I know, the picture is cockeyed. Normally I would fiddle with it until it looks better, but I literally just finished putting it together and I’m a little miffed that there’s a missing piece. These things happen, and it isn’t the end of the world, but it’s annoying.
The image, once assembled, doesn’t look that difficult at all – it’s deceiving. It was a bit of a challenge for a 100 piece puzzle, and all the greenery, ribbons, and fence posts looked the same to me. Still, I am a puzzle goddess (according to my daughter who loves me) and in the end this little puzzle was all put back together, almost.
A missing piece!
It’s a little funny because last night Penny was putting together the puzzle for day 6, and she had an extra piece! I know the piece isn’t anywhere here because I opened the bag, dumped the pieces on a tray, and never left the room while I was assembling it. It isn’t stuck to my arms, or on the floor, it’s almost certainly in someone else’s bag of pieces.
Ah well. Life goes on.
The image isn’t one I would normally choose for a puzzle, it’s honestly the type of Christmas image that I don’t really care for. But in 100 pieces I can assemble just about any image. For me, this is the one I have to get through in order to assemble the images that look more fun – it’s the brussel sprouts of this advent calendar. 🤢
My puzzle pal Penny bought this collection for herself this past week, and when she sent me a text showing a picture of the box I just fell in love. My faithful tens of readers know that I’m not a huge fan of Christmas puzzles, but these are all only 100 pieces and the images (most of them) made me smile. I can’t tell you the exact reasons why, but I just had to have these. So the next day I enlisted my ever patient father to drive me to the store to find this box – and find it we did!
The image of each day’s puzzle is shown on the box both opposite the numbers and also through the numbers themselves – I like that! You can see that the cute Santa image for day one is shown completely on the left, and his little face is peeking through the number 1 on the right.
Day 1 – Cute Santa with Gifts
Cute Santa was assembling in bed this morning on a cookie sheet. These are Ceaco puzzles, and the quality is good/fair. The fit is somewhat loose but not too much so, and the pieces are a good thickness. Santa went together pretty quickly, and he was lots of fun to assemble. I’m giving him four out of five on the Mrs. Claus advent calendar scale – mostly for cuteness!
🤶🤶🤶🤶
There’s just something about these puzzles, I’m looking forward to each and every one. It’s weird for me to say that, as I am just not a fan of the usual Christmas images, but this collection makes me smile. I don’t know if I want to post only 100 piece puzzles here every day until Christmas (and I have yet to make a decision), but no matter what you’ll be seeing all of them eventually.
Best Friends by Dean Russo – Starz Puzzles – 158 pieces
Best Friends is a gorgeous puzzle with amazing quality, and I enjoyed every difficult minute of the assembly! I wanted to experience the quality itself and how the pieces went together so I put the image away and assembled this one blind. It was a fantastic puzzle, an entertaining assembly, and is most highly recommended.
Starz Puzzles is a newer puzzle company that I’ve written about before on My Jigsaw Journal, asking for my reader’s input on the brand in general and the uniquely shaped pieces. Fortunately I was asked to assemble and review one of their puzzles so I can now personally speak about the brand and it’s quality. I’ve worked with quite a few brands of wooden puzzles, and this brand was extremely interesting to assemble with wonderful all-around quality. Their star shaped pieces make for an engaging assembly, and their process of printing directly onto the wood makes for crisp and vibrant colors. The puzzles are also spill-proof according to the packaging, but I love puzzles too much to have tested that out. Because they print directly onto the wood they are also able to re-print over the artwork, which I find intriguing. What a novel concept!
Most Starz puzzles come in a custom wooden box made from solid Ash hardwood with pinned hinges; this puzzle came to me in their new sleeve packaging, which I think is a great idea. It’s fantastic for storing puzzles, quite thin compared to a regular puzzle box, but very sturdy. The sleeve packaging is only available for their x-small, small, and medium sizes, the heirloom boxes are available for all sizes except the x-small. Their website doesn’t currently show the sleeve packaging, but they are working on updating it and their puzzles sold on Amazon do have the sleeve packing available.
The puzzle comes assembled and laying flat in the sleeve. It wasn’t as easy as dumping out pieces on the table and starting assembly; the fit was tight enough that I had to disassemble it piece by piece, and this was my only criticism for the packaging. Most puzzlers are raring to go when they open a new puzzle, and having to take the puzzle apart could be annoying for some. I didn’t find it too annoying, but it’s worth pointing out.
