Glorious Morning by Jane Maday – E&L Corp. – 250 pieces
This beautiful image is unfortunately attached to a puzzle of very poor quality – but I enjoyed assembling it anyways. Things don’t always have to be perfect; in fact, if they were things would get boring pretty quickly.
It’s been a while since I’ve done an E&L puzzle, and the quality of this one reminded me why that was. Thin pieces, sloppy fit, and shiny finish – these are puzzles I usually pass right on by. It was a thrift store puzzle given to me by a friend though, which is why I wanted to assemble it.
It was such a small puzzle (14 x 10 inches) that I just put all the pieces on the board. I tried to just put them wherever, but the OCD kicked in and I ended up laying them out neatly in rows – couldn’t help myself! 🤷♀️
I started with the four birds and then started filling in the birdhouses and flowers. It wasn’t an easy puzzle, but was still fun. The missing piece was a little disappointing, but it’s par for the course sometimes. Thrift store puzzles come with a bit of risk, but usually the ones I find are complete. When they’re not, it isn’t too much of a problem; the task is to put together all the pieces you have, and I completed my task.
I’ve done quite a few puzzles with artwork by Jane Maday; they’re usually outdoors with birds and flowers and they’re always entertaining to put together. Despite the quality issues it was still fun – in fact I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would. 🐦❤
Quilt Farm by Eduard – Buffalo (Country Life) – 1000 pieces
Such a beautiful image, and it was so entertaining to assemble that it went together quite quickly. If you’re looking for a great puzzle and the image is to your liking I highly recommend this one.
The quilts were all so colorful and the patterns were so interesting. You know I can’t resist a puzzle with quilts, there’s just something about them. I can’t put my words together to properly convey how happy they make me, but I’ll keep trying. 😊
For some idiotic reason I thought this section with the vegetables would be pretty easy to assemble – boy was I wrong! It turns out that the wooden boxes were much more simple to find and put together. The veggies, well they weren’t always so easy.
Another of my loves, puzzles with dogs. 💕 Of course you were going to get a closer picture of these adorable puppies!
Great puzzle, beautiful image, gorgeous quilts – what’s not to love?
My daughter and I went shopping on Sunday, and while wandering around the store we found these two books – each with nine 96 piece puzzles inside – and even better, they were only $2.99 each!
I looked through the books and realized that even though the pieces are extremely thin (almost like cardstock) I didn’t care. The fit seems to be quite good, so even if they’re thin it shouldn’t be too difficult to assemble each one. Plus, the images on the puzzles are interesting, beautiful, and look like they would be fun to put together.
And who doesn’t smile when they think of Bob Ross? I actually used to sit and watch his show when I was younger, and was amazed at how quickly he could put together a stunningly beautiful image. He made it look so easy! And I was a rambunctious, always-on-the-go kind of kid; there was something special about the man himself, something that made hyper little me (who was usually only interested in the fast paced commercials rather than the actual programs) sit down and just watch a man paint.
So on those days when I’m wanting to puzzle but feeling like a 500 or 1000 piece puzzle is too much, I can take a little 96 piece puzzle out of one of these books and put it together. They are “one coffee” puzzles that are larger than what I usually assemble, and it looks like they’ll be lots of fun.
I’m not ashamed to tell you I was almost giddy when we found these. Basically I got eighteen 96 piece puzzles for less than $6.00; you can’t beat that, even if they aren’t premium quality pieces.
Doesn’t matter, I’m still pleased as punch to have found them, and just looking at them puts a great big smile on my face. 😎
I Read Banned Books by Laura Korzon – Mudpuppy – 500 pieces
You’re damn right I do! In fact, when I do a puzzle like this or read about banned books, it only makes me want to read them even more; I wonder if those book-banning d**che-bags understand that at all. Probably not, that would take critical thinking skills, logic, and comprehension.
This was a fantastic puzzle with very good quality that went together quite quickly – in fact it was almost too easy and I found myself wishing it was 750 or 1000 pieces to make it last a bit longer.
Although I don’t care for the backing Mudpuppy uses, and wish there was more than one piece shape, it was otherwise a very good quality puzzle. The fit was excellent, and the image reproduction was stellar. In fact, the fit was so good that….
I don’t know why it makes me so happy to be able to take pictures like this, but hey, if it makes me happy to take a stupid picture of a puzzle standing up – why not? It’s a little thing, and it really does make me smile. 😁
On the back of the small poster that comes with the puzzle is a little blurb about each of the books with one or two sentences describing what they’re about. A couple of the books I’d never heard of, and a few I’ve heard of but haven’t read. Finding out what they’re about has made me want to read them all. I’ve only read three of the nine books shown, but I’d definitely be interested in reading the rest of them.
This really was a fun, good quality puzzle. If it looks like it would be your pile of pieces, go for it! It’s very highly recommended – two stacks of banned books 📚📚 and two thumbs up! 👍👍
*Heartfelt and special thanks to my dear friend and fellow Puzzle/PADS Posse member Penny for this lovely birthday gift. I absolutely adored it! 💖*
Pop Art Puzzle by Andrew Rae – Laurence King – 1000 pieces
This amazing puzzle was one of the most interesting and entertaining puzzles I’ve done in a VERY long time. I started in the morning around 8 am, and was finished by 10 pm – it was beautiful, educational, interesting, weird, and FUN!
