Page & Screen

Page & Screen – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

Soooo…………of course I loved this one! The dopamine that book cover puzzles gives me makes me so very happy. Unfortunately I only have three or four of them left here, perhaps a shopping trip is in order???

The quality of this puzzle was excellent all around, my only problem was with the glare from the shiny finish – it was one of those puzzles I needed to turn off the light above the puzzle board and only use the room light. When I find myself tilting either my head or the tray of pieces I know that the light above the board needs to go to sleep for a bit. The previous puzzle I assembled, Admont Abbey Library, had such a beautiful matte finish that it was almost shocking to start working with this puzzle which seemed very very shiny in comparison.

Usually what I do with a book cover puzzle is pick out a few books and talk about them and my history with them. This puzzle is about the page and the screen though, so I decided to do something different this time. First, I’m going to tell you that I’ve only read nine of the fifty books shown here; and I’ve seen 22 of the movies. There’s quite the difference, huh? We’re a streaming society now, and movies are much more readily available than books are, unfortunately.

Second I’m going to ask a couple of questions.

First question, if there was one book shown here that you would recommend as perhaps an underappreciated gem, what would it be?

Even though it’s a bestseller, I don’t think this book is appreciated enough. There’s a lot of blather in the first chapter about money and deals and yadda yadda yadda. The first time I read the book I thought, “what the hell is this crap?” and almost stopped reading. Thank goodness I kept going, because this book triology is one of my all time favorites and I can’t even remember how many times I’ve read all three books. I don’t recommend the movie made in the US though, the Swedish version is much better, and they made all three movies in Sweden. My darling hubby bought me the set (dubbed in English) cause he knows how much I loved the books and he’s a very good guy. 💕

Now for the second question, if there was one movie shown here that you would recommend to someone who hadn’t seen it, which one would it be?

I absolutely adore a good thriller, and even though this isn’t a book I’ve read I very much enjoyed this movie and have seen it several times. There’s something wonderful about a movie that sucks you into the story and you suspend all disbelief and just go with it wherever it takes you. This movie was like that for me, and it gets my recommendation if you’ve never seen it. Or if you’ve seen it already, maybe watch it again – it’s fun!

This puzzle was great fun, and a little bit of a challenge for me as I didn’t use the box image or poster and did this one just using the image on the pieces and let it take me where it went. I’ve done so many of these book cover puzzles that they’re almost too easy using the poster and more of a challenge was needed this time.

If you find this one out in the world it’s highly recommended. Great image!

Carnival Costumes

Carnival Costumes by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

This gorgeous thing was on my board for almost four days, but it didn’t matter how long it took because it was so much fun from start to finish!

It was the typical Buffalo quality, very good. Thank goodness my favorite puzzle artist has chosen to work with companies that actually give a crap about the quality of their products, I don’t think I could bear it if her work was only found on Ceaco puzzles, or something even worse. Luckily though, she works with Buffalo in the US, Schmidt and Ravensburger internationally, and probably more. In fact, I’ve got a package on the way to my house from the UK (as I’m writing this, by the time you read this the package will have arrived) with three Aimee Stewart puzzles from Schmidt that I wasn’t able to find in the US from Buffalo.

Usually Aimee Stewart images are chock full of little things you don’t really notice until you’re putting the puzzle together, but this image is very different. It’s costumes, and only costumes – what you see is what you get. They all look so glamorous from far away, but actually when you look at them close up some of them are kind of ugly! Each different outfit was fun to assemble, and the way the colors work together is absolutely stunning.

I loved this image the first time I saw it, and I still love it now. Fantastic puzzle with a fantastic image that made for a quite a few days of fantastic puzzling. 💖

Fantasy In Progress…

Fantasy – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

As you can see I’ve finally gotten started on the 1000 piece puzzle that I sorted last week, but unfortunately yesterday didn’t go as planned, and I didn’t get very far. Today will be better, I’m sure of it.

Hope your current puzzle is going well, happy puzzling my friends!

Favorite Cereals

Favorite Cereals by Doug Banks – White Mountain – 1000 pieces

Bright colors, cartoons, collage, relatively good quality – just what was needed for a fun puzzle experience for me. I took it slowly and enjoyed every single piece, I even enjoyed the sorting!

This White Mountain puzzle was pretty good quality other than a slightly loose fit. The image reproduction is excellent, even with closeup images, the piece shapes are the usual WM shapes, and the entire puzzle was joy to put together. Those of us who grew up in the US should be quite familiar with most of these cereals, but they may not be as readily available in the rest of the world. Whether you know the cereals or not though, the image itself makes for a great puzzle.

Has anyone ever seen this cereal out in the wild? I’ve never even heard of it before. My son looked it up for me and apparently she’s a sister cereal to FrankenBerry, Boo Berry, and Count Chocula. She’s a monster, obviously, not sure what kind though. Her cereal is a caramel apple flavor with the usual dehydrated marshmallows. I’m not sure how appetizing that sounds to you, but to me – not so much. I love caramel apples, but if you add milk and marshmallows I’m not sure that adds up to something I’d like to eat. How about you?

Of course I know Cookie Crisp cereal, but I haven’t seen this mascot before. Apparently his name is Chip and he’s the current mascot of the brand and has been since 2005. That tells me how much streaming has taken over my viewing habits. I almost never watch actual television channels anymore, and I certainly don’t have to sit through commercials if I do record something on the dvr. Basically what I’m saying is that I haven’t seen a commercial for this cereal in many years and had no idea that Chip is their current spokes-animal. He’s kinda cute.

This is a great puzzle and even with the slightly loose fit it was fun to put together. It would be a great for a beginning puzzler, or someone who wants to move up to 1000 piece puzzles but is hesitant or thinks they won’t be able to get it done. The bright colors and many small sections could help alleviate any anxiety one might have about a larger piece count. Even so, as an extremely experienced puzzler it was still completely enjoyable, and not always as easy as you might think. This one is definitely recommended.

Fresh Blooms In Progress…

Fresh Blooms – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

I’m in a mood today and not feeling very much like doing anything, let alone working on a puzzle. But I know if I haul my butt over to the board and start touching pieces and moving things around it will inevitably improve my mood. And so on, and so on…

Hopefully just telling you about it will help. Whenever I need cheering up talking to my puzzle peeps makes me feel better; you all get it. 🧩💚

It’s down to the last three trays of pieces on this one, so it’s time to decide what puzzle is next and start sorting. I’ve found that because it’s the least enjoyable part of puzzling for me if I sort my next puzzle before the current one is finished it doesn’t seem as bad. If I get sick of sorting I can just move things out of my way and actually add pieces to the puzzle I’m working on to calm my nerves or anxiety; when things are feeling better I get back to the sorting. Once that’s done it’s on to finishing my puzzle and enjoying myself again. As soon as pictures are taken and it’s put away I can jump right into the next puzzle instead of worrying over what’s next and having to slog through laying out all the pieces and sorting it. That way there’s less chance of me curling up in bed for several days and not starting another puzzle, because the next one is ready to go! Gotta do what I can to keep the depression and anxiety at bay, whatever works.

As far as Fresh Blooms goes, it’s almost done and I’ve been having a great time with it. Another quality puzzle collage from Re-marks.