Fun Fair Food by Lars Stewart – Buffalo – 300 pieces
What a great image for puzzling! It’s not too simple, but not too difficult, and at only 300 pieces it’s perfect for when you’re wanting a quick puzzle to complete. Of course I adored this – it’s a colorful collage of food – what’s not to enjoy?
A quick check of the blog tells me that this was my first puzzle with an image by Lars Stewart, Aimee’s husband. He obviously has learned some things from her about color choices, don’t you think? They’re bright and beautiful, and it made for an extremely entertaining assembly.
This was a great first puzzle back after our 10 day vacation; and I loved every piece. 💙
How fitting it’s also the first puzzle posted after our second 10 day trip to Michigan, I’m so glad to be home!
Ice Cream Bars by Charlie Girard – White Mountain – 1000 pieces
Here’s another puzzle that I was very much looking forward to, but it had very disappointing quality. It’s been a while since I’ve done a White Mountain puzzle, and they can be hit or miss – this one was a miss, unfortunately. I wanted to enjoy this, and I did – just not as much as I’d hoped. Oh well.
The image reproduction on this was was quite blurry in some places, and there were quite a few pieces not cut all the way through. The fit was good, not as tight as some WM puzzles can be, but good. The chipboard was a good thickness, and the finish was a bit shiny, but not too much so; it was mainly the reproduction that caused me so much trouble.
So let’s look at some of these ice cream bars and wrappers up close…
Apparently sex sells, even ice cream bars.
I wanted to show the difference in clarity – the Dairy Queen cup is quite clear and the surrounding wrappers were quite muddled and blurry up close – I’m not sure I was able to capture it in the picture though. Perhaps the artist used actual vintage wrappers or pictures of them and they’re just what they looked like. I can’t be sure, but it was frustrating to have some of the image be so blurry in places.
Six Klondike bars for $1.49? Wow. Just wow. And you can also see in this picture that the words are quite clear and the image of the boy and the ice cream bars is fuzzy and indistinct.
The overall quality of this puzzle was quite a letdown; I was hoping for an entertaining collage with good quality that I could just relax and enjoy – this puzzle wasn’t it. ☹
My frame of mind was NOT in the right place when I was assembling this puzzle; usually collages make me happy – this one just wasn’t entertaining. There were so many faces, so many pieces with just an eye or an ear, and I found myself having to check the poster frequently to see where things went. It isn’t how I normally puzzle, and unfortunately I just didn’t enjoy this one as much as I’d hoped to.
It was fun at the beginning, once the border was completed I put together all the words – love that part! 💖
After the words were done it got more tedious and annoying for me. I just wasn’t in the right headspace I suppose, normally these types of puzzles are great fun. In the 70s my family and I watched plenty of these tv shows together, they all hold memories for me so I was really looking forward to this assembly. Apparently I just chose to assemble it at the wrong time, it wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own.
Luckily, near the end hubby came in the puzzle room to talk to me and after telling him how frustrating the puzzle was he decided he was going to help me finish. He helped with the final 70 or 80 pieces. Of course that’s his M.O. (modus operandi); there’s nothing he loves more than coming to my rescue. So, I tell him that this puzzle is frustrating me and he rides in on his white horse – and saves me from a tedious assembly.
It was nice working together with him, I don’t usually have anyone sitting side by side with me to puzzle anymore.💕
Unlike most the other puzzles with tv shows from a particular decade I can tell you that I know every single show in this image, and have seen at the very least one episode of each program. Back in the day there were only three major networks in the States, so there wasn’t a lot to choose from; no streaming services, no cable television with a thousand different channels, no DVDs or VHS tapes of movies to watch at home. There was the television…that’s it! And the shows in this puzzle were all very popular, so my family watched most of them on a regular basis.
M*A*S*H was a family favorite back in the 70s and 80s, we all watched it together – back when the whole family sat together to see a tv program. My oldest son and I still watch it on a streaming service when he wants to spend time with me; we usually work on a jigsaw puzzle together and enjoy Hawkeye and Trapper or BJ making mischief and tugging on our heartstrings.
The Carol Burnett Show was another favorite of mine – me being the comedy nerd that I am. The scene shown above from Went With the Wind where she comes down the staircase dressed in the draperies complete with the curtain rod was one of the funniest scenes in the history of television (if you ask me). I can still remember laughing hysterically when I saw it for the first time, and remember how long they had to wait for the audience to stop laughing so they could continue with the sketch. Carol Burnett just turned 90 years old – what a comedy treasure she is. 🤗
I wish I could tell you how much I enjoyed this puzzle, but I really didn’t – it just wasn’t the right image, or the right time – or both.
Don’t be dissuaded by me though, it’s a very good quality puzzle with an excellent fit, it even stands up on it’s edge (forgot to get a picture of that before I disassembled it). If you’re looking for a well made collage of tv shows from the 1970s, look no further.
