Tag: rainbow

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The Gardener’s Palette

The Gardener’s Palette is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ravensburger. The artist is Anne Searle.

This one had been on my wish list for quite a while. I think the image is so pretty, but I also thought it would be doable since each type of flower has its own block within the puzzle. I stopped at Barnes & Noble before my last therapy appointment and picked it up then. Last week, I had a tooth pulled and my friend Renee brought me a dinner of soft foods and hung out to watch some Grey’s Anatomy. I had already seen the episodes and was getting restless, so I decided to start this puzzle. After sorting the pieces, I was glad I had my little vacuum because of course there is so much puzzle dust with Ravensburger.

I worked on the puzzle little by little over the next several days and it was such a joy to do. I love the quality of Ravensburger puzzles. It was so much nicer than some of the puzzles I have done recently (either because of poor quality or having been done so many times that they were soft and breaking apart). The image is just beautiful and it even has words to put together to identify each flower. (I love puzzling words!)

So pretty!

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Completing the Puzzle – October 2024

This was my second box of four puzzles from my Completing the Puzzle subscription. I enjoyed three out of the four, but that fourth one had me questioning whether I want to continue with the subscription! I have decided to give it another month and see how it goes.

The first puzzle I did was Sugar Spectrum from the brand Fred. It was 500 pieces, and the artist was Emily Blincoe. It is a classic rainbow style puzzle and was a lot of fun, as well as being pretty easy. I have done several puzzles of this style, and this one was a good representation of it.

My second puzzle was Le Cinque Terre, which was also from Fred and 500 pieces. This is the one that made me question everything. I really liked the image from Maurizio Santucci and Elisa Certi. I enjoy buildings and this one had adorable ones. At first glance, the sky and sea didn’t seem too bad, but they were actually horrible. I had to take the sky apart several times before finally getting it together – there were so many false fits that I almost gave up. When I finally finished the sky, I found there was one piece missing. Ugh!

I did give up on the sea. The parts with a design on them weren’t bad, but the plain blue pieces seemed to go together correctly until I realized I had two open spots but the two pieces I had left were different shapes than the openings I had. I did find one piece out of place and fixed that, but I couldn’t find the culprits that caused the mismatch at the end. I finally gave up and just left the pieces out.

I had another Fred puzzle in my box but decided to switch it up and do the MasterPieces 300-piece puzzle from Dean Russo called Mad Kitty. This one had large EZ Grip pieces that would be great for someone with arthritis or some other hand issue. It was random cut as well, which was fun. I love cats, so this image was great. I also enjoyed how colorful and chaotic the pattern was. Super fun!

The last puzzle I completed from this month’s box was Beach Trash, also from Fred. It was 500 pieces and the artist was Emily Blincoe, just like the Sugar Spectrum puzzle I did earlier. It was one I had seen online before but never quite liked enough to buy it outright, so I was glad to get the chance to do it this way. It was a good puzzle; the difficulty was medium low so I never got stuck or frustrated.

I find it interesting how I can have such a negative feeling towards the subscription when three of the four puzzles had absolutely no problems at all. That one bad experience almost overwhelms the positive feelings from the other three. But, like I said above, I am not going to cancel just yet. I am going to give it another month and see how it goes.

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Colorful Fruits Rows

Colorful Fruits Rows is one of the Yummy Puzzles from Cra-Z-Art. It is 500 pieces. I think the title is a bid odd, but that’s all I could find.

I got this one for free at my local puzzle box. I did the green section first because it had the fewest pieces, but after that I ended up sorting by shape and doing it one row at a time. It wasn’t bad since it’s only a 500-piece puzzle, and it was satisfying to see it completed.

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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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Welcoming All

Welcoming All is a Color Sauce puzzle from MasterPieces, and it is 500 pieces. I ordered this specifically so I could do something Pride related during the month of June.

This was a very fun puzzle to do. I love things that are in rainbow order because it is easy to separate the pieces by color and also very satisfying to see each section come together. I love the image with the wood grain look of the different color panels along with the solid black heart at the center.

I was a bit nervous to post this on Facebook because I have a lot of conservative friends. I did get one like that I was surprised by, and I only got one negative comment and he only said “Nah?”, so not too bad overall.

I also reactivated my Reddit account and started posting in the r/jigsawpuzzles subreddit. This was the first puzzle I posted there. I may go back and post older puzzles interspersed with the current ones, although that does offend my sense of order, so I’m not sure how I will do it.

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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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#Shelfies

This 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco has oversized pieces, making it super easy to work with. I loved the image with the separate areas for each color. The artist is Martha Roberts.

Regarding the quality, however, a lot of the pieces had remnants of the backing that hadn’t been cut through all the way and had to be removed so they wouldn’t stick up through the puzzle. Other than that, the quality was good. A nice-sized poster was included, and there were no pieces missing.

I don’t normally do a lot of this piece count, usually preferring 500 or 1000 pieces, but this was a nice treat!

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Plant Life

Plant Life by Galison is a 1000-piece panoramic puzzle that I got from the local puzzle box. The artist is Julie Seabrook Ream. I chose it because it was a very pretty image, although I wasn’t sure how hard it would be. 

Well, it turned out to be very hard!! It was pretty slow going right from the beginning. The first day I did the border and parts of the yellow, orange, red, and pink sections. I wish I had kept track of my time, but I do know that I spent a lot of hours even though it was only four days of puzzling.

The second day I moved onto the light green and some of the purple. There were a lot of dark pieces that were hard to see, which was made worse by the glare on the pieces.

The third day I filled in more of the sections I had already worked on and started the green section. The green section was definitely the hardest – it was the largest section and had the most similar pieces.

On the fourth day, I think I worked for about ten hours and I finished the puzzle. At one point, with about 200 pieces left, I seriously considered quitting, but I persevered and got it done.

I am glad I kept going and finished the puzzle. It is such a beautiful image. I considered framing it, but frames this size on Amazon run about $80, and even on Ebay or Etsy, the best price I could find was $70. So I ended up taking it apart and it is going to go back to the puzzle box for someone else to tackle.

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Favorite Things

This weekend, I put together another puzzle from Elena Essex. It’s a 1000-piece called Favorite Things, and the artist is Mara Penny.

I received this puzzle last Christmas from my ex-husband. It’s one that I knew I wanted the moment I saw it; it’s my favorite type of puzzle – an assortment of images arranged by color.

Yesterday, I did the border and the pink, red, orange, yellow, and green sections. Then today I did the purple and blue. It was super fun to put together and very good quality.

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Circle of Colors: Ocean

After getting my last puzzle framed and off the dining room table, I decided to do an easier puzzle. I had a few 500-piece puzzles on my to-do shelf, so I picked one of those.

The puzzle I chose was Ocean from the Ravensburger Circle of Colors line. As you might guess from the title, it is a round puzzle. The artist is Asia Orlando.

This was a very fun, relaxing puzzle. It features an array of ocean creatures arranged in rainbow order. I sorted the pieces by color, then started with the edge. After that, I just went color by color around the puzzle. It went quickly; I never got stuck or frustrated.

Here’s a picture of the finished puzzle:

I highly recommend this puzzle!