It’s going to be an extremely long post, so buckle up!
Laurence King is a new to me brand, and I was duly impressed by the excellent quality. (The World of Frankenstein was my second LK puzzle to be assembled, but was posted last month for the Halloween holiday) These puzzles are manufactured in the Netherlands, and the puzzles seem to be exactly the same quality of a Jumbo puzzle. The fit is exquisite, the image reproduction is bright and crisp with a variety of piece shapes and the waxy-feeling finish that makes it seem like a premium quality puzzle – because it is!
*Beware though, it seems puzzles by the same brand that are made in China are not of the same quality as those made in the Netherlands. If you can’t be sure where the puzzle was manufactured proceed with caution. I would only purchase ones I was certain were made in the Netherlands.*
According to the surprisingly large (23 x 17 in.) poster in the box, “This puzzle presents illustrator Andrew Rae’s reimagined version of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, taking the glorious and surreal scene in a new, pop-art-inspired direction.” There is a wonderfully detailed and interesting section about both Bosch’s Garden and the pop art movement along with a legend of the artists and artwork represented in this image.
I loved learning about the artists and seeing the portrayals of well-known (and some not as well-known, at least to me) artists and artwork. The image isn’t something I would normally choose for puzzling, but the subject matter and the included poster with so much information was just too good to pass up. As it turns out, it was much more engrossing than expected and the assembly was truly delightful. 💛
It was so difficult to decide what pictures to take, and in the end I only took three; there is just too much to see! At the end of this post, though, I’ll be giving you the list of the 56 representations of the artists and artwork shown. It’s all just too interesting for me to give you just a regular old post about this puzzle.
Educational puzzles (which is what I consider this to be) make me so happy, and learning more about pop art and seeing the artwork reimagined or just paintings of the artists themselves was fascinating. I cannot seem to find the right words to tell you how much I loved this puzzle!
This tiny little section shows the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and a rabbit sculpture fabricated by Jeff Koons. I’m a big fan of Keith Haring’s work, so of course his image was the first picture I wanted to take from the completed puzzle. The 32,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with Haring’s artwork, Double Retrospect, was the first one I considered assembling seven years ago when I made the decision to complete a VERY large piece count puzzle. Unfortunately at the time it was already out of print and unavailable. Of all the puzzles of that size available at the time, his artwork was the one that stood out and really excited me; although after assembling a different enormous puzzle I realize that his image would have been extremely difficult with the limited color palette and big blocks of solid color.
🎶Here I come to save the day!🎶 This is Andy Kaufman doing his famous rendition of the Mighty Mouse theme song on Saturday Night Live. I’m a comedy nerd as well as a proud puzzle geek, so this little section jumped right out at me and made me smile.
In this small section of the image (perhaps about 11% of the puzzle) are so many things to find. Of course Botticelli’s Venus jumps right out at you, but did you catch Monet’s Water Lilies? Or Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais? Bacchus by Caravaggio? Have you heard of A Bigger Splash by David Hockney? I hadn’t. Jackson Pollock is decorating a mushroom, and the man just to the left of him is the artist who created the image for this puzzle, Andrew Rae. There are even more just in this section, there’s so much to see and find – and it was so much fun!
This was so enjoyable, not only for the great quality puzzle but the subject matter as well. I loved looking for each of the artists or the artwork and found it to be educational as well as entertaining. Laurence King has quite a few puzzles like this by different artists, each one with a different subject; Freddie Mercury, Jane Austen, James Bond, The Harlem Renaissance, Dracula, Shakespeare, Frida Kahlo, Wes Anderson, The Story of Impressionism, and many more. My PADS is kicking into overdrive!
This puzzle is very highly recommended, I absolutely adored it.💖
Stay tuned for the list of artists and artwork represented in this image…
Andy Warhol
Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol
Yayoi Kusama
Grayson Perry
Niki de Saint Phalle
Varvara Stepanova
Venus by Botticelli
Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais
David by Michelangelo
Salvador Dalí
Rhinoceros by Albrecht Dürer
Andy Kaufman
Tracey Emin
Balloon Dogs by Jeff Koons
Rabbit sculptures by Jeff Koons
The Wounded Deer by Frida Kahlo
For the Love of God by Damien Hirst
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Pablo Picasso
Water Lilies by Claude Monet
The Son of Man by Rene Magritte
La Tauromaquia by Francisco de Goya
Little Yellow Horses and Little Blue Horse by Franz Marc
Henri Matisse
Viva la Vida, Watermelons by Frida Kahlo
John Cage
Keith Haring
Marie-Thérèse Walter
Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh
The Monarch of the Glen by Edwin Landseer
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst
Fountain by Marcel Duchamp
A Bigger Splash by David Hockney
Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe by Édouard Manet
Portrait of Pope Julius II by Raphael
The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai
Catherine the Great
Horse with Jockey: Horse Galloping on the Right Foot, the Back Left Foot Only Touching the Ground by Edgar Degas
Capricho no. 39: Hasta su abuelo by Francisco de Goya
Gilbert & George
Tiger in a Tropical Storm by Henri Rousseau
Andrew Rae
La recontre, ou “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet” by Gustave Courbet
My Jigsaw Journal 