China Cupboard by Ciro Marchetti – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces
It was completely by accident that I chose this puzzle to assemble while holding the giveaway for a Wentworth puzzle with an image by Ciro Marchetti. I didn’t even realize it was his work until I was checking the box for the name of the artwork. What a fun coincidence!
Normally I associate Ciro Marchetti with fantasy images, but I have done one or two puzzles with his artwork that aren’t in that genre. Now we can add this beauty, it’s a great image for puzzling and I loved every piece. It’s a little dark at the bottom and up the sides, but not too much so and it wasn’t overly difficult.
Great Ravensburger quality, there was quite a bit of puzzle dust to deal with – but otherwise it was excellent. The fit was lovely as was the reproduction and as always there are a good variety of shapes so as not to make for a boring assembly. I knew I would enjoy this puzzle, and fortunately I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would!
The images on these china plates was as crisp and clear as if they were their own puzzle. Absolutely beautiful.
We all know I’m not a cat person, but this little one was very cute. You can tell by this cat, or at least I can, that this is digital artwork. I’m not knocking it at all, many of my favorite puzzles are those by digital artists who use their computers and creativity to produce compelling and beautiful images that make for most excellent puzzles.
This puzzle was so much fun, and with the wonderful quality made for a fantastic puzzling experience. I absolutely loved it!
My oldest son and I put this one together in about two and a half hours, and we had a great time with it! I love a collage puzzle, and he LOVES old movies – the perfect combination.
This was the only puzzle I received this year for Christmas; he bought it for me but it’s being glued for him to put up on the wall in his room. He’s good about getting puzzles for me that he’d like to keep – but he also wants to assemble them with me – that’s the real gift. 💝
The fit on this Re-marks puzzle was extremely loose, it made it a bit difficult at times. I’m not thrilled with the recent update they’ve done with their chipboard; it’s very slick feeling on the back and if I’m not careful it slides right off the board when I’m trying to get pictures. Frustrating!
Dracula is my son’s favorite movie out of the 39 in this image, and mine is Rear Window. To be honest there are only eight movies that I’ve seen – what an uncultured swine I am! My son has seen fifteen of them, almost twice as many as I have. But to be fair he’s been a movie buff since he was very young – and he loves the classics; the movies he hasn’t seen he still has a wealth of facts stored in his brain about each one. He can tell you so much information about movies it would make your head spin!
Anatomy of a Murder (middle image) is a movie that makes me think of mom; I remember her telling me how scandalous it was when it came out. It’s a courtroom drama dealing with a rape and there were words used that had previously never been spoken in American films such as “contraceptive”, “climax”, and “spermatogenesis”. And apparently the talk of a woman’s underwear being torn off was quite racy in 1959. Oh my. If only those pearl clutchers could see the movies we have today. Yikes. Double yikes!
I loved puzzling with someone side by side again, that hasn’t happened much since mom died – I miss it. And I’m thankful my baby boy decided to come out of his room for a couple of hours and spend some time with his old mom. It made my day. 💖
My beautiful daughter bought me this puzzle during 2020, and I finally got around to putting it together. It was great fun and much less challenging than I thought it would be. It was easy to pick out a certain animal or background, and once you’ve got one section done it leads to the next. I really enjoyed this one!
It had the usual great Ravensburger quality and was full of adorable images – what more could you ask for?
Love the mustached pup and the very zen lemur. And that llama on the bottom looks like he wants to tell me something intense.
The picture on the lower left is the photographic representation of what it’s like to have a Boston Terrier, that is their personality in one image. And the stomping frog is awesome! That cat with those eyes is scary looking, and the joey (baby kangaroo) is so sweet hiding in momma’s pouch.
Those starfish – best pose ever! And that squirrel looking beat is such a great picture.
This puzzle was full of silly and funny pictures and I truly did enjoy putting all 99 of them together. Thanks again to my sweet baby girl for gifting this to me. Love you!🤗
Remarks is using a new chipboard, I don’t really like it much, even though it’s sturdier than the old kind. I was worried that when I lifted my board up to lean against the wall to take a picture that the new backing would make it slide off the board – luckily it didn’t. They are using a new finish too, and it’s quite shiny. I’m not sure how I feel about the new stuff; first impression is that I’m not a fan.
