Green by Shelley Davies – Cobble Hill – 1000 pieces
I wasn’t sure whether or not I would like these color puzzles from Shelley Davies. I mean, they’re absolutely gorgeous – but would they be entertaining to assemble? Short answer is … yep! In fact, it was way more enjoyable than I’d imagined.
Would have loved to have a poster to help out with this puzzle; I know the ones for sale now have a poster included but mine is a few years old and didn’t come with one. It certainly would have been nice to have – especially since mine was in a smaller square box rather than the larger rectangular one. It was a little challenging to find some of the very small bits on such a small box cover.
The plate with all the queens on it was quite entertaining, and it looks great too. I wouldn’t really call this an educational puzzle, but I learned a little bit about the different queens and their reigns. 👑
This was the first section I assembled, the swirly gold pieces were the easiest to pick out. It’s always nice to have some small section to start with immediately after the border; and this is where I started.
There were SO many words in the whole puzzle, once I pulled them all out it was a little intimidating – but with a little perseverance I got there in the end. There were several colored pencils in the image as well, most with the name of the artist hand written on them.
I wasn’t sure I even wanted to give any of these color puzzles a try – and now I’m thinking we may need to get several more colors!
This assembly was so much fun! All the bright colors made it relatively easy to put together, and the entire image just made for excellent puzzling. I really had a great time. 😊
Working with a Ravensburger puzzle is almost always a wonderful experience. The excellent fit, the beautiful image, the quality of the chipboard and how the pieces feel in your hands as you’re contemplating where it should go – all reasons they’re one of my favorite puzzle companies.
There’s a thing that happens each time I sit down with a puzzle, it’s hard to describe. At first I’m looking at all the pieces as I lay them out, trying to find things that look easy to pick out or colors that jump out at me. I’m searching for the edges, and also for what parts I’ll be assembling first after the border is put together. The pieces and I are almost getting to know each other.
Every time I’m searching for a particular piece to finish a small section I’m also becoming more familiar with every piece, every color, every shape. Soon, it becomes easier to find a piece; because I’ve seen them and touched them and moved them around so much that I know exactly which one I’m looking for. The assembly starts to speed up, the image is becoming clearer – it’s exhilarating and intoxicating – I love that feeling!
This puzzle was the epitome of those things for me, and was completely entertaining to assemble. Cartoon images are much more fun for me to put together than photographic images (just my opinion), and the bright colors make it easier for these old eyes to see what’s going on. There were so many great characters and sections to assemble – absolutely loved it! 💖
Tweedledee and Tweedledum. When you say the names it makes me think of lovable but annoying idiots. They try to help, they think they’re helping – they are so NOT helping! I’ve run into a few people in my life that I would put into this category; unbelievably exasperating. You know the kind of person I mean; the ones that make you repeat over and over in your head that you are actually a good person and please don’t lose your temper – they’re trying to be helpful.
Or is that just me?
Ah, the king. He’s so darn cute, at least I think so. He’s only about 12 pieces out of 1000, but I distinctly remember his voice from the movie; and how he wanted so much to be in charge but was completely overtaken by the Queen of Hearts.
I had such a fun time with this puzzle. I’d like to find more of these collector’s edition puzzles; there are so many memories for me that are locked up in these old Disney movies.
I’m amazed that this movie came out in 1951 – my parents were four years old!
Saturday Morning Cartoons by Charlie Girard – White Mountain – 1000 pieces
I made sure to take my time with this puzzle – because frankly – I’ve been puzzling so much that I have way too many puzzles in the queue at the moment. By the time you’re reading this post it will most likely be a month or more since it was actually completed! It could have been finished two days earlier than it was, but I made myself stop working on it.
It’s also meant that I’ve been having to type up the post immediately when I finish a puzzle. Otherwise, my old lady brain doesn’t remember much when it comes up in the rotation. A month and 30 puzzles ago is too long ago for me to recall specifics about the assembly. That’s why I’m trying to slow down a bit and stop adding a new puzzle to the queue every day or every other day.
On to this specific puzzle!
My husband picked this out for me the first time I went puzzle shopping after my year-long absence. He seemed very excited about the image and thought I should buy it, he’s so sweet. Many of these cartoons we both watched as kids, and since he was so excited about finding it for me, of course we had to get it.
The quality of this one was only fair. The most important reason was a very loose fit – very odd for a White Mountain puzzle in my opinion. I’ve done many of their puzzles, and the fit is usually either quite tight or just about right. This one though was extremely loose – even picking up two connected pieces could be a problem. The image reproduction was slightly fuzzy in some places. Which is not uncommon for a WM collage in my experience, but I normally expect issues like that from this brand so it wasn’t much of a problem for me.