This was a puzzle with star cluster silhouettes (whimsies), shown on the left, and they certainly made the assembly interesting! Once I wrapped my brain around how the pieces went together I came across the actual stars and that upped the difficulty level; it was definitely a challenge but I really did love it. Their signature star shaped piece is on the right, with extremely thick 1/4″ maple wood.
Dean Russo’s images have been on quite a few puzzles, but this is the first artwork of his that I have put together. It was such a fantastic image of colors and patterns and adorable canine faces – love, love, loved it! 💗 All those patterns and colors made for a more difficult but extremely gratifying assembly.
Most of the comments on my previous post about these puzzle were about the price – Starz Puzzles are on the more expensive side of wooden puzzles – this 158 piece puzzle in the sleeve packaging is $119.00. The bottom line is every puzzle isn’t for everyone; just like the Christian puzzles I reviewed earlier this year, they’re made for a specific consumer. Not everyone has the inclination or ability to buy these puzzles, but many people are so inclined and this review could assist them in making a purchase decision.
My bottom line is that these puzzles are excellent quality and I enjoyed both the artwork and working with their uniquely shaped pieces. I may not currently be able to afford these puzzles, but I adored working with this one and thought it was beautiful and beautifully made. Definitely recommended! 👍
The Puzzle that Broke the Ice – Wentworth – 40 pieces
I did it! I think. Okay, I’m 97.5 percent sure that I did it! You can see why this puzzle reminded me of Winter Aspen – so much snow and trees. *shudder* It truly was the most challenging Wentworth puzzle that I’ve ever assembled, and it was only 40 pieces! Can you imagine getting any of the larger versions? This also comes in 252 and 510 pieces. I’m not sure if more pieces would make it easier or more difficult, but I definitely won’t be finding out.
I started by turning all the pieces upside down to sort them by shapes, it’s easier if you don’t see the image and just look at the specific shape.
After the sorting the real work begins. Obviously. A close look at the image on the box showed the irregular edge, and that there would be the top of stars and tree trunks along the edge. I started with the darkest and thickest trunk in the image on the far left. From there it was trial and error and a LOT of squinting to be certain each piece I added matched up with all the tree trunks and branches.
It was difficult as there was snow obscuring some parts of certain trees, but as I said I’m 97.5 percent sure I put this one together properly. 😎
One more holiday puzzle down! I’m pretty proud of myself for finishing this one and not putting it off any longer, I was truly dreading it (because I had tried before to assemble it and failed – my brain is being cooked from the inside by hot flashes and isn’t as sharp as it used to be). But as difficult as it was, it was still pretty awesome, completely absorbing, and looks very festive!
Wentworth has some extremely difficult holiday images like this one with repetitive shaped pieces and they all have fabulous names like The Puzzle that Burnt the Turkey, and The Puzzle that Ruined Christmas. The silly names make me laugh, but these little puzzles are no joke! They’re the typical excellent quality that the “regular” puzzles are, and even if they take me a little bit more brain power I really do enjoy the added challenge. I’m giving this one a difficulty rating of four out of five ice cubes. 😉
I wanted to start the month with a completed puzzle on the first day – so this was assembled December 1st. I’ve been saving this puzzle since very early in the year; mom bought it for 69 cents at the thrift store, and although it was cute I thought it should be saved until the holiday season.
This is my kind of holiday puzzle, I love images that aren’t the typical Christmas themes. I think that’s why I don’t care for Christmas puzzles much, they all seem to look alike to me and I prefer to assemble images that are different and interesting. Just my opinion of course. 🙂
It wasn’t the best quality, the fit was slightly loose and there quite a bit of image lift, but both of those things could be because it was purchased secondhand. It may have been well loved and assembled many times – you never can tell. Still, I don’t expect perfection from any puzzle, let alone one from the local Goodwill store.
If you look closely, you’ll see that all the snowflakes are made up of Minions, how adorable is that?
This puzzle makes me think of mom, knowing she bought it specifically for my “adopted” grandson who loves puzzles more than anything. Whenever she found a kids puzzle she would always buy it for him, especially if they were boy-themed or something a young boy would enjoy. She always brought them to me to assemble first because 1) we needed to be sure whether or not it was complete before it was passed on to the kiddo, and 2) because I love putting together kids puzzles perhaps more than the kids do. 😎
I’ll be giving this to my “grandson” soon, so he’ll be able to enjoy it for this holiday season. It’s the last puzzle mom was able to buy for him; he’s too young to appreciate the significance of that, but I’m not. Miss you momma. 💝
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