Happy Beads by Elspeth McLean – Ravensburger – 500 pieces
This gorgeous image was even more fun to assemble than I thought it would be. Great quality, beautiful colors and interesting designs – absolutely adored it! 🧡💛💚
Elspeth McLean is a new to me artist, who actually hand paints everything you see here, they’re just completely stunning little works of art, and it makes for really fun puzzling as well. Very smart of Ravensburger to partner with her to make such detailed and fabulous puzzles. This is my kind of artwork.
There is just so much intricate detail, and even though when you look closely you can see little differences in the size of the dots and lines it still looks almost perfect. Her use of color and the beautiful designs she creates are just so striking, and I can’t wait to get more puzzles with her artwork.
The fit was really quite good for a Ravensburger puzzle. Normally the fit is somewhat loose, but this one had such a good fit that I was actually able to stand it up – I’ve NEVER been able to do that with a Ravensburger before, not ever!
It’s a little warped out of shape, but still, I was amazed that I was able to do it at all. Being able to stand this one up and get a picture absolutely made my day. My emotions are sometimes tied too tightly to my puzzles (the scourge of PADS strikes again) but days when I can do something like this to make myself happy are completely worth the bad days.
I absolutely recommend this puzzle, if you can find it and feel as if you’re up to the challenge then by all means you should go for it; it’s a gorgeous, well made puzzle and there are hours worth of fun in that little box; it makes this puzzle geek’s heart go pitter patter. 😍
Thought I’d be done with this one yesterday, as the two spaces shown here are all that’s left to go; but I was feeling like crap on a cracker so I didn’t even sit at the puzzle table all day.
Oh well, I’m feeling a little better today and back at the table this morning, so it shouldn’t be too long before this one is done.
The Alchemist’s Home by Vasilisa Romanenko – eeBoo – 1000 pieces
I enjoyed this puzzle gifted to me by my daughter even more than anticipated; there were so many fun things to find and each little room was it’s own discovery. I worked without the image so as to make it more entertaining and interesting and it didn’t disappoint.
On the back of the box is a short poem about the image…
The substance of the world, we know,
Is more than what we think is so.
Things change, persist, and sometimes rhyme
As we pass through space and time.
When something’s gone, its echo lasts;
This home holds spectres from its past.
All the figures shown in blue are the spectres, and there are only four living people shown in the house. I thought it was a fantastic piece of artwork. 💜
It’s been a while since there’s been an eeBoo puzzle on my table, and the quality was quite good (other than the finish). There were a good variety of shapes, it was well cut, fit together nicely and had excellent reproduction. The finish was quite shiny though, and it was difficult for me at times to see what I was looking at without tilting my head to get rid of the shine from my overhead lighting.
The shelving and pictures on the wall in this sitting room were so interesting to assemble, but not easy. Doesn’t this look like a lovely place to sit and think, or read? There’s lots of floor space too, it would make a very nice puzzle room. 😎
In any home my favorite place is usually the kitchen. One can sit and talk, work together to make meals, or just gather with friends and loved ones. I always love to be in the kitchen.
Now you know I’d have to show you the living room, especially if there’s a picture of a doggo with a suit and tie! How cute is that?
I absolutely adored this image and the puzzle was great fun to put together, almost like a collage. And we know how much I love those!
Funnily enough, I was able to pick out two of my Christmas gifts (after the fact). Part of the problem of trying to gift puzzles to a puzzle geek like myself is that there are literally hundreds of puzzles that I’ve already assembled. There have been a few times when I’ve been gifted a puzzle I either currently own and haven’t assembled, or have already completed in years past. Both of those happened this year and though I hesitated to say anything my daughter always wants to know the truth; so I had to tell her.
Of the three puzzles I received two were not new to me – in my mind that shows that they know me well and know what I like, not just that I’ve done tons of puzzles. Anyway, two of the puzzles were returned and I received a facetime call from the store where I helped pick out the replacements, and this was one of them. It’s not easy trying to check out what the images look like over the phone, at least it wasn’t for me. I’m old! 👵
This thrift store puzzle had a HORRIBLE loose and floppy fit, and was so bleeping frustrating that I wanted to set the bleeping thing on fire and chuck it in the bleeping garbage! Bleep! 😡🤬
You couldn’t move two pieces without them falling apart and it was unbelievably frustrating to work with.
