One of three puzzles I got from a Puzzle Warehouse sale. I was completely convinced it was a photograph until I was literally sorting the pieces. I didn’t even know it was a painting as I was pulling the plastic wrap off the box. Talk about a surprise! Very fun to assemble, classic Ravensburger quality- thick cardboard, clean cut, and great finish. love it!
After that I tackled a Cobble Hill, which I think may be my favorite brand. I really dig their funky piece shapes, makes challenging images far more approachable!
Cobble Hill… just fantastic quality as always! Very excited to pick up more of them!
“Waterfall Dragons” 1000 piece by Cobble Hill
And a few closeups- love those goofy piece shapes!
I gave this Cardinal brand rooster puzzle a shot… but the pieces were TERRIBLE! They don’t lock at all, just slide apart at the slightest movement. I still want to do it someday, but I bundled it up for another day. Wasn’t in the mood for that frustration!
“Dino Glow” 100 piece Ceaco
I’ll finish up this overdue update with this little 100 piece Ceaco. I’m a sucker for dinosaur puzzles, and man, the art on this is tops!
Turns out the glow in the dark stuff on it works surprisingly well! :O
I’ve been slow to puzzle recently, and even slower to update! I’ve always got puzzles going, but have been too busy to sit down and get my blog posts written up. Whoops!
“Balloons Over Cottage Cove” 2000 Piece MB Puzzle
I finished this one up back on the 7th of July; my first ‘real’ 2000 piece, and it was a total blast. Really fun to assemble, and the perfect balance between challenge, and making solid progress at every sitting.
The artist is Nicky Boehme; her art makes such bright and colorful puzzles. I’m always keen to snatch one up when I see it in the store.
My husband was slightly horrified when he came in and discovered me reboxing it. He said for how long it took me to do (and it was on my board for about two months, I really worked it at a leisurely pace!) that he was certain I would glue it! Nope! This one’s going in the trade pile!
‘Mickey and Minnie in Paris’ by Thomas Kinkade, 500 piece Ceaco“Fresh Fruit and Veggie Basket” 500 Piece PuzzleBug
Two more small completes, a Disney image from Thomas Kinkade- I just love the rainy scene. One of my desk puzzles, and I poked at it off and on for a few days. It’s been a while since I’d done a Ceaco; now I realize why people complain about them… I don’t think they’re bad, but I do with they had a thicker, hardier cardboard. Especially since they’re the same price (or nearly so) of the much nicer Buffalo brand!
The fruits and veggies was one I did and glued to hang in my kitchen- it’s glued, though not yet hung… I only did it because I had a number of other small puzzles to glue, and those are now happily in their place over the fish tanks, finally!
And now for my latest complete, what filled my board after the veggies and the 200 piece:
“Earth Angel” 1000 piece Buffalo, art by Josephine Wall
Hard to resist a Josephine Wall- such beautiful colors and stunning artwork!
I chose to start with the wing, and honestly, I feel like it was the most challenging part. Very difficult to orient the pieces to each other when they’re just varying degrees of dark blue and black with small dots! Once that was done it was relatively smooth sailing!
I’m always tempted to glue her puzzles, because I’d love to have the art on the walls… but they’re also really fun, so I’v decided to keep them in my collection instead. So back into the box it went this afternoon, and on to more puzzles for me!
One of the thrift shop finds I was most excited about, so I’m extra happy that it’s 100% complete! Not dated, sadly. Maybe 80’s or early 90’s?
‘Murten Street Scene’ 500 piece Encore by Random House
I love it when these thrift shop puzzles are complete, especially when they’re older ones. Makes me happy they were well cared for before they ended up with me, and now I can do the same.
And here’s a little update on the 2000 piece I’ve been working at when I have the chance. Last week was SGDQ- a week long video games speed running marathon for charity, so I didn’t get much work into it during that time as I was watching! Really trying to push it now, but life is getting in the way. Ah well, puzzles are always there waitin’ on ya!
‘Woodland Near Annapolis, MD’ 304 piece Whitman Guild
I know this is quite old, but sadly it’s not dated. My best guess is maybe 1960’s? I found some online supposedly from the 1950’s with a price marked on the front of 39¢, and this one is priced at 49¢! Nice to find such an old one complete in a really solid box!
Very much enjoying these vintage puzzles. Little slices of history.
“Thatched Eaves Roof” a 500 piece by MB Puzzle Croxley
Finished one of my thrift store finds today, a little 500 piece I’ve been doing on the end of my desk. It’s been the perfect break from computing; just spin around in my chair, flip on the lamp, and a-puzzling I will go!
I wish I’d taken progress shots, as this one was essentially completed in bands going down. The strip of sky, strip of roof, strip of white walls, strip of grass…. Right down to the flowers! So happy this one was also 100% complete and in very good condition! It’ll be a fun one to do again at some point.
“Fruit and Flowers’ 1000 piece MB Puzzle, by A. Basel
All done (A few days ago, in fact)! Very fun puzzle! I didn’t find the quality to be quite as nice on this one as I have the other ‘premium blue board’ MB’s. The pieces fit together nicely but were quite loose, which made moving smaller assembled sections a pain. I even had a few mishaps of moving a sorting tray or box and bumping the assembled pieces, leading to a frustrating bit of time ‘fixing’ the assembled bits.
In fact, I’d kicked around whether I wanted to glue this one or not…I’d finally decided that I would in fact glue it to hang in our living room, but trying to slide it onto the poster board for transfer from my puzzle board was a nightmare. Everything was so loose, the pieces were constantly catching on the edges of the poster board and coming apart, something I hadn’t experienced with the other MB’s I’d done at all. I finally decided that maybe I didn’t want to glue it after all, and reboxed it instead. Probably for the better, it was a fun puzzle to assemble, and I think my mum would enjoy doing it anyway!
All around, still very happy with this one, and very glad to have gotten it and had fun putting it together! It was a nice challenge!
Shortly after finishing ‘Florabundance’, I decided to break out this gorgeous 1000 piece by Master Pieces, ‘Peter Pan’ by Steve Crisp. I spent a smidge of time that Thursday evening sorting out the edge pieces and assembling them, before calling it a day for puzzling!
Look at all these NOT edge pieces…. and these were just some of them. I don’t mind irregular shaped pieces, but I can’t stand those that masquerade as edges! You can make irregular pieces without having those long flat sides, darnit!
Anyway, bright and early Friday morning, I set about sorting and assembling! And turns out, well… Peter Pan is a super easy puzzle.
In no time at all, I’d sorted out all the individual bits, and the Pan himself was together. You see, the image is stunning as a whole, but everything in it is very individual and distinct. Big chunks of the puzzle, and whole characters, came together in a flash!
Before I knew it, I was down to the last bits! I couldn’t believe how quickly it had come together!
It’s all around a lovely image, and it was a ton of fun to put together! This is one of those nice Master Pieces, with decently thick cardboard and lovely printing. Everything stays together quite well. And the puzzle dust was at a minimum as well! These fairy tale puzzles that come in the book shaped boxes are quite nice!
Though I still can’t believe I did an entire thousand piece puzzle in essentially a day. @_@
Puzzled Pickle 