As the Sun Sets

as the sun sets
As the Sun Sets by Howard Robinson – Sunsout – 300 pieces

The posse and I put this together at a family dinner while waiting for the food to be ready. It’s adorably cute, but wasn’t as fun to assemble as we’d hoped; though I’m not sure why that was. Sometimes the interesting, cute, or pretty image isn’t the most entertaining to actually put together. Or maybe we were all just hungry. 😉

Knightingale

knightingale
Knightingale by Marja-Leena Montonen – Ceaco – 550 pieces

Knightingale was a fun image with beautiful colors and interesting artwork; unfortunately it also had poor quality too. There was a great deal of image lift which robbed me of the joy I get when running my hands over the completed puzzle – there were too many tabs sticking up and I didn’t want my puzzle massage to tear any of them off.  Still it was a great find at the thrift store, I got several hours of enjoyable puzzle time for only 69 cents!

The artist may have been inspired by Picasso – or this scene is set somewhere near a leaking nuclear reactor. Fun characters with interesting colors, I’d love to find more puzzles with her artwork – it was even more fun to assemble than I’d hoped. 🙂

Cupcake Heaven

Cupcake Heaven
Cupcake Heaven by Ruth Black – MasterPieces – 1000 pieces

My first completed 1000 piece puzzle of the year. I chose it because it’s the kind of puzzle image that makes me happy – a collage with bright colors – and I wanted the first puzzle of the year to be awesome and entertaining.

Cupcake Heaven had 7 missing pieces and a devious random cut that had me using more brain power than I’d bargained for. If the puzzle was complete and the fit were less spongy it would definitely be one I’d assemble again. It wasn’t always easy to be sure the pieces were in the correct places because the fit was odd.

Even though it had missing pieces and a wonky fit I still enjoyed myself, which was the aim all along. Everything doesn’t always have to be perfect – life certainly never is! It’s what you do with what you’re given that counts in the end.

Cupcakes for everyone! 🙂

Mousing Around

Mousing Around
Mousing Around by Tim Rogerson – Mega Puzzles – 300 pieces

My very last puzzle of 2018 was this Mickey Mouse puzzle that was great fun even though there were basically only 4 colors to work with. It’s such an interesting look for Mr. Mouse, and it made for excellent puzzling. 🙂

*I’m not feeling very chatty this morning, perhaps it’s my PADS diagnosis*

Ocean Life

Ocean Life
Ocean Life by Paul Daviz – Mudpuppy – 64 pieces

This was one of those thrift store puzzles that almost breaks my heart. We love finding fantastic quality kids puzzles, assembling them, and then donating them. When we find one of such excellent quality that’s missing a piece it’s so much more of a disappointment than regular missing pieces to me.

This Mudpuppy puzzle was one of the best quality kids puzzles I’ve seen in quite some time. Extremely thick pieces, beautiful colors, excellent fit – and it even had a little extra something – a search and find aspect. All the pictures around the edges are also shown in the main image and they’re not all easy to find.

What a bummer that it’s missing a piece! It makes me sad, as a lover of puzzles, that they aren’t taken care of. (But I do remember childhood too, vaguely, so I also understand.) But for some strange reason these missing pieces makes me wish that I could go back to my childhood and take MUCH better care of all of my toys and things. If I had, not only would they be worth some big time cash right now, I’d still have some of the things I loved to play with as a child. How awfully sweet and uncharacteristically sentimental of me, right? I know!