So many memories! Up at the top on the left is Atom Ant, and I remember the character but don’t have any memories of watching the actual show. At first I thought the name was Adam Ant, but then said to myself that I was getting him confused with the 80s rocker. Hubby and I had to look him up to be sure of the name – getting old ain’t for sissies, memories really do start to go.
Next to Mr. Ant is Quick Draw McGraw, and I actually do remember watching his show. I remember that his voice sounded very much like Yogi Bear to me, and came to learn later that both characters were voiced by the same man – no wonder they sounded alike. I enjoyed Quick Draw because he was always so polite, and for some reason that made an impression on me.
Like Atom Ant, I remember the character on the right – Magilla Gorilla – but don’t have any specific memories of the show. He was fun to assemble though, that’s why he’s here. A big orange rectangle doesn’t seem as though it would be very entertaining, but it actually was. 😉
Scooby Doo was definitely a favorite for me as a child, and I remember many episodes of the shows. My kids liked it too, and used to watch the reruns. Those meddlin’ kids and the grumpy old man that was usually the “ghost” trying to scare people – I remember them very clearly.
And the name Fractured Fairy Tales is something my brain remembers, but unfortunately I have no specifics. I know that most likely I watched the show, but it’s the name I remember – the character isn’t familiar nor is the image shown above. It was easy to pick out the pieces though, and easy to assemble too.
Quality problems aside, this was a fun puzzle to assemble, and even though it took longer than normal I had a great time. It brought back many memories – even if some of them were as fuzzy as the image reproduction.
Life Rules by Louise Carey – Andrews + Blaine – 1000 pieces
This was not an easy puzzle. Luckily, I was looking for a difficult/tedious puzzle to put on the board while I was working on all the micro puzzles for the holiday season – this one fit the bill perfectly. Putting together large letters isn’t as simple as some may think. This one tried to melt my brain!
I always love having words to assemble in a puzzle, but when the words are basically the whole image – or even when they’re just very large – it can become quite difficult. All the pieces are basically just the background color, and the color of the letter. And there were only four colors in this image, each color was used multiple times for their own set of words. It was quite the challenge.
The easiest part of this assembly was the sorting. I just had one tray for each color, and one container for any pieces that were only the background. I worked on one color at a time. Sometimes the font used for one quote was simple to find, but much of the time it wasn’t as easy to pick out the right pieces for a certain quote.
Because it was so tall and thin (13 x 37 in.), it was easy to push to the back of the board when I wanted a break from it – and that is exactly what I did. When I felt myself getting too frustrated I stopped and worked on something else. 😎
My fellow P.A.D.S. sufferer Penny sent me this several years ago, but I was never in the right frame of mind to work on it. I never have my puzzles in any order to be assembled, my brain has to be in the right “head space” to work on an image; so the puzzle I’m doing next has to speak to me in some way. This puzzle has previously never had much to say – except, “Put me back, you don’t want any of this today.”
Miss Penny has since been informed that she wasn’t getting this puzzle back – after all the work that went into this one I’ve glued the bleeping thing and will be hanging it in the puzzle room. I love the look of it, and couldn’t bear to disassemble it after all that effort!
Wow did I love this puzzle! I’d seen the image several years ago and really wanted it, but for some reason never purchased it. Not until Penny asked me what puzzle she should do next and this was one of the choices; I told her to do the Lips and then send it to me, but then decided I didn’t want to wait and ordered one for myself.
At the time I’m writing up this post she’s still working on this puzzle – she has a life, a full time job, and two young children – I have none of those things, so I finished first. Partly because this puzzle was just too fun to walk away from, and partly because I don’t sleep much and am up in the wee hours puzzling when most others are sleeping. Honestly though, I’m a little sad that it’s already done. ðŸ˜
*Penny has since finished this puzzle too. I don’t think she enjoyed it as much as I did, but we can’t all love the same puzzles in the same way. All the flesh colored pieces in between had her a little frustrated, but she says she did like the puzzle.*
According to my blog this is only the second Piatnik puzzle I’ve done, the first was three years ago and was a collage of vintage needle books. From these two puzzles I can say that the quality of this brand is very good. My only issue was with the shine on the pieces, it was a bit difficult to see the darker pieces under the lights, there was a lot of glare. Otherwise, the fit was excellent, the image reproduction is stellar, there were a variety of shapes – just a great jigsaw puzzle all around.
The rainbow lips on the left were so fun to assemble, that bright yellow really stood out. The deep blue with the diamond was the first one that caught my attention, it’s just such a great little picture and the pieces were easy to find as well. I’m not sure what to call the lips on the right, funky rainbow perhaps? The pieces weren’t as easy to find as the first two, but it is such a great image – and that black background made it a little less challenging.
My Jigsaw Journal 