Great White Delight by Jerry LoFaro – Ceaco – 100 pieces
This is a cute puzzle I picked up the last time I was at the thrift store. It was supposed to be a glow in the dark image, but unfortunately the glow was worn out. We even tried leaving it outside in the sun for 10 minutes (you usually get the best glow from putting them in the sunlight), but no luck. Ah well, we tried.
It is also obviously missing a piece, which is unfortunate; this would have been a great one to donate to the school my daughter works for. Some of the kids there need a puzzle with a bit of challenge, and this would have been perfect.
The color scheme makes it a bit more difficult, especially if you don’t have good lighting. This was partially assembled while I was in bed, but the lighting in my bedroom isn’t great. Once the large skeletal jaw was complete I ended up having to take it into the puzzle room to finish it; my poor old eyes couldn’t distinguish the correct pieces to place with all those different shades of blue! 🦈
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.
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!
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. 🙂
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. 😉
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!
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)
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.
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!
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…
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. 🐲
The geometric shaped pieces made for an interesting assembly, but once you figure out how everything fits together it’s great fun!
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! 😘
Daddy’s Down Time by Iralu – Cardinal – 300 pieces
Another fun image from my box of 12 puzzles by the artist Iralu. I love his bright colors and fun sketch-style drawings. They aren’t the best quality puzzles out there, but I just couldn’t resist the artwork. None of the images in this set have titles, so I am naming them as I go; since the lady in the tub puzzle was named Momma’s Me Mood, I have titled this Daddy’s Down Time*
The 300 piece puzzles in this set are better quality than the 150 piece puzzles in the same box. They’re a little thicker and fit together MUCH better, and I have no idea why that is – it makes no sense to me. I would think that they would all be manufactured in the same facility – shouldn’t the quality be the same?
Anyway, this was a fun one and I enjoyed it very much! I don’t really recommend buying puzzles in a multipack box set, the quality is usually questionable. But if you find one with artwork that you can’t live without I say go for it – everything doesn’t have to be perfect for you to enjoy putting the puzzles together. 🙂