The fit was loose-ish, the board is sturdy but with the backing feels almost sharp (if that makes sense), there were a good variety of shapes, and image reproduction was good. Some areas seemed fuzzy, but I believe that was the reference material and not the reproduction’s fault. Overall it’s good quality, but honestly I prefer the old Re-marks puzzles.
I’ve got a few more of their puzzles here, and I may have to decide if this is a “White Mountain” situation where I deal with lesser or annoying quality problems to be able to assemble their great collages. If you asked me right at this moment I honestly couldn’t answer whether or not it’s worth it. We’ll have to wait and see how I feel after the others are assembled.
I had these as a child, vinyl stick-on geometric shapes that you could rearrange to make tons of different images. As I was putting this puzzle together I didn’t look much at the box or poster, and I couldn’t figure out what the black background with the bright colors were – finally had to take a peek to see what it was. It was really fun to put together this section.
See how different the Trix rabbit looked in the 1950s!
This section made me laugh, I can’t think of any program where the family gathers in front of the tv anymore. And look at the television itself! I remember these, big console tvs with record player and radio in them. We had one that you lifted the lid and the record player was in the top – we thought it was very cool. Ah, the old days. If you didn’t know I was old before – well, you certainly know now.
The Nineteenth Amendment – Cobble Hill – 1000 pieces
This was an amazing puzzle to assemble, and the minute I was finished I wanted to take it apart and assemble it all over again. Before I started the box was put away along with the poster that comes with it; I knew I wanted the assembly experience to last longer. So many words to assemble – it was so much fun!
Cobble Hill puzzles have always been very good quality, and this one was no different. I love the linen textured paper, the random cut of the pieces, and the beautiful image reproduction. The fit is usually quite good as well, the fit on this one was excellent. Overall just a wonderful puzzle with a great image that made for an extremely entertaining assembly.
Not interested in women’s rights or information about the American suffrage movement? You should probably stop reading here. It was a fun, great-quality puzzle. If that’s all you wanted to know, have a nice day. The rest of this post is not really puzzle related, it’s about the the suffragettes and what they did and said.
Did you know that for two and half years “The Silent Sentinels” (shown above) picketed in front of the White House for the suffrage movement? Nearly 2,000 women took their turns picketing – they were actually the very first group to ever picket the White House. Many of them were harrassed, arrested, and unjustly treated by both local and federal authorities – including force feeding, torture, and physical abuse.
Here’s another little tidbit for you….did you know that the last state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment was Mississippi? Did you know that happened in 1984? Sixty-five years after it was passed by Congress. What the actual hell Mississippi? Sigh.
Susan B. Anthony is probably the best known suffragette, and she was the first female citizen to be depicted on a U.S. coin. There were thirteen women whose images were shown in this puzzle, it was difficult choosing which ones to show close up. I choose Susan B. Anthony because she is the most well known – and because this is a great quote.
Although many black women worked alongside white women in the movement, they were definitely not treated as equals. Frances Watkins Harper was one who called them out on their racism, and was not afraid to be confrontational. This quote, from a speech she gave at the 1866 National Women’s Rights Convention, called out white women for their lack of female solidarity across the racial divide. Black men were granted the right to vote by the fifteenth amendment, but black women – even in the suffragette movement – were largely ignored and dismissed and effectively banned from voting until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
This quote from Lucy Stone speaks volumes, and still rings very true today – more than 125 years after her death. Although it seems to me that if the women of today knew and truly understood what those who came before went through so that we could enjoy all of the freedoms we have – they wouldn’t behave as if some tiny slight was stomping on their freedom when they don’t get their way.
Just a random opinion from an old lady who remembers that in my own lifetime women in the US weren’t allowed to have credit cards in their own name and could be fired for becoming pregnant – or for not sleeping with the boss.
My Jigsaw Journal 