Flight of Scarlet

Flight of Scarlet by Daniel Merriam – Artifact Puzzles – 364 pieces

Absolutely stunning image that wasn’t quite as difficult as I’d made it out to be in my head. Good thing I decided to just jump in because it was a lovely assembly all around.

There wasn’t much in the way of whimsies, but I think it’s because it was one of Artifact’s “challenging” puzzles. The whimsy pieces weren’t as important in the design of the pieces, and that’s ok. It was still completely entertaining.

You can see from the back the symmetry in the design of the pieces and where they go, how it makes it’s own gorgeous little design with just the piece shapes.

I had this puzzle for quite a while; bought it because it was beautiful but then was intimidated by the piece shapes and how it was categorized a challenging puzzle. As usual, I should have just jumped in without listening to what others thought – it was so much fun!

Mojo In Progress…

Mojo by Kristian Adams – Artifact – 118 pieces

One of the best things about wooden jigsaw puzzles is that they’re so sturdy they can be assembled again and again without the wear and tear you would see on a cardboard puzzle. It’s part of the reason they’re much more expensive. Yet for me, I rarely re-do my wooden puzzles, and have almost never re-assembled a puzzle and posted about it.

When I was looking for the next puzzle to do, this one kept jumping out at me. It’s so small that it wouldn’t take long at all – and I didn’t want to start anything larger as I was waiting on a delivery of new puzzles that I’d ordered. I knew I’d be wanting to do one of the new puzzles next, so I put this one out on the board and started putting it together. Got this far and then a virus stepped in.☠

My son brought some virus home and thoughtfully gave it to both my husband and myself. I’ve been waylaid for a few days trying to breathe, trying to cough enough to clear out my chest, and wishing more than anything that if nothing else I would be able to sleep and get some rest. It’s day four now, and I’m finally feeling fractionally better.

The new puzzles were delivered and are sitting unopened on the floor of the puzzle room and I haven’t touched this one in a few days. If things continue to improve then soon I should be back at the puzzle board to finish this adorable little puzzle. Then the boxes of new puzzles will be opened, a new one will be chosen and I’ll be back to work on whichever one is next.

Flight of Scarlet In Progress…

Flight of Scarlet by Daniel Merriam – Artifact Puzzles – 364 pieces

Forgive the dark picture, I don’t seem to be quite caught up on taking and downloading pictures as I once was. It’ll get better. 😎📸

This one’s only been in progress for a couple of days, but it’s coming along nicely if I do say so myself. Once the light colors of the image are finished my feeling is that it’s going to be much more difficult; but hopefully it’s the fun kind of difficult that keeps you entertained and engrossed in what you’re doing.

There aren’t many whimsies in this puzzle; there’s a cat, some (7) butterflies, and a heart – that’s all. Usually there are many more with an Artifact puzzle, but perhaps because this is a limited edition and also one of their “challenging” puzzles the whimsies aren’t the focus. It doesn’t matter as much to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love whimsy pieces, but it’s more about how the assembly goes. How much I can sit and get involved with finding and connecting pieces and be completely in the moment; that’s the special sauce of puzzling for me – at least one of them!

I purchased this puzzle several years ago, maybe a year or more before my latest sabbatical – it just never seemed the timing was right to put it together. Now I just said “what the hell, might as well give it a go”.

Even if it takes a while I’m hoping to really enjoy it….I’ll be sure to let you know how that goes.😉

Mojo

Mojo by Kristian Adams – Artifact – 118 pieces

This is such a cute image and was lots of fun to put together. As an added bonus, the wonderfully interesting piece shapes made it much more challenging than your average 100 piece puzzle.

Artifact Puzzles are so entertaining, and I love that they have so many different piece shapes to choose from. When you’re shopping you can see sample pieces of the puzzle you’re looking at so you can decide if it is going to be puzzle you’d be interested in assembling. Their quality is excellent, their prices are very good for wooden puzzles (in my opinion), and additionally they have free shipping within the United States.

Cute little whimsies too! Even though it was quite small, this puzzle was so much fun to put together. I’m looking forward to assembling it again on a rainy day when no other puzzle seems to be the right one. 💖

Color Dream

Color Dream by Nadieh Bremer – Artifact – 403 pieces

Oh man! This was a challenging, beautiful, fantastic puzzle to assemble! It was quite difficult, as I didn’t use the image on the box – but I absolutely adored both the challenge, the image, and the assembly itself. 🧡💜💙💚

This was my third puzzle with an image by this artist, and I am completely smitten with her work – it makes for such fun puzzling! And I also have to give a shout out to the designer of the pieces, Chandler Millwood (who designed all three of Nadieh’s puzzles), whose design was like artwork in itself. Stunning!

Look at all those loops and swirls, it was such a challenge, but so much fun! The groups of stars in each corner, the connectedness of everything – just a wonderful design to go with such a lovely image.

The star in the center and the loops that form the flower-like image around it aren’t visible from the front. It made for such an interesting puzzle! I know, my use of exclamation points is getting ridiculous, but this puzzle made me so happy that I just can’t help myself!!

There was a surprise in the box, the description on the website alluded to it, but I skipped right over it when I was ordering the puzzle. It said “Tools included to make your own tiny orbit artwork.” Whatever does that mean?

It came with it’s own tiny little wooden Spirograph! Does anyone remember those from when you were younger? I certainly do, and let me tell you there have been a LOT of little pictures made with this already. I have to fess up and tell you that it didn’t occur to me until I was probably 50% through the assembly that all the little images on the puzzle are ones that you could make with a Spirograph. I was looking at the shapes and putting together colors and suddenly realized that all the loopy, swirly, interesting shapes are ones you could make with the toy in the box. DUH!

This puzzle was unbelievably difficult, entertaining, beautiful, and FUN!