Oceanside Retreat by David M – Milton Bradley – 300 pieces
Oceanside Retreat is a very pretty puzzle that was a nice calming assembly. It was just what I needed at just the right time.
300 to 500 pieces seems to be my sweet spot these days, and I’m enjoying these puzzles very much. There’s something very calming about this image, and I would probably enjoy it in a 500 or even 1000 piece. There’s something about the colors and the blends, it’s just relaxing and soothing to look at.
I couldn’t figure out what was going on in the upper window of the house, I had to ask several family members what they thought. Now that they’ve all weighed in, I can absolutely see it and can’t believe I didn’t see it before! It’s a mother holding a baby and giving it a kiss. So sweet!
I’m running out of 300 and 500 piece puzzles to do, either I need a shopping trip or a visit from my friendly neighborhood thrift store ninja!
Islands of Life by APAK – Artifact Puzzles – 165 pieces
I bought this puzzle for mom for Mother’s Day – I hope she forgives me, cause this one was a bear!
We finally got around to assembling this one on the 4th of July. Mom and I did most of the puzzle, but my daughter helped here and there. It was quite difficult, especially that border, holy smokes! It isn’t as dark as it looks in the picture, it’s actually quite greenish – dark green.
I got quite frustrated with it at times, it was the border that kept giving me fits; I kept trying to find the pieces that those tree root looking pieces fit into. There were only 165 pieces, but it was very challenging. I even apologized to Mom for giving it to her! Even though it was hard, I don’t really feel bad about giving it to her. Although it was frustrating and demanding, we had a good time working on the puzzle and working together again. The Puzzle Posse is back!
There were some interesting looking buildings on one of the floating islands in space, and I loved the scene of the strange little people having a picnic on the main island. Those were some of the easiest parts to assemble besides the big tall thing with a window. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a building or a plant of some kind; whatever it was, it was fun to put together – in a “test your puzzle abilities” kind of way.
You can also see in the smaller images above the wonderfully unique shapes of some of the pieces, they gave our gray cells quite a workout! Luckily, mom and I are pretty smart (at least we’re good at puzzles) and we got it done. 😁
Just like with Alice in Wonderland I forgot to take a picture of the whimsy pieces, although with this one there weren’t very many of them. Even so, I didn’t separate them out for a pre-assembly picture. Unfortunately the puzzle belongs to mom, so it isn’t here for me to go through and get a picture of the cool pieces. Sorry about that guys, I promise to do better.
