This 300 piece puzzle was great fun, more difficult and time consuming than expected, but still entertaining and beautiful to look at.
When my daughter found the Doug the Pug puzzles, she also brought me this and another 300 piece collage of dogs. She really is an enabler, and she’s quite good at it too! Do I have an awesome daughter or what!? I’ve only got the dog collage left, and my supply of smaller piece count puzzles is dwindling quite low. I may have to send her out on a puzzle finding mission very soon, she seems to know what puzzles I’ll enjoy even better than I do. 😎
Buffalo does a good job with their 300 piece puzzles, these were all excellent quality. The pieces are thick, the images are gorgeous and sharp, and the fit is very, very good. The colors on this puzzle are amazing and make for some delicious looking popsicles. They look absolutely luscious.
It makes me hungry for some frozen treats, we old ladies with hot flashes love frosty treats! When my inner child is playing with matches I’d love to dive headfirst into the freezer and cover myself with anything that would cool me down – but it’s nice to eat popsicles too I suppose.
Perhaps I need to get out more; I’ve never seen popsicles with kiwi or oranges in them! The colors are beautiful, and it looks like they would taste lovely. Mmmm. 🍧
Dog Stamps Quilt by Barbara Behr – Bits and Pieces – 300 pieces
Dog Stamps Quilt – hmmm, a collage with dogs, I wonder if I liked it? It won’t be much of a spoiler for me to tell you I adored it! It had everything going for it before I even opened the box, and luckily once it was opened the quality was just as good as the artwork.
Bits and Pieces is a brand I normally only buy second hand because of some very bad experiences with their puzzles. When I saw this image though, and the fact that it was only 300 pieces, I had to throw caution to the wind and give it a try. And I’m very glad I did! The pieces were very thick, with an excellent variety of shapes that fit together very well. The offset, almost wavy grid cut made for some fascinating piece shapes that sometimes seemed almost geometric, and the interesting way they fit together made for an absorbing and entertaining puzzle.
These adorable puppies jumped right out at me when I was sorting; first of all, their little faces look like they’re about to get into a lot of mischief, and secondly the background is a beautiful shade of blue that stood out in a sea of brown and tan pieces. Their faces and expressions are just too cute!
This little guy had such sad, sweet eyes. I had to take a close-up picture of this stamp; it’s just too sweet to pass up, and I think it would make a great puzzle image on it’s own.
Overall I was quite impressed with the quality of this puzzle. I find that many 300 piece puzzles with large pieces have thick chipboard that is quite sturdy, even if the larger piece count puzzles from the same brand aren’t as thick. Bits and Pieces is a brand I don’t usually endorse, but in this piece count I have no reservations in giving this puzzle a thumbs up. It’s great quality and an excellent image, and if the artwork makes you smile it is definitely recommended. Two doggie paws way up! 🐾
If you’re a regular reader of this blog you won’t be surprised by this – I absolutely loved this puzzle! Even though it’s 1500 pieces there was zero anxiety about starting it; it’s a collage puzzle about the 1980’s, what’s not to love? I remember every single thing shown, and even if I wasn’t a fan of The Police or never watched an episode of 21 Jump Street that doesn’t mean I didn’t love putting every single piece of this puzzle together. Many sections brought back memories that put a smile on my face, and even just looking at this picture of the puzzle makes me happy. 🙂
Since the last Re-marks puzzle I assembled had a stain over the image, I’m happy to report that this puzzle had no problems. The pieces were a good thickness and fit together well, and the reproduction had no issues other than being slightly shiny. There was only one piece shape, but it didn’t bother me much because there weren’t any large areas of one color (and most likely because I enjoyed the image so much). 1500 pieces with all one shape would normally be quite annoying for me, but it’s all relative; with a great image on the puzzle and good quality otherwise it wasn’t much of a bother at all.
My family loved The Muppet Show, and never failed to watch it every week. This was back in the time of only three tv channels – yes youngsters, you heard that right – only three! There was cable tv, but that was basically just HBO (and they didn’t make tv shows or movies, they only showed movies that had once been in the theaters). So on Saturday or Sunday nights we had only 3 choices, it definitely made deciding what to watch much easier that’s for sure! My dad loved Statler and Waldorf, mom loved Kermit, and I loved The Swedish Chef and Beaker (odd choice, I know, but I was an odd child). The show was fun and funny, and sometimes a little bit raunchy, and thinking of it brings a smile to my face.
These are two more things I loved. Spirograph kept me entertained for hours and hours and I used to make cards and gifts for my family with it when I was young. Mom used to get out her colored pencils and help me color the images in sometimes to make the “artwork” even more beautiful. Sometimes she would take a spirograph picture she really liked to work and make copies for us to color over and over.
As for Clue, we found the board game boring for the most part, but we absolutely loved the movie! Back in 1985 there weren’t DVD’s, but we did have a video cassette player and as soon as we were able to find the movie on VHS we most definitely had a copy. I’m sure the statute of limitations has run out, so I can tell you that we rented the movie and made a copy of it. 😇 The movie was so unusual with it’s many different endings, and we were a family that loved a great comedy. (How awesome were Madeline Kahn, Tim Curry, and Michael McKean? Just an awesome cast in general, and we adored this movie)
This was another great action/comedy movie, and we all loved it. I can’t see anything about this movie without saying “Hey you guuuys!” in my head, and sometimes out loud. My kids loved it too when they were younger, it’s just a great all around family movie. (Well, it was PG, so there were some not so family friendly moments, but in 1985 my sisters and I were teenagers, and I didn’t show it to my kids until they were ready 😉 )
If I were to reminisce about every section of this puzzle it would be a very, very long post indeed. There are things I would have to explain to the younger generations, and most of the explanations would draw blank stares and looks of disbelief. How in the world would you explain Max Headroom, or the popularity of the Trapper Keeper?! Ah, the 80’s. What a decade! It made for a thoroughly entertaining puzzle though. I’m giving it two pairs of Calvin Kleins, standing way, way up! 👖👖
I finally got myself back to the puzzle table and started on this 1500 piece collage of the 80’s. It truly stuns me that this decade was more than 30 years ago. I must be very old indeed!
It’s going together very quickly, most likely because collages make me happy and I love assembling each little section. I didn’t spend much time on it yesterday, but hope to be able to get back there today. It makes me wish I had more collages in the to do pile, this one has been so enjoyable that it would be nice to have some more to do.
#Fuzzy Friends by Keith Kimberlin – MasterPieces – 500 pieces
How adorable are these guys and gals? So sweet! This was a great quality puzzle by MasterPieces. The random cut was lovely, but it took me a minute or two to wrap my aging brain around the way things would go together. There’s always a period of adjustment when I start a randomly cut puzzle, I have to stare at things for a while until the gray cells warm up and comprehend how the pieces fit together. Once that’s done it’s off to the races!
This is how it looked after putting together everything I pulled from the initial sorting – not bad!
This was my favorite section, I love those faces! Puppies and kittens are almost always cute and make for adorable puzzles. They’re not always easy (a lot of fur tends to be a bit of a challenge) but they’re usually entertaining.
The fit was very good and I truly enjoyed the random cut. It’s been a little while since I’ve assembled a MasterPieces puzzle, I forgot how much fun they can be. After a steady diet of grid cut puzzles, it’s lovely to change things up and do something different.
Whether you prefer random or grid cut, there’s no denying they are very cute fuzzy friends. 🐶🐱
My Jigsaw Journal 