Plumes of Color

Plumes of Color by Eduard – Buffalo – 300 pieces

Is this not a GORGEOUS image? It’s even prettier in person! A beautiful image and a great quality puzzle, what more could a puzzle gal ask for?

Being that I was too nervous to sort or assemble a larger puzzle right away, this was one of the few smaller piece count puzzles that was here at the house; obviously it had to be next.

The only problem was that I’d spent a good number of hours re-reading through much of my blog and came upon a post about a gradient puzzle from a few years ago that was pretty darned difficult. In that post I wanted to remind myself that although they are usually lovely to look at, gradient puzzles can be extremely challenging and care should be taken in judging whether or not the pretty picture would be fun to put together. Yikes.

Luckily this puzzle, at only 300 pieces, wasn’t nearly as difficult as I’d built it up to be. Good fun was had and it kept me out of trouble.

For a little while. 😊

Sweetheart Chessmate

Sweetheart Chessmate by Charles Wysocki – 300 pieces – Buffalo

This was completed almost a year ago, so again (sorry) my memory of this assembly is completely blank. It’s adorable though and I’m sure it was thoroughly enjoyable.

Buffalo is a great brand with a lot of wonderful images to choose from. There are a very nice variety of piece shapes so the assembly isn’t too difficult or too boring. The fit on this puzzle was excellent, as usual. I love a Buffalo puzzle!

*I can tell you how the fit was because this is the last puzzle I did before my extended leave from the blog, and it sat on my puzzle board for almost an entire year before being photographed and disassembled.) An excellent quality puzzle all around.* 🧩

Such a sweet poem. Hubby and I don’t play chess together and we don’t live on Cape Cod, but we are definitely peas in a pod and enjoy each other’s company very much. We just celebrated on 35th anniversary this month. Yay for the high school sweethearts!💗


Tomorrow is my surgery, so I’m not sure how I’ll be feeling afterwards. Here’s hoping it isn’t nearly as bad as I’ve made it out to be in my anxiety-ridden mind. There are several posts written up and scheduled for the next few days. If I don’t respond to comments quickly after Tuesday, don’t be alarmed. I’ll be back, cross my heart and hope to spit! 😯💦

In Progress…

Plumes of Color by Eduard – Buffalo – 300 pieces

As I was too chicken to sort or assemble a larger piece count I am currently working on this beauty. It isn’t as difficult as it may look, but it isn’t too easy either – it looks like it’ll be a “goldilocks assembly”.👱‍♀️

Plus, I’m having pretty radical oral surgery in less than two weeks, so I’ve got to get my puzzles-ready-to-post count up before that happens. It’s going to suck, to be sure; but I don’t want to give myself any excuses for staying in bed and wallowing either.

I’ve discovered upon reflection about the last two breaks I took that if there is a post typed up and scheduled I’m more likely to keep at it even if I’m not feeling my best. If I have to get up and write something to post that day it’s more likely that I’ll just stay in bed and do nothing. So, here I am working on smaller puzzles in the hopes that it’ll be quite some time before there’s another mental health break from puzzling.

Ain’t she a purdy puzzle? She’s gonna be stunning all put together!

A Wysocki In Progress

Sweetheart Chessmate by Charles Wysocki – Buffalo – 300 pieces

Regular readers might remember that for me sometimes Charles Wysocki’s images can seem a bit repetitive, this one is NOT one of those! I’ve assembled a few of his puzzles with only one building in them, and adored each and every one – and I’m hoping this will be another in that same vein.

It’s only been sorted so far; but it makes me so glad I ordered myself a few smaller piece count puzzles. Having only 1000 piece puzzles around was stressing me out. It was actually causing anxiety to the point that I didn’t even want to go into the puzzle room – and that is not good.

But this 300 piece Wysocki image is just what I need, and hopefully it will help me build myself back up to working on the bigger piece counts. It’ll be lovely!

The Baker

The Baker (GiGi the Cat) by Christiana – Ceaco – 300 pieces

This cute little puzzle was fun – but it’s a Ceaco so I went into it with an attitude. A bad attitude. I know I shouldn’t, but it’s difficult to be objective when you’ve had such bad dealings with the company about their poor quality puzzles. I do my best, but I’m human.

The quality was just ok. There were a good variety of shapes and the image reproduction was nice as well. As usual the poorest part of this Ceaco puzzle was the chipboard used (the fit was loose as well with some dull cutting evident, but it wasn’t awful). The chipboard was on the thinner side, and some pieces were delaminating and splitting. In my humble opinion an upgrade to the quality of the board would make a world of difference in the overall quality of this brand.

An upgrade to their customer service wouldn’t hurt either. Just sayin’.

This is GiGi and her companion, FiFi the mouse. If I’m honest it took me a few minutes to find FiFi in the image once I read their story on the box. I hunted all over for that mouse before I found her peeking over GiGi’s shoulder. It was easy to overlook her in the patterns and colors of the image.

This is GiGi’s pet, a Scottish Terrier named CoCo. All the repetitive names made me smile, silly as it is; and it had me brainstorming as to how many more names like these that I could think of. LuLu, KiKi, BeBe, etc. There are quite a few combinations you can come up with!

The box says that GiGi loves cooking, painting, shopping, gardening and camping. I don’t think GiGi and I would have much in common; I do love cooking, but rarely feel well enough to do it much. As for the rest of it, I’m tired just reading about it! GiGi must be much younger than I am. 💤👵💤


Overall the best part of this puzzle for me was the interesting, colorful and silly image. Parts of it were just challenging enough to keep it from being a boring 300 piece puzzle that went too quickly. I enjoyed myself despite my admittedly terrible attitude about this company.

If there are more puzzles out there from this artist (perhaps from another brand) I’d be more than happy to give them a try; her aesthetic is just my pile of pieces. 🧩