Suds and Pups

Suds and Pups
Suds and Pups by Jenny Newland – Karmin – 550 pieces

Unlike many puzzlers who prefer cats, I absolutely prefer a puzzle with dogs – in fact I’m working on another one right now.  This is such a cute image by Jenny Newland, but unfortunately it didn’t have the same quality as the previous puzzle with her artwork by the same brand. Still, I had a good time putting all those sweet puppy faces together. 🐶

This is one of my Christmas gift puzzles, and I LOVE the image. This puzzle had quite a few pieces not cut all the way through, and some that were bent. It must have been one that was cut when the die was duller – although I’m not sure how that results in bent pieces. Karmin isn’t usually a brand that I buy, but I was surprised at the thickness of the pieces and the way they fit together; they were much better than previous Karmin puzzles I’ve worked.

Suds and Pups 1

What an adorable face! I really enjoyed this artwork, it had exactly the right amount of difficulty for a 550 piece puzzle. It wasn’t too easy, in fact it was harder than I thought; but that is perfect for a smaller puzzle, I don’t want it to be over too quickly.

I had a great time assembling this puzzle, even with it’s issues. It was full of sweet puppy faces!

Happy International Women’s Day!

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Whether she gave you love, kindness, support, encouragement, friendship, or life itself – there’s a woman, or most likely many women in your life to whom you owe a debt of gratitude. Celebrate today by letting those women know how much you appreciate them for who they are and for all they’ve done to make you the person you are today. 💗

Today I want to be sure to appreciate my daughter who has become my bestie in this past year. We’ve been through a lot and held tight to each other and have grown incredibly close. She’s made me a better mother, a better friend, and a better person. I love you to the moon Baby Princess!

Also, to all my women puzzle friends both online and in “real life” – you have supported, encouraged, and enabled me, and brought smiles to my face when I needed it most – you are awesome ladies!

Happy Women’s Day, and as always, happy puzzling! 🧩

The 1970’s

The 1970's
The 1970’s – Re-marks – 1500 pieces

I can’t even express how much I loved putting this one together, it was a trip down memory lane and I loved every memory and every piece that clicked together. To be honest the fit wasn’t great, but for this puzzle it was all about the image. Almost every small section brought back memories and I had the best time!

Get ready for a long post rambling on and on about the days of yesteryear and my memories of these things in the 1970’s. This puzzle is a fantastic image, and for those of us that grew up in the 70’s and 80’s this collage will bring a smile to your face. 🙂

The 1970's 1

Now if you’re a young’n, this will blow your mind; the way we used to get music much of the time was compilation albums like this one. If you couldn’t afford to buy all the albums this was a much cheaper way to get all the music you loved. No downloading songs or smartphones anywhere in sight. Times were tough! There was another way too, if you had lots of time to sit and listen to the radio with your boombox you could hit record when a favorite song came on and make yourself a mix tape! I used to do that especially around New Year’s when the stations would play the top 100 or so songs of the year. The trick was to wait until the DJ stopped talking. 😉

The 1970's 2

My parents loved Laugh-In, and watched it every week. I definitely didn’t understand all the jokes, but for a child it was perfect; lots of colors and camera movements, and skits that were very quick for our short attention spans. I loved it too, but at the time I didn’t know all the reasons why. Ruth Buzzi’s character Gladys was a favorite, as was Arte Johnson’s Tyrone. Great show!

The 1970's 3

I’m sure many readers will recognize some or all of these songs, but I am old enough to remember when they were playing on the radio – not as classics, but as new music! I used to have 45’s of My Sharona, Y.M.C.A, and I Will Survive. If only I still had them they might be worth a lot of cash! (45’s were small vinyl records with only one song [per side] that you played on a turntable)

The 1970's 4

I don’t have much recollection of Richard Scarry’s books when I was a child, but my children LOVED them when they were young. I read them to my kids a lot, and my youngest even had a rug in his room with a map of Busytown on it, he adored playing with it and lining up his cars along the streets.

The 1970's 5

This is the one of the smallest sections of the puzzle, but it holds the most memories for me. My sisters and I had this album (and 8 track), watched the television special, and knew every word and every song by heart. If you’re not familiar, it was created by Marlo Thomas and released in 1972; it promoted gender neutrality, basically saying that boys and girls could be anything they wanted regardless of their gender and achieve amazing things. It had an all star cast; Rosey Grier (former pro football player), Michael Jackson, Roberta Flack, Harry Belafonte, Mel Brooks, Dustin Hoffman, Kris Kristofferson, Diana Ross, Cicely Tyson, Alan Alda, Dionne Warwick, and many more. It was a fantastic album for kids and I can still remember all the songs and scenes more than 45 years later. 🤍

I could write a little blurb about almost every section in this puzzle, but I had to stop somewhere. The Carol Burnett Show was one of my favorites – I loved all things comedy as a child (and still do). Sesame Street was another favorite when I was very young – in fact I’m older than Sesame Street. Oh my! Today’s post was brought to you by The Letter “O”. O is for OLD LADY. 👵

I loved this puzzle more for the memories than anything else, but that doesn’t mean the assembly was bad. In fact it was quite the opposite. Even with the loose fit it was great fun with a great image, and brought back great memories!

Songbirds In Progress

Songbirds IP
Stained Glass Songbirds by Ciro Marchetti – Buffalo – 500 pieces

This puzzle got started last night when I couldn’t sleep, but I made pretty good progress before I finally went back to bed. I’ve had this for quite a while now, but was never really in the right mood for it, but last night was the night!

It’s a thrift store purchase, and I was surprised to find that this puzzle was unopened – it was one that mom bought. An unopened puzzle at the thrift store is a treasure indeed, and mom was good at finding buried treasure within the shelves of the thrift store. 🙂

I was also surprised to see that this artwork was by Ciro Marchetti, I usually associate his name with fantasy images. It is beautiful though, like all of his artwork, and I’m hoping to get it finished sometime today if all goes well.

Happy puzzling today!

Computer Catastrophe

Catastrophe
Computer Catastrophe by Randal Spangler – Artifact Puzzles – 182 pieces

My sweet baby girl gave me this puzzle for Valentine’s Day; she is so generous and kind, and I’m so proud of who she is – I raised a great lady! 💗 Besides all that, she has great taste in puzzle images, how cute is this?!

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a new Artifact wooden puzzle, or any new wooden puzzle for that matter. It’s so much fun to look through the all the pieces and find the whimsies, and to see all the interesting shapes. The whimsy pieces in this puzzle are all parts of the image…

Catastrophe whims

They are all easy to find except for the interesting shapes at the top of the picture; they are shapes that are shown on the spines of two of the books, it took me a few minutes to figure out what they were. The 3 piece dragon whimsy is so cute, he’s obviously my favorite. 🐲

Catastrophe IP

The geometric shaped pieces made for an interesting assembly, but once you figure out how everything fits together it’s great fun!

Catastrophe 1

I love to see the wooden puzzles from the back, it’s always interesting to look at the shapes and how everything fits together. The cut of this puzzle is something I’ve never seen before; it’s a little simple, but was very entertaining to assemble and placing every piece was a joy.

The artwork by Randal Spangler is so whimsical and adorable, I absolutely love it! I’ve been looking around for more puzzles with his work; it looks as though Artifact and Vermont Christmas Company are the only brands who have Randal Spangler images. I’m thinking I may have to get me some more puzzles with his artwork!

Thank you again to The Baby Princess for this beautiful puzzle! 😘