Twilight Flight by Alan Giana – MasterPieces – 300 pieces
Isn’t this a beautiful relaxing image? Wouldn’t you love to sit on the porch with an ice cold glass of lemonade just watching the swans at twilight? Sigh. I picked this one up after a doctor’s appointment, and was pleased as punch to find many different puzzles to choose from, most from MasterPieces. Since I returned to puzzling a few months ago, MasterPieces puzzles have continued to impress me with their excellent quality. I picked up several of their puzzles of 300, 500, and 1000 pieces. Excellent day of shopping!
The tightest fit that I’ve worked with in a very long time. I knew immediately when I had only put three or four pieces together that this puzzle would stand up when it was complete. Amazing fit! This would be a great puzzle for a senior center, I think the oldsters would really enjoy this one.
This adorable little puzzle was just what I needed after a challenging 1000 piece, and even though this too was a little difficult it made me happy to be able to figure it out. Double-sided puzzles can sometimes be lacking on the quality side, but not this one. I had no problems with it at all, and definitely recommend it.
Most puzzles I’ve done by Professor Puzzle have been mini or micro puzzles, this was the first one I can remember that had normal sized pieces, and I was very happy with the quality. There are a variety of shapes, they fit together well, the image reproduction is beautiful, and the second side image is just as good as the first. Overall, I wish there were more of these puzzles available close by me, I very much enjoyed this one!
I love that this looks like an actual page from an old book, the color isn’t flat, there is some yellowing that you can see – I loved it! You all know how much I enjoy putting words together, so I took it apart and put this side together without using the cover image at all. It was more difficult at the beginning, but as each piece went into place it got easier and easier. (Just think how much faster it would have gone together if I’d ever read this book before!)
I’m giving myself credit for 504 pieces, because I did this puzzle twice. I’ve done one or two other puzzles that were only words, and even though they’re always a challenge they make me happy. There are eight different puzzles in this series, all of classic books with a cover image and one page on the second side; Jane Eyre, Little Women, The Great Gatsby, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Romeo & Juliet, Alice in Wonderland, and A Christmas Carol.
Here’s hoping I can find more of them out in the wild, this one was so much fun!
Trick or Treat! by Dean MacAdam – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces
This absolutely fantastic Dean MacAdam artwork is my Halloween puzzle this year. You won’t see a post about it until then, but it has been so fun! The colors, the entire image basically, everything makes me so happy. I’m no longer young enough to trick or treat for real, or even take my kids out as they’re all in their 30’s now, but this holiday always makes me feel younger if not young. 🎃🧡
In addition to how happy the image makes me, the quality of this puzzle is phenomenal. Truly, one of the best Ravensburger puzzles I’ve assembled in quite a while. The fit is fantastic, the reproduction is stunning, and in general it feels like joy in my hands.
Holding a piece, contemplating it’s placement, absentmindedly rubbing my thumb over the top to enjoy the hand-feel, Ravensburger puzzles feel like happiness for me. I remember how many of their puzzles mom and I have assembled together, how many I’ve done on my own; the 40,320 piece behemoth that was mainly me – but my momma came to my house 10 different times specifically to help with every single section. Ravensburger is puzzle love for me.
Assembling this gorgeous puzzle for my favorite holiday has cheered me up like nothing else could. I’m loving what I’m puzzling today – how about you? Puzzling something fun? Challenging? Beautiful?
Life’s A Beach by Lars Stewart – Buffalo (Night & Day series) – 1000 pieces
This puzzle was MUCH more enjoyable than it looks, and it looks like so much fun! It was more of a challenge than I thought, but I enjoyed that; easy puzzles can be pretty boring sometimes. This was the perfect amount of difficulty for me, and as an added bonus my son helped me along the way, and at the very end he put in a lot of pieces. I love that he helps me out lately, it does an old lady’s heart good.
Great quality Buffalo puzzle, as usual. The image reproduction was gorgeous, and I was surprised at how my picture of the completed image looks pretty much exactly like the box top. Most times they don’t, the colors are a little different or duller, but this one looks like a mirror image. The fit was very nice on this puzzle as well, almost good enough to stand up but not quite there.
Is that not a gorgeous view? I loved this section and it was the very first thing I assembled after the border. I just can’t stop looking at it. 😍
Looks like a great place to spend an afternoon, doesn’t it? Drinks, pillows, a roof so the sun isn’t beating down on you – lovely. All it needs is a massage therapist (my brain doesn’t want to let me spell mah-soose at the moment – I swear I’m not an idiot, truly, I’m just old).
It isn’t an easy puzzle, but it isn’t too difficult either – it’s Goldilocks.
Great Old Ads by Lois B. Sutton – White Mountain – 1000 pieces
I had such a good time with this puzzle! I chose it because even though it is a collage, it doesn’t immediately look like it’ll be an easy one – this image has more intricate sections and some softer colors and is a little bit of a challenge – but completely worth it.
This was a very good quality White Mountain, and if I was very careful I could have gotten a picture of it standing up. The most surprising to me was the image reproduction; when there is an image with older products, ads, etc. the reproduction can many times be fuzzy and difficult to work with. The reproduction on this puzzle, however, was excellent! There were one or two sections where it seemed much less crisp than others, but that was the artwork on the ad itself rather that the reproduction. On the ads with lots of small printed text you can read every word! (If your eyes are good enough that is).
Um, do you remember hamburgers in a can?? I certainly don’t! Of course my mom made as much from scratch as she could, for no other reason than it was less expensive to make things yourself. She would take ground beef, add a package of onion soup mix, cut up green peppers and mix it all up. She made them into patties with a hamburger press she got from Tupperware or something and those were our burgers. Even though I was NOT a fan of the peppers in my burger, it seems 100 times more palatable than one out of a can!
(Thankfully mom always used green peppers, so the color was easy to spot in my burger and I picked out as many of those little buggers as I could find! Yes, I was and am THAT picky.😋)
I like this section for some reason I can’t really articulate, other than it makes me think of my childhood. We didn’t drink Borden milk, or really use any of their products that I can remember; but it still makes me smile to see this.
How adorable is this? I love the matching aprons on mom and daughter, the little candle holders on the cake that also remind me of my childhood, and the dish itself on top of the image. I have several of my mother’s Pyrex dishes and I think of her every single time they get used.
Even though this was a more challenging image than many of White Mountain’s collages, it was so entertaining that it went together in less than 24 hours. When I know there’s a fun puzzle on the board I can’t help myself and keep sneaking back to it to put in just a few more pieces…
My Jigsaw Journal 