Happy Vibes

Happy Vibes by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

How many more ways can I find to tell you how much I love Aimee Stewart’s artwork? I fear it’s getting redundant. Apologies. This puzzle was beautiful, entertaining, and great quality (except for quite a few bent pieces). The use of color, the composition – everything was just right. It’ll come as no surprise that I loved it – it was a challenge at times, but it wouldn’t be fun otherwise. 💖

Buffalo puzzles come in small square boxes that just hold all the pieces with not a lot of room left over. In this case, it seems as though the pieces didn’t break apart as easily as they normally do and were bent by the box top being put on in the factory. It isn’t that much of a big deal, I’ve dealt with much worse; I did think it was worth mentioning though.

Love the vintage look of this postcard, and the feathers were really fun to assemble too.

The look of this pen reminds me of a great puzzle mom and I assembled together about 5 years ago – called Fountain Pens. Gorgeous puzzle. That was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this pen, and it had me going back through the blog to find the old puzzle post. Who doesn’t love the look of a beautiful old fountain pen?

So many butterflies!


All in all it was a great puzzle with such a beautiful image that I never wanted to stop working on it, even when I absolutely needed to stop working and take a break. So many happy vibes to assemble, no time for breaks!

Unusual Animals

Unusual Animals by Allison Strine – Buffalo – 500 pieces

This was absolutely my kind of puzzle image – bright colors, collage, interesting artwork, informative, great quality – it had it all!

Do you ever have a puzzle that you know you’re going to love? Before you even put two pieces together you know it’s gonna be great? This was one of those puzzles! It was as fun and beautiful as I knew it would be – isn’t it fantastic when that happens? 💖

Excellent quality, as per usual for Buffalo. Lately I’ve mostly been purchasing Ravensburger and Buffalo puzzles; I’m too cranky these days to deal with crappy quality. I know when I buy a Buffalo puzzle that they care about whether or not their puzzles are entertaining and well made, and it is most definitely appreciated.

The color of both the background and the spider jumped out at me while sorting, and this was the first section I assembled. I wouldn’t want a Black Widow spider anywhere near me in the real world, but don’t mind at all it showing up next to all the other unusual animals. 🕸

I love all the information provided for each animal. Who has heard of an axolotl before? If you check out some images online you’ll see that they have the cutest faces (but they’re not brightly colored at all). Very unusual indeed.

This one I’ve definitely heard of before – there’s a whole family story about this bird – and we talk about the Blue-Footed Booby when we think something going on is ridiculous, or a waste of time.

When I was young (probably around 10 or so) my father was watching a documentary on tv about this bird, and he made me and my sisters come downstairs and watch it with him. We absolutely did not want to. Mom and dad had a “discussion” about forcing us to watch it; dad said it was educational so we should “learn something” and mom said it was stupid to make us watch it if we didn’t want to.

I don’t really remember any actual information about this bird, just the situation of being made to watch a documentary we weren’t interested in – and of course the bird’s ridiculous sounding name. It’s funny what memories stick with you, isn’t it?


The artwork by Allison Strine was excellent for puzzling, and both interesting and educational. If there are more of her puzzles out there anything like this one – I want them.

If you see this puzzle out in the wild, and you’re so inclined, I highly recommend adopting it and bringing it home. I don’t regret it, and in fact loved every single piece. 💝

Skate Night (1000)

Skate Night by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

Happily, this puzzle was even more fun than the 300 pieces of this image that I completed a couple of years ago. I’m so glad it was finally released in a larger piece count!

Excellent quality all around, Buffalo puzzles have a great fit, nice variety of shapes, excellent reproduction, and a great cut. I haven’t been disappointed by any of their puzzles lately that I can recall. Sometimes there’s a bit of puzzle dust – but that’s par for the course and unless it’s excessive it doesn’t really bother me at all.

I didn’t really notice this the first time around, this is a ticket for the roller derby!

The words and image here for the “super skater” were the most challenging pieces for me to find. I’d go through once and be certain I’d found them all. Then I’d assemble the pieces and see that I was missing SO MANY. It’s always interesting to me when you are absolutely sure that you know exactly what you’re looking for, and when you end up with the right piece it isn’t nearly what you thought.

Becoming familiar with the pieces, and the way your perception of them changes as you work on a puzzle is part of the enjoyment for me. You start off looking through them, and unless it’s a simple image it takes time to get to know them – and get to know the whole of the image you’re working on. What seems like a bunch of random splotches of color or figures seems difficult at first. Then you realize what belongs with what, and you start to see the differences in each color or each piece of a larger image; for me it’s remarkably rewarding and satisfying.


Aimee Stewart’s digital artwork almost always makes me smile, her use of color is absolutely beautiful and her puzzles are such great fun for me to assemble. She’s number one on my list of puzzle artists and I’m always happy to have an Aimee Stewart puzzle to put together.

Eggcellent In Progress

Eggcellent – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

Yesterday I finished sorting this beauty of a puzzle and completed the border as well. I have a couple of the eggs done, but there are many more to go. They’re all so bright and colorful, and I’m certain it’s going to be an eggcellent assembly!

I am very much looking forward to working on it today, and my plan is to put on my headphones and listen to music and block out the rest of the world. Here’s hoping it works – even for just a little while – I need a break. A break from people…and talking…and thinking…and phone calls, texts, noises, alarms, questions and all of the cacophony of this world that seems to be everywhere all the time.

Time with some wonderful music and a beautiful puzzle is exactly what I need. 🎶🧩🎶

Went a Little Crazy…

I bought a BUNCH of puzzles this past week – which is not something I usually do. Do you ever feel like even though you have plenty of puzzles to assemble that none of them are ones you really want to assemble? I understand that’s absolutely not an actual problem or what is called a “first world problem”. I’m just dealing with a lot right now and not handling it well, and when I was trying to decide on what puzzle was next I was not in a good place.

Add quite a severe case of P.A.D.S. into the mix and you’ve got a recipe for crazed online puzzle shopping late at night – and also a trip to a brick and mortar store earlier in the week. You can see from the picture above that the P.A.D.S. was in control of me and I went a little puzzle crazy. (Surprisingly there is no remorse whatsoever)

I only bought Ravensburger and Buffalo puzzles; I wanted good quality that I wouldn’t have to worry about. Also, I wanted to get some Aimee Stewart puzzles, some that I hadn’t seen before. All the puzzles shown above were online purchases, I forgot to add the brick and mortar buys to the picture – sorry.

From Buffalo I got seven Aimee Stewarts (only four shown here), a Charles Wysocki with quilts, a Ciro Marchetti, a couple of the Country Life series (both with quilts), and one of the Vivid Collection.

From Ravensburger I got a couple of interesting 500 piece puzzles, a Hansel and Gretel puzzle that is too cute for words, and one of their Abandoned series called The Deserted Department Store.

Sixteen puzzles later there are even more puzzles at my house to choose from; I haven’t decided which one is next, but I’m happier with my choices at the moment (and in a slightly better headspace). 🧩❤