Thoughts of an introverted bookworm and avid jigsaw puzzler
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.
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!
Mother Earth is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Maya Hanish. This is my third puzzle in a row from them, and they have all been great. I fell in love with this image the first time I saw it.
This puzzle was a bit more difficult than the last two I had done. There were a few decent size areas that I could put together, but a lot of it was done one piece at a time.
Music in Montreal is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Caroline Bonne Muller. It is a great image that was a lot of fun to put together. There were a lot of distinct colors and textures, and the quality was just as good as eeBoo normally is.
Alchemist’s Cabinet is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Vasilisa Romanenko. It features the curio cabinet from one of the rooms in The Alchemist’s House puzzle, which I have done previously. The image is a fascinating collections of books and various objects the person must have collected over the years.
I really enjoyed this puzzle. I like the quality of eeBoo puzzles. The pieces are very smooth and a nice size. It is hard to move sections because the fit isn’t very tight, but I found I could use the poster to slide under a section and move it where I wanted it to be.
There are two more puzzles in this series – Alchemist’s Library and Alchemist’s Kitchen. I have already purchased both of them and plan to do them later this year. Love this series!
Cat Balloon Race is a 750-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, and the artist is Jeff Haynie. I am participating in a Spring Hopscotch challenge in the Casual Puzzler’s Facebook group and needed a puzzle for the Air Travel space. As I was scrolling Amazon under that topic, this one really caught my eye.
This was a very enjoyable puzzling experience. The image was too busy to easily sort pieces, so I just pulled out the edges and flipped the rest of the pieces over and put them in sorting trays. I missed a few pieces on the initial edge sort, but they turned up eventually and didn’t cause any problems.
Towards the end I did do a bit more sorting as there were a number of pastel pieces which were a bit harder to place. Overall, this puzzle provided a nice level of difficulty. The only real drawback was a ton of puzzle dust – more than I think I have seen before!
So many fun details in this puzzle! And I loved the image even though I would never go up in a hot air balloon myself. I’m too afraid of heights!
Colorful Peacock is a 1000-piece puzzle from B Creative, which is another new brand to me. It was a little pricey, but I just fell in love with the image and was sure I would enjoy it a lot.
Sure enough, it was pure joy the entire time. I did it in one sitting and absolutely loved the experience. Of course, I sorted by color and started with the smallest pile – the purple. I found that even with the colors that had more pieces, it was easy to separate them into different shades and different textures. Even the in-between pieces had something on them; there were virtually no solid yellow pieces at the end.
Look at this beauty!
I am definitely going to keep an eye on this brand for other images that I like because the experience was so good and the quality was great.
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!
Difficult Donuts is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cozytime Puzzles. I got it second-hand from the puzzle box in my area.
It lived up to its name of difficult! It wasn’t impossible, it just took more time than other puzzles I have done. It took me several evenings to complete, but it was very satisfying to see it all come together. Also, the quality was good on both pieces and fit.
Are you a donut fan? I enjoy them but can’t have them very often since I became diabetic.
Pete’s Gambling Hall is a 1000-piece Buffalo Games puzzle featuring the artist Charles Wysocki. His images are plentiful in the puzzling world, but this is only the second puzzle of his that I have done.
I got this second-hand and was pleasantly surprised to find that all the pieces were there. It’s always a gamble (pun intended!) when you get a puzzle that has already been done before.
There were a number of false fits, and I had to move pieces around several times. Other than that, the quality was good. I appreciated that there wasn’t too much of the sky and mountains because those were the hardest parts to solve.
All in all, a very fun puzzle! I enjoy putting together buildings, so this had a nice variety for me.
