with my friend. I am so glad that I have been able to meet some people at my new church that I really click with!

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A Puzzle Marathon

Last Sunday, I puzzled for almost 12 hours! I didn’t intend for that to happen, but that’s what I did.

I was feeling a bit out of sorts that day. I pushed myself to go to church and then I grabbed something for lunch and was watching a show for a while. Then I decided a puzzle would be a good way to relax, so I did Little Park Ranger, a 500-piece puzzle from Mudpuppy. It was an enjoyable, easy puzzle. The artist is Erica Harrison.

After that, I wanted to keep puzzling but I wasn’t sure about a 1000-piece one, so I did Pip’s Pizza Truck from Ceaco. That is a 500-piece puzzle from their Food Trucks line, and the artist is Stephanie Peterson Jones. I really like those puzzles, and this one was no exception. It is a nice, easy puzzling experience with a really fun image. Words really are my favorite, and this puzzle has lots of them!

It was still not very late in the evening when I finished the second puzzle, and I really didn’t want to stop, so I decided to start a third puzzle. My stash had gotten a bit low, so I ended up choosing a 1000-piece Eeboo puzzle called Berlin Life. The artist is Uta Krogmann. It is a pretty busy image so I spent quite a bit of time puzzling with the poster in hand, but that is just what I needed at that point. It started to get pretty late, but I felt compelled to keep going, so I stayed up until 2 am to finish the puzzle.

I really enjoyed all three of these puzzles. The pizza truck is my favorite image, but I like them all.

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Festival of the Nine Birds

Festival of the Nine Birds is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cross & Glory, which is a new puzzle brand for me. I had seen this puzzle online a while ago and put it on my wishlist, but it was pretty expensive, so I kept holding off on the purchase. At some point, it went on sale enough for me to spring for it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle. The image was so interesting with a lot of different colors and textures, and the piece quality was quite good as well.

Here’s a picture of the finished puzzle:

Normally I post images of my puzzles to Instagram and Facebook. On Facebook, they go on my feed and on two puzzle groups I am a part of. When I posted this one, I got a comment on one of the posts saying that this person won’t do puzzles from the brand because they use AI generated images and lie about it. Another person then commented that they didn’t care if they were AI because they liked the images so much.

I looked into it and there is some discussion on Reddit about this company using AI generated images. Apparently, they used to have an artist’s page that was AI generated but took it down after some people questioned it.

I’m not totally sure how I feel about doing puzzles with AI generated images. I know some people are totally against it on principle and other people just don’t like when companies aren’t upfront about it. On the one hand, the art is generated based off the AI’s consumption of existing art, so it could be considered unfair to those artists. On the other hand, every artist is influenced by what they have seen and experienced in their lives and that is okay.

I am going to have to think about this some more before I come to a conclusion. In the meantime, I already have another puzzle from this brand, and I will be putting it together since I already own it.

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Alchemist’s Library & Alchemist’s Kitchen

I love, love the Alchemist’s series from Eeboo! It is such a fun one. I had previously done The Alchemist’s Home and Alchemist’s Cabinet and loved them both as well. I have heard that a fifth one is in the works. The artist is Vasilisa Romanenko.

Both of these are 1000-piece puzzles and they can be somewhat challenging but are so engrossing and fun to do that it feels like the right amount of difficulty. I have found that puzzling is a great hobby for me because I am normally a very anxious person, but when I am doing a puzzle, my brain is so engaged that I don’t feel anxious at all and don’t even think about the other stuff that is going on in my life.

As far as my puzzling method goes, I used to always sort my puzzles, but I am finding that with these one that are more busy, it is difficult to do that. I have started just turning all of the pieces over and placing them in my sorting trays. I only pull out the edges so I can do them first. Then I just pick through the trays for whatever color or texture I am working on next. This seems to work pretty well and definitely saves some time upfront!

Alchemist’s Library
Alchemist’s Kitchen

Although I love them both, the kitchen one is my favorite. I love the vibrant colors and all the interesting details. I am definitely looking forward to the next installment in the series!