Normally Springbok puzzles aren’t loose, many times I’ve had Springbok puzzles with a fit that was too tight and you had to really work at getting the pieces together; neither is fun to work with in my opinion. This one was so frustrating that at times I was almost enraged by how the pieces would crumble apart when you tried to adjust them even just a tiny bit. Grrrr!
The collage image was one I was very excited to put together, you know how I love an interesting collage – it’s my puzzle happy place. Unfortunately the puzzle that this image was attached to made me very, very sad. Very sad indeed. 😭
Regardless, the image was fun to assemble and the family and I all took turns saying how many of the movies we hadn’t seen. Usually with a book cover collage we say how many of the books we’ve read, but with this one most of us have seen almost all the of movies. There are only five movies in this image that I haven’t seen; Weird Science, The Blues Brothers, A Clockwork Orange, Scarface, and Blade Runner.
*Please don’t say, “Oh, but you have to see ______, it’s such an iconic/funny/wonderful, interesting movie”. While I appreciate your opinions, truly, I am very particular about movies and have to be in just the right mood to watch certain genres. And as I get older I find I have much less taste for deep, insightful, upsetting, or thought-provoking movies; entertainment, not introspection is what I’m looking for.*
I’ve chosen three to highlight here because they’re movies that I love and have seen multiple times and can quote from. Ready for some reminiscing?
The Princess Bride is a family favorite, and my entire family can quote extensively from this one. It’s a fabulous movie that I highly recommend if comedy, drama, romance and fun are what you’re looking for. Princess Buttercup, Wesley, Fezzik, Inigo Montoya, Vizzini, Miracle Max, Prince Humperdinck – all amazing characters in a wonderful movie that the whole family can enjoy. There’s only one swear word in the entire movie, and I’ve already told the story of my youngest son yelling out the movie quote at his teacher when he was upset at school. “I want my father back you son of a b*tch!” Oh dear.
Being the comedy nerd that I am, of course I loved Airplane! All the slapstick, the little jokes that you have to pay attention to hear, it’s a fantastically funny movie in my opinion. Barbara Billingsley (Beaver Cleaver’s mom) talking jive, the “drinking problem” of the hero, the little guy visiting the cockpit and talking to the pilot – thinking of all the stupid, ridiculous, naughty, silly jokes really does make me smile.
As a teenager in the 1980s, of course John Hughes movies are on my list of great movies to watch. My whole family loved this movie, and we can quote from this one too. Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald were fabulous in this one (and who can forget Gedde Watanabe as Long Duk Dong?), and the comedy and one liners are still funny to me today. Sweet, silly, touching – John Hughes knew how to make a great movie.
I wish I’d enjoyed this puzzle more, but the quality left a bit to be desired. 😐
Oh well, at least talking about some of my favorite movies has made me happy.
Happy Beads by Elspeth McLean – Ravensburger – 500 pieces
I fell in love with a couple of puzzles by this artist at the store, and bought two of her 500 piece puzzles. Of course I got them home, opened the boxes and looked at the pieces and thought “Why in the world didn’t you recognize how difficult these were going to be?” That’s me all over, if I love the image then damn the consequences – I’m buying it!
Actually this one seems like it’ll be the easier of the two that were purchased, and even though I knew going in it would be challenging it hasn’t been as horrible as I’d prepared myself for. Actually it’s been much more enjoyable than even I thought.
Last night I was working on this and one bead led to the next; things were connecting and even though I knew I needed to get out of my chair and go lie down it was extremely difficult to crowbar myself away from this puzzle. In the end a bargain was made (in my mind) that once the pieces were pared down from four trays to three that would be the end of work for the night. It was difficult, but eventually the last piece was put in for the evening and finally got myself to bed. 🛌💤
It’s going together slowly, bead by bead, but it’s been nice just zoning out and searching for the pieces of one bead or another; it’s almost meditative as focus is definitely required. When a puzzle takes that much of my concentration it almost shuts out the rest of world.
Isn’t that something we all need from time to time? I certainly do!
