Love Connection

Love Connection by Sage Wirth – Liberty Puzzles – 440 pieces

Don’t be shocked everyone, but I actually remember assembling this one! Since this puzzle was part of the reason I finally got back to the puzzle board it holds a special place in my heart. Once I saw it online I REALLY wanted it, so it was ordered. But once it arrived that meant I had to get my lazy butt out of bed and get myself back to my puzzling. Honestly, I’m so glad I did.

As usual, the quality of this Liberty Puzzle was amazing. Their piece shapes, the fit, the design of the pieces, it’s all excellent in my opinion. The puzzles aren’t cheap, but for an well-made wooden puzzle I find them to be completely reasonable and very much worth it.

Aren’t the whimsies adorable? Part of the fun for me of wooden puzzles and their intricate whimsies is sorting through the pieces and seeing all the beautiful and intricate shapes and how they relate to the puzzle image.

I always LOVE to look at wooden puzzles from the back, it always amazes me how the puzzle designer comes up with the themes and piece shapes and makes them look so beautiful. It’s always a risk for me to flip the completed puzzle over, sometimes it doesn’t go very well – but this time I did it with no problems at all. Yay me!

Love Connection was an entertaining puzzle that finally got me back to one of my great loves – jigsaw puzzles. It made the connection in my brain that I needed; remembering how much joy jigsaw puzzles bring me and that I needed to get back to them. I’m so glad the love connection was finally made for me, again. 💖

Mojo In Progress…

Mojo by Kristian Adams – Artifact – 118 pieces

One of the best things about wooden jigsaw puzzles is that they’re so sturdy they can be assembled again and again without the wear and tear you would see on a cardboard puzzle. It’s part of the reason they’re much more expensive. Yet for me, I rarely re-do my wooden puzzles, and have almost never re-assembled a puzzle and posted about it.

When I was looking for the next puzzle to do, this one kept jumping out at me. It’s so small that it wouldn’t take long at all – and I didn’t want to start anything larger as I was waiting on a delivery of new puzzles that I’d ordered. I knew I’d be wanting to do one of the new puzzles next, so I put this one out on the board and started putting it together. Got this far and then a virus stepped in.☠

My son brought some virus home and thoughtfully gave it to both my husband and myself. I’ve been waylaid for a few days trying to breathe, trying to cough enough to clear out my chest, and wishing more than anything that if nothing else I would be able to sleep and get some rest. It’s day four now, and I’m finally feeling fractionally better.

The new puzzles were delivered and are sitting unopened on the floor of the puzzle room and I haven’t touched this one in a few days. If things continue to improve then soon I should be back at the puzzle board to finish this adorable little puzzle. Then the boxes of new puzzles will be opened, a new one will be chosen and I’ll be back to work on whichever one is next.

Vintage Matchboxes

Vintage Matchboxes – Colorcraft Puzzles – 1000 pieces

*This is the last puzzle from 2024, I promise! Since it sat on my puzzle board for just over two years I am CERTAIN it’s the last one; we had to dust it off just to take a picture. Ick.*

Sorry there aren’t any close up pictures of this one, I actually did take them, but they were awful. It’ll get better, I just have to get my blogging sea legs back.

As per usual there are no memories of this assembly. Colorcraft Puzzles are about mid-range in puzzle quality if memory serves; the fit and image quality are good, the finish is a bit shiny and can cause glare under indoor lights, the boxes are quite small for 1000 pieces and JUST fit all the pieces.

It’s a cool image and my hope is that it was entertaining to put together. But if it wasn’t, I don’t remember so it’s all good. 😉

Frosty Frolics

Frosty Frolics – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

*Yes, another puzzle from the land of 2024. Apologies. But I did assemble them so why not show them off, right? Unfortunately all I did for this draft was download the picture and put it into a draft with the info above – that’s where the story ends.*

So…what’s you’re going to get here is general information about MicroPuzzles and my impression of the image, because there is NO recollection of assembling this one at all. On the plus side, if there were no notes in the draft about anything negative that means this puzzle left no bad impressions and had an overall good experience with the assembly.

Usually when there is a problem with a puzzle’s pieces, fit, image, etc. I always make a quick note in the draft of something specific I want to remember to talk about when ultimately the post is typed up. In the last puzzle that was posted, Squish Summer, what I put in the draft was only three words; but they reminded me that I was unimpressed with the quality overall, and specifically that the pieces were warped.

This image is very cute, and I’m certain that the lines between sky and snow on each level helped make the assembly a bit easier. MicroPuzzles always entertain me, and even though these aging eyes need help I still enjoy working on the tiny puzzles that can be put on a tray and taken to whatever room I want/need to be in.

Thankfully I have plenty of MicroPuzzles yet to be assembled so that when a 1000 piece puzzle seems like way too much of a commitment I can pick an adorable image that I know will be a well-made puzzle that can be done almost anywhere.

Long time readers will remember how I feel about Christmas-y images, but this one wasn’t too sappy of a portrayal and/or with too much white snow that ramps up the difficulty and makes it frustrating to put together. Although I don’t actually remember assembling this one, just looking at the image I can say that it was most likely a pretty fun puzzle.

Just typing up this post has made me want to assemble a MicroPuzzle once I’m finished with the one currently on my board. Luckily I have plenty to choose from! 🧩

Flight of Scarlet In Progress…

Flight of Scarlet by Daniel Merriam – Artifact Puzzles – 364 pieces

Forgive the dark picture, I don’t seem to be quite caught up on taking and downloading pictures as I once was. It’ll get better. 😎📸

This one’s only been in progress for a couple of days, but it’s coming along nicely if I do say so myself. Once the light colors of the image are finished my feeling is that it’s going to be much more difficult; but hopefully it’s the fun kind of difficult that keeps you entertained and engrossed in what you’re doing.

There aren’t many whimsies in this puzzle; there’s a cat, some (7) butterflies, and a heart – that’s all. Usually there are many more with an Artifact puzzle, but perhaps because this is a limited edition and also one of their “challenging” puzzles the whimsies aren’t the focus. It doesn’t matter as much to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love whimsy pieces, but it’s more about how the assembly goes. How much I can sit and get involved with finding and connecting pieces and be completely in the moment; that’s the special sauce of puzzling for me – at least one of them!

I purchased this puzzle several years ago, maybe a year or more before my latest sabbatical – it just never seemed the timing was right to put it together. Now I just said “what the hell, might as well give it a go”.

Even if it takes a while I’m hoping to really enjoy it….I’ll be sure to let you know how that goes.😉