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Board Games & Early Spring

This month our library had a book sale that included some puzzles, so I headed over to see what I could find. There were probably about 40-50 puzzles available, and I found 2 that I liked. They were only $2 each, which was great!

I have done one of them so far – Board Games from Springbok. It was 500 pieces. It was so fun to put together; I really enjoyed doing it! I have fond memories of most of the games pictured in the image.

A couple of days later, I did another puzzle that I had found at the local puzzle box. It was called Early Spring, and it was a 500-piece puzzle from the Americana Collection at Mega Puzzles. The artist’s name was Steve Klein.

This was a nice little puzzle to do. The colors were very bright and the image is pleasant. I had to search a bit for some of the pieces, but it wasn’t super hard.

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The Lion Is Awake

The Lion is Awake is a 1000-piece puzzle from Genuine Fred, and the artist’s name is Souther Salazar. I picked it up at my local puzzle box because there weren’t many puzzles I really liked and this one just seemed so interesting and unique.

This was also the first puzzle I had done from the brand Genuine Fred. It turned out to be a really good puzzling experience. The quality was very good, and the image was perfectly suited for a puzzle, with lots of distinct colors and textures to work on .

I actually did this puzzle on Mother’s Day. Michael was with his dad, so I went to church and had lunch and then started working on this puzzle. He came home later in the afternoon and brought me a card, flowers, and chocolate. So sweet!

The day before I did this puzzle, I went to a puzzle competition that was being held nearby in Hershey, PA. I did not participate as it was my first time going to something like this and I wanted to scope it out first to see what it was like. The competition involved teams of 4 doing a 500-piece puzzle. This was a fundraiser for metastatic breast cancer research and was held at the antique automobile museum, and the puzzle had antique cars and trucks on it.

There were about two dozen teams participating in the event, which was great. The first three teams got done in 33 minutes, 45 minutes, and 54 minutes. I stayed for a little while after that, but left before the entire event was over. I was by myself because the friend that was planning to go with me had a family thing come up and couldn’t go.

Here are a couple of pics from the day:

If I get another opportunity to go to a puzzle competition like this, I think I would like to find a team and join in.

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Hot Dog Truck & It’s a Tie!

Hot Dog Truck is another entry from the Food Trucks line by Ceaco. It is a 500-piece puzzle, and the artist is Stephanie Peterson Jones. I really enjoy doing puzzles from this series. They are cute and have a lot of fun, colorful elements, including different types of words, which I love putting together.

It’s a Tie! is a 500-piece puzzle from Springbok, that I had first done in July 2021. It was only the third puzzle I had done at that point. My friend Renee had helped me with it that time, but this time I did it by myself. It is a great puzzle! I love all the different patterns of the ties; it is so satisfying to bring the all together.

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Sewing Circle and Confection Street

The day after my friend visited, I did two puzzles from the puzzle box.

The first one was Sewing Circle from E&L Corporation, which was a 500-piece puzzle. It appeared to be an older puzzle from the way the box looked. It was of average difficulty, but not too bad. There were definitely some false fits, and at the end of the puzzle, I had a piece that would not fit in the open spot, so I had to closely examine the puzzle to find the piece that was in the wrong place!

The other puzzle I did that day was a Charles Wysocki called Confection Street. It was a 300-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games. I really liked the image with the colorful houses and other interesting elements. It was quite easy to put together.

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Bon Appetit!

Bon Appetit! is an adorable 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Tracy Flickinger. I got it from the local puzzle box and put it together with my friend Renee when she came for a visit at the beginning of May. She said that she really liked that piece count because it is easier for her to focus for the length of time it takes to do it and she likes the quick reward of seeing it completed.

I enjoyed it as well. It was a very easy puzzle with large pieces and a simple, colorful image.

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Flowers

Flowers is a 500-piece round puzzle from Ravensburger’s Circle of Colors line. The artist is Sherry Lee. It was a super-easy and satisfying puzzle to do. I have been a big fan of rainbow puzzles since I started this hobby, and this one was so pretty!