Can you believe it? The third of the three puzzles in one box from a company that makes crappy puzzles – yep, I went there.
Like I explained a few days ago, these things are stinking up my puzzle room with the stench of low quality puzzles that feature stolen artwork and I want them gone as soon as possible.
I can say with some certainty that this will be finished today. Then perhaps we’ll hold a small funeral ceremony in the backyard with a cremation immediately following the service so as not to inflict these puzzles on anyone else.
*They’ll most likely end up in the recycle bin, but it has put a HUGE smile on my face thinking about lighting these pieces of trash on fire while I dance around the flames making rude gestures. 😈
Zojoji Temple in Shiba, 1925 by Hasui Kawase – Wentworth – 40 pieces
I enjoyed this puzzle very much, even though it went together quite quickly. My lack of puzzling in December and January mean that I don’t have any puzzles left in the queue and I was looking for some small, wintery-looking puzzles to get my completed puzzle count back up to where it should be.
As usual, it was great Wentworth quality. And for me there’s something so intriguing and lovely about Asian artwork, it’s just beautiful to look at as well as to assemble.
Aren’t these fantastic whimsies? I love the Geisha!
This Christmas gift was the second of the puzzles that I picked out myself over Facetime call, I did a pretty good job don’t you think? It was lots of fun to put together, and even though it was on my board much longer than normally takes for a 1000 piece puzzle I was sad when it was over.
Cavallini & Co. puzzles are good quality, but quite expensive in my opinion. There are a variety of shapes, but most of the pieces are ballerinas. The fit is good, if a bit loose, the image reproduction is very good, but the finish is a bit shiny and darker areas can be difficult to work under artificial lights. Overall I’d give the brand a “good” rating. The puzzle comes in a tube, which isn’t ideal for those who keep their puzzles, it’s much harder to shelve than rectangular or square boxes; and the pieces come in a cloth bag which makes disassembly and repackaging annoyingly more time-consuming than it already is. As a bit of a pedant I also find it annoying that their packaging says “vintage puzzle”- that is just untrue. They are all new puzzles and the only thing vintage about them is perhaps the images. Just my two cents, of course.
I always like a section of a collage whose pieces are so very easy to pick out when I’m sorting. This was the easiest section to find all the pieces for – plus, it’s in the states. Gotta love “the Wonder City” – though I don’t ever recall hearing that nickname for New York before.
This was another section with easy to find pieces, and the assembly was lots of fun too.
The giraffe in this section was much more difficult to assemble than I bargained for, and I was shocked at how much it hurt my brain to try and get this one together. Perhaps it was the pain meds, but I rather think it was just that I wasn’t in the right head space when I was putting this part together. The rest of the puzzle didn’t seem that difficult, it was just this tall guy here giving me fits. 🦒
Overall it was a lovely puzzle, with beautiful old travel posters that made for an entertaining and absorbing assembly. Can’t ask for much more than that!
Puzzler’s Desk by Steve Read – Hua Cao Shu Mu – 300 pieces
Although I chose which puzzle to do next, I find myself extremely annoyed with this puzzle. Not because of it’s quality (though that does needs an extra big straw for how much it sucks), but perhaps due to the fact that I’m old and cranky and don’t feel well.
This was a thrift store purchase of three puzzles in a box; no brand name I could be confident in, no titles of the artwork, no artist credit, no nothing. The quality is crap; thin pieces of chipboard that you can almost peel apart, extremely shiny finish, sharp backing, blurry reproduction, etc. It seems to be one of those companies that popped up during the pandemic to make a quick buck on the run on jigsaw puzzles, which again, annoys me.
In a world where the most banal, trivial information is readily available everywhere and where a company knows what ads to target me with based on which tissue I sneezed into yesterday – how is it that no one seems to be able to have the right information to stop companies and people from stealing artwork and bootlegging up some really crappy puzzles and selling them all over the world? (See? Old and cranky)
I’m finishing these puzzles to get them out of my house, which is the only reason I picked this one to assemble next. They’re taking up precious shelf space and they suck so loud I can hear them over my music when I’m working on a good quality puzzle. I want them gone.
My name is Stacey, I am old and cranky and I don’t feel well today – and this puzzle is annoying.
My Jigsaw Journal 