Tag: summer

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Wine Country Camper

Wine Country Camper is a 750-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Stephanie Peterson Jones. This charming puzzle is part of the Happy Camper series, and I was really happy to get a hold of it. The series is mostly 300-piece puzzles, with just a few larger ones, and I was glad to finally track down a copy of this one at Poshmark (not a place I expected to find puzzles!)

This was such a fun puzzle to do! I love all the colorful elements and different textures. I will definitely be doing this one again and again!

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Spring and Summer Gnomes

Spring Gnomes and Summer Gnomes are 500-piece puzzles from Bits and Pieces. They are part of a set of 4 puzzles I got a while ago. Last year I did the fall and winter puzzles, and I was recently inspired to finish these ones off.

These two were definitely more fun than the other ones. The fall one was tricky, but the winter one was diabolically hard between the random cut pieces and the many shades of white and gray. The summer puzzle was the easiest of the four because it has more colorful elements that are spread out more throughout the design.

While these are very cute puzzles, I don’t think I would want to do them again, so the set is going in the stack for the next puzzle swap I am able to attend.

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Garden Allotment

Garden Allotment is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ravensburger, and the artist is Georgia Breeze. When I first encountered this puzzle, it seemed to only be available in the UK, but a few months later, I found it on the Ravensburger US website and ordered it immediately.

I loved this puzzle from beginning to end. The quality of the puzzle is fantastic, as always with this brand, and the art is so inviting and engaging. It has a lot of flowers without being too difficult as flowers sometimes can be, and it even has a few buildings, which I especially love.

Here are a few close ups. So cute!

I just heard of a new puzzle from this artist called Coastal Harbour (shown below). I am really hoping it becomes available in the US as well.

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Beach Huts

Beach Huts is a 1000-piece puzzle from Magnolia, and the artist is Olivia Gibbs. Gibbs is one of my favorite artists for puzzles, and I have several other puzzles that she has designed. This one was on my wish list for a while because it was a bit pricier and harder to find. I eventually found it on Fairplay Puzzles, which carries a curated selection of jigsaw puzzles celebrating diversity, equity, and inclusion. Beach Huts is sold out at the time of this post, but they do have an interesting selection of puzzles worth checking out.

The quality of this puzzle was exceptional. The fit was great, which always makes it so much easier to solve. Magnolia has a difficulty rating on their boxes, and they rated this one 3 out of 5, which I would agree with. It was a bit of a slow start but eventually got moving at a decent pace. The pieces have a matte finish, so glare is not an issue. There was a lot of puzzle dust, but that doesn’t bother me now that I have my little desktop vacuum to deal with that.

The image was just perfect for me. It didn’t have too much sky or sand, it had lovely buildings to put together, and it even had some signs with words on them, which I always enjoy. The colors were vibrant and the scene made me happy during one of the coldest weeks of winter so far.

I have one more of her puzzles on my to do shelf, so I am looking forward to that. Do you have any favorite puzzle artists?

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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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Happy Camper Multipack

Ceaco has a series of puzzles called Happy Camper, and I picked up this 5-in-1 multipack featuring some of those images. I started doing Happy Camper puzzles after I finished all of the Food Trucks that are currently out. Most of them are only 300 pieces, which makes for a short puzzling experience, but they are really cute, so I like them. I thought this pack would be a good way to get a bunch of them for a lower price.

I was not impressed with this pack of puzzles at all. Some of the images are cut off versions of the original puzzles, and the quality was terrible. The image was coming off the cardboard in a lot of places. A lot of the pieces were damaged and a couple had even lost the knobs entirely. The puzzles are cute, but I would recommend getting the individual ones instead of the multipack. Those are usually a bit better quality.

One thing I did enjoy was that for the last two puzzles I did (the vertical 300-pieces ones), I solved them without looking at the image while I was puzzling. It gave me a different experience to what I normally do, and I enjoyed it. It was fun figuring out where sections went as the puzzle came together. I don’t know if I would like to do this all the time; I think it could be quite frustrating on a larger, more detailed puzzle.

Here are the completed puzzles from the set:

Beach Camper, 750 pieces
Downeast Camper, 500 pieces
Canyon Camper, 500 pieces
Lake Camper, 300 pieces
Waterfall Camper, 300 pieces

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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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Farm Life

Farm Life is a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Olivia Gibbs. I have done several of hers now and I really enjoy them. The art is so charming, and the puzzles are a lot of fun.

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Ice Cream Truck (Repeat)

Ice Cream Truck is a 500-piece puzzle from Ceaco. It is part of their Food Truck series.

This is my second time doing this puzzle, but this is actually my second copy of the puzzle. I had done the puzzle several months ago and found that the quality wasn’t as good as the other food truck puzzles I had done. I thought that I wouldn’t enjoy doing it again, so I donated it to a local puzzle box. Later, I decided I *would* like to own the whole series, so I purchase it again, hoping the quality would be better, and it was.

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Mountain Camper

Mountain Camper is part of the Happy Camper series from Ceaco. It is a 300-piece puzzle from the artist Stephanie Peterson Jones. This is the first one I have done in this series, and it is such a fun puzzle!

I actually have already purchased a 5-pack with more Happy Campers in a variety of piece counts, so I will definitely be doing more of these. They are just so enjoyable to put together with all of the colors and textures going on. I just wish they were more than 300 pieces.