Colorful Crayola

Colorful Crayola – Buffalo – 300 pieces

I know, this one’s a little trippy to look at. Sorry. But it was lots of fun to put together, and it makes for an impressive finished image, doesn’t it?

There is absolutely no clue where I got this puzzle from, but it was a new, never been opened Buffalo. Right out of the box I could tell there was a quality issue with this beauty – some of it’s makeup was scraped off!

It was only on a few pieces, but some of the image seems to have been abraded off somehow. Honestly, I know how most problems with quality happen, but I’m a little bit at a loss for this one. I’ve seen how sometimes the color can come off while you’re applying glue, or how the image comes up because it isn’t applied to the chipboard correctly – this is different. It looks to have been scraped across the top of the puzzle, which doesn’t make much sense to me. Plus, if you scroll back up to look at the complete puzzle you can see that these are from all over on the puzzle, not just in one spot. Anyone out there have any suggestions as to how this happens to only a few pieces?

Anyway, even with this one problem the rest of the puzzle was the typical excellent Buffalo quality, and in particular the fit was exceptional. I don’t usually do the same brand one after another, but this was a much nicer fit than my previous puzzle (Aimee Stewart’s Carnival Costumes).

Yup! You guessed it – The Stacey Stance! This is the first puzzle I’ve been able to do this with since my fellow puzzle blogger Penny named this silly picture pose after me. I was VERY excited to be able to do this one, now that it bears my name and all. 😎

As an added bonus, my youngest, who seems to be more interested in helping out with puzzles lately came in to help me finish up this puzzle this morning. He left the last piece for me, but I think next time I may let him get that honor.

We both loved the look of this gorgeous, and very different puzzle 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. 💖

Olde Buck’s County In Progress…

Olde Buck’s County by Charles Wysocki – Buffalo – 300 pieces

Unfortunately I didn’t puzzle at all yesterday. Fortunately, my daughter came over to visit and hang out with me all day! Totally worth it!

Therefore, all I had time to do this morning before 8 am was put together a few of the pieces with words and take a picture so that I could get this post out into the world on schedule. And I’ll do my best to make up for it with lots of puzzle time today to be sure. It won’t be difficult, a Wysocki puzzle is almost always fun to assemble. There are usually plenty of little signs all around, lots of beautiful scenery, great old buildings, etc.

I’m pretty sure it’ll be hard to walk away from and it might even be done before you know it!

Life is an Open Book – Paris

Life is an Open Book – Paris by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces

What a stunningly beautiful image, I had the best time with this puzzle! Of course we know that Aimee Stewart is my favorite puzzle artist, her images make for the most interesting, challenging, wonderful assembly experiences. I absolutely adore them, and this was even more fabulous than expected.

The Life is an Open Book series of puzzles has been out in the world for many years now, but I just got my hands on one of them very recently. What on Earth I was thinking waiting so long to try these out I have no idea – I can’t have been thinking very much at all. I want every single city in this series. Immediately! The quality was excellent, the image was fantastic, and the assembly was so challenging and relaxing at the same time. My little old lady’s puzzling heart is going pitter patter at the thought of collecting the remaining three cities. 💓

When I first saw this tiny little section of the puzzle, it made me smile. Of course I remember the horrible Chat Noir puzzle that mom and I put together – it was not much fun at all; but seeing this tiny representation of it made me think of her, which is lovely. We HATED this puzzle, and after assembling it we vowed to be more discerning before jumping in feet first whenever there was an image we loved; because they don’t all make for fun puzzling. Still, I have the memory of this puzzle intertwined with memories of mom and I working on it together, cussing and laughing and cheering each other on – of course it brings a smile to my face.

Fine Art puzzles are not really images I enjoy putting together, so this is most likely the last time you’ll see Ms. Lisa here on the blog. Still, I can now honestly say that I assembled an image of the Mona Lisa. 🖼

All the books, posters, and knick-knacks made for such entertaining assembling; lots of words, beautiful colors, many small things to discover and place in the image.

This artwork shows off the best of Aimee Stewart in my very humble opinion. You’ve got her shelves, lots of books, posters, bright colors, a collection of many disparate objects that all seem to work together perfectly to make a stunning piece of art. And it all fits together on a beautiful puzzle that is a joy to assemble – I couldn’t ask for more.

Other than the remaining cities in this series, of course.😉

Life’s A Beach In Progress…

Life’s A Beach by Lars Stewart – Buffalo (Night & Day series) – 1000 pieces

This little beauty’s already been more difficult than I thought it might be, but I like that – it keeps me on my toes. When I chose this puzzle it was one of those days where you’re looking for something VERY specific, but you aren’t really sure what that is. Does that make sense to anyone other than myself? I knew I wanted something, but what that was wasn’t very defined in my brain, it was one of those “you know it when you see it” things. Luckily my eyes came to rest on this gorgeous image and here we are!

On the box it says © LARS, but those of us in the know can see just by the image that this is Lars Stewart, Aimee’s boo! (Do the kids even say boo anymore? Whatever. I’m old.) I checked MGL Art just to be sure, and this is most definitely one of his images. I adore the colors, and how everything seems to fit together so seamlessly, it’s just stunning.

The picture above is just one section at the bottom, a little more than halfway across; I’ve also got most of the moon and the mountain on the night side completed, along with the lighthouse and rainbow on the day side. There’s quite a bit of empty space still waiting to be filled up and for some reason the picture looked really odd to me with so much open area, so for right now all you get to see is just this little bit at the bottom.

I’m having a great time and very much enjoying the challenge. What are you puzzling today?