I’ve been under the weather for the past few days and not feeling well at all. Today feels like a day to just rest and relax and maybe do some window shopping for puzzles online. Perhaps a puzzle or two will find their way into my wishlist. 😊
I hope everyone is having a wonderful, restful Sunday. Perhaps while I’m lying in bed I’ll sort the edge pieces of a puzzle or two for when I’m feeling up to starting a new one. Mom was supposed to visit yesterday and show me the thrift store haul from last week, but maybe she’s feeling lazy too.
I should have plenty of time today to sit in bed and work on my posts for a few of the puzzles that I’ve finished but not yet posted. Back to our regularly scheduled puzzle posts tomorrow!
Bears! Bears! Bears! by Jane Wooster Scott – Ceaco – 500 pieces
I had high hopes for this puzzle, but unfortunately the quality was lacking in my opinion. The previous cork-backed puzzle I assembled had excellent quality and was quite fun to assemble. This puzzle, while fun, was not of the same superior quality. The cork backing was coming off a large number of pieces and there was image lift on the top as well. Disappointing, I enjoyed the previous Ceaco puzzle with cork on the back and was hoping for another interesting Ceaco with exceptional quality. 😐
Ceaco has some great artists working with them and I love the images on some of their puzzles, but I wish the quality were better. Even just a little bit more thickness of the pieces would make a huge difference. Or perhaps a little more consistency would be welcome, how can the quality be so radically different between the two puzzles?
This image from Jane Wooster Scott is adorable, and the assembly was fun. You can see especially in the sky that there were whimsies in this puzzle – and there were a few where several pieces put together formed an animal or object. If you look at the lower left side of the house you can see where four pieces fit together to form a horse! Interesting to me as well was the fact that there were two different breeds of dog, you could easily tell each one; there was the distinctive silhouette of a poodle, and also a cocker spaniel which is easy to recognize.
I’ve enjoyed all the interesting puzzles mom has found at the thrift stores – there have been puzzles backed with cork or velvet, “talking” jigsaw puzzles, interesting 3D puzzles, new puzzle companies we’d never heard of before, puzzles made of foam, educational puzzles, etc. It’s always fun to try something new and see whether or not it’s enjoyable. I try to always give a new puzzle a chance, because you never know what awesome new experience could be around the next corner piece! 😉
Jungle Colors by Susan Patricia – Rose Art – 500 pieces
This puzzle looked so cool that mom bought it from the thrift store knowing the quality wouldn’t be amazing. It is a stunning image and made for a challenging assembly at times, but we enjoyed it which is what matters most.
Alas, as sometimes happens with thrift store puzzles, a piece was missing. Bummer, but it was still a fun assembly even with the sameness of the pieces (they were all ballerinas) 😐 Oh well, a good time was had by all!
I’d love to find more puzzles with images from this artist. The colors she chooses are gorgeous and the fact that everything is outlined in white made for an extremely interesting assembly. They’re striking and would be good glued and framed as art, at least I think so.
Noah’s Ark by Jean-Jacques Loup – Heye – 2000 pieces
I’m old enough to remember the Batman television show from the late 60’s and all the weird things Robin used to say (although in my defense I watched the reruns – the show was cancelled before I was born). When I stopped to think about a title for this post, Holy Whiteness Batman just popped into my bizarre, aging brain.
I don’t normally post about a puzzle in progress unless it’s the world’s largest puzzle. 😉 But this thing threatened to get the better of me yesterday and I wanted to show that I won!
I started working this 2000 piece puzzle and the edge pieces were all completely white! I love this image and have been looking forward to assembling this puzzle, but the edge on this sucker put me to the test.
The edge was started confidently, I knew it would take more time than usual, but didn’t think it was going to be a problem. Started from a corner and kept on going until I had to stop because I was almost running out of space on the board. All the pieces appeared to be placed correctly but obviously were not. A 2000 piece puzzle by Heye is normally about 50 pieces across and I was up around 58 or 60 pieces. Yikes!
Thankfully when I was sorting the puzzle I had pulled pieces for certain sections to work on first. So I decided it was time to stop working on the edge for a bit and perhaps it would be a good idea to assemble the words at the bottom. Then once those were assembled I would be able to begin again with the bottom edge and would have pieces to fit them into.
It turns out that was a good plan! Once the words were complete it was obvious what I had started was either the top edge of the puzzle, or it was the bottom – entirely wrong! Once the bottom row was properly assembled, the rest seemed to go much more quickly. With a couple of small sections removed from the edge I started on, I had most of the top row complete as well and only had the sides left to do.
Even then it seems that some of pieces are almost identical and seem to fit where they do not. Once I thought I had the correct piece I pulled it out of the way and kept on checking the rest of the pieces to be sure there wasn’t another one that might fit. Good thing too, as several times I was wrong and another piece fit even better. I’m hopeful that the edge is assembled correctly, but I won’t know for sure until I have the inside border assembled – luckily I pulled these pieces as well! If I’ve screwed it up I will know today and will be able to fix it quickly (I hope) and without much fuss.
This is not a problem I have had before with Heye puzzles, but I have also not assembled one of their puzzles with large sections of one color. To be fair, I was on pain medication yesterday so that may have been part of the problem, but I can’t blame it all on that. I looked very closely at the first part I had assembled and it looked like the pieces fit correctly! I still love Heye quality, but I know now to be careful when there is a lot of sameness and/or when I have had to take my pain meds!
I’m still looking forward to the assembly of this puzzle, and even though day one was a little stressful I think it’s going to be great fun!
3D Underwater Puzzle – Unknown Manufacturer – 21/35 pieces
This kid’s puzzle is very interesting! The puzzle itself is 21 pieces, but there are 14 extra pieces that you stick into the puzzle after it is assembled. I’ve never seen anything like it. The pieces themselves were very thick and sturdy, which is always a good thing for a child’s puzzle, and you can see from the picture the colors are bright and cheery.
It’s quite an interesting take on a 3D puzzle, I never would have thought of it. You assemble the puzzle first, and where a matching loose piece is to be inserted there is a small slit. Each animal is represented along with seashells, seaweed, and a treasure chest.
I’ll be very interested to see how my “grandson” feels about this puzzle and if he enjoys the concept and the extra pieces. Although I’m sure he will want to keep his younger brother away from them, because brother likes to walk around sucking on puzzle pieces. I think he knows how much it annoys his big brother!
This is another of mom’s interesting thrift store finds – 75 cents! The box it comes in is written entirely in German and I couldn’t find a manufacturer’s name anywhere; I searched on the internet and couldn’t find the puzzle itself either. It’s a mystery!
My Jigsaw Journal 