I sorta had a good time assembling this puzzle – a puzzle image that shouldn’t exist if you ask me. I honestly had to stop several times while I was working on this because after assembling a book cover that I wasn’t familiar with I would look up what it was about and why it was banned; I just kept getting more and more frustrated, angry, and sad. In a supposedly free country why should anyone get to decide what someone else reads? The answer is…..they shouldn’t. Ever.
This puzzle had me pretty damn fired up, so if you’re just here to see the puzzle and hear me talk about the assembly you should stop reading after this paragraph. It was a good quality puzzle with a beautiful collage image that was entertaining to assemble when I could dissociate my brain from the reason these books were put together to make this image in the first place. Just like The Nineteenth Amendment the rest of this post is about the subject matter of the puzzle rather than the assembly.
This blog is about puzzles, not politics – but this puzzle is a collection of books that have been banned because of politics and repressed prudes and/or zealots thinking they can control what others think or read or learn or feel. Screw that. Screw them.
There are many books here that I may not want to read because they just aren’t my taste, but that doesn’t mean I get to keep others from reading them because I don’t like the subject matter or the content. What’s next? Big bonfire in front of the library? Or should we just set the libraries on fire and get rid of every book that has anything questionable at all?
They’ve just enacted laws in several American states that would mean jail time for librarians who help children get a banned book – because they’re providing them with “obscene” materials. Who decides whether or not a book is obscene? Well, it could be the angry lady down the street or some puritanical priss who’s never used the word damn and thinks ladies showing their ankles is scandalous, or just about anyone at all; apparently others can now decide what is inappropriate for you and/or your children to read. WTAF?!
*can you tell I’m still fired up about this?* 🤬
I’ve chosen three books to highlight, two of them I’ve never read and the other one of them is my favorite book of all time – it’s one I’ve read many, many times. I cannot fathom censoring books for any reason, but the reasons given for “challenging” and/or banning these books really p*sses me off.
This informational book for kids ages 8-10 was written by a certified sex educator and teaches children about their bodies, sex, and people and families of all kinds. It has been censored in just one state 36 times – just one state! Here’s why, “because it addresses sex education and is believed to lead children to ‘want to have sex or ask questions about sex’.” Sex and sex education is a touchy subject with many people, but not allowing your kids to learn about their bodies and sex can lead to terrible consequences. How you choose to do it in your home with your children is completely up to you; but taking away the opportunity for other parents to use this book to help teach their children is NOT ok.
Sigh. My favorite book. Yes, it has talk of a sexual assault and the N-word in it; but it’s used to tell the story in a way that highlights how destructive racism is and can be. And wanting to go back and whitewash the language and/or the storyline makes no sense to me. It’s how some people spoke and acted at the time (ignorant and racist as it was), but pretending that events fictionalized in this book never occurred in the real world and that people didn’t actually speak that way is beyond stupid. It’s so beyond stupid I don’t even have words to describe how asinine it is.
It brings to mind a quote…”Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”
The Librarian of Basra is a true story of a woman who rallied her community to protect and save as many of the library’s books as possible when war broke out. Why was this banned you may ask? Well, according to many racist, xenophobic idiots – sorry, I mean *parents* – it “promotes a religion other than Christianity” and “takes places in the violent settings of Afghanistan and Iraq.”
It’s a book for children, it isn’t violent – it just takes place in countries where a war was happening; and talking about another religion isn’t promoting it, it’s being truthful to the story.
I gotta say, if you’re raising your children so that they do not even know about other countries, other religions, or that violence and war exist – they are in for a rude awakening when they go out into the real world. A very rude awakening indeed. Honestly people, what has happened to us?
As you can tell, book banning makes me very upset. The United States of America is supposed to be a democratic republic – not a theocracy or a dictatorship. Your religion, political leanings, or set of beliefs are yours to have and enjoy but they shouldn’t ever be allowed to infringe on the rights of others to have a different religion, political party, or set of beliefs.
You don’t get to decide what is appropriate for my children or myself to read, and you don’t get to take away the opportunity for us to check a book out of a school or local library because you don’t like it.
In fact, it’s none of your damn business what anyone in my family is reading, thank you very much!
This puzzle was perfect for motivating me to get out of bed after my surgery. Collages are truly my happy place, and knowing this beauty was sitting on my board waiting had me up and puzzling much sooner than I thought I would be.
It was a good quality puzzle, though the loose fit sometimes was annoying to work with – moving completed sections could be quite a pain if you weren’t paying attention. Otherwise the image reproduction is lovely, though the finish is somewhat shiny. I know these things (the little problems in quality) about Re-marks puzzles, but am willing to put up with all of them because they have an excellent catalog of collage images that I want to assemble.
The image itself is great, but it isn’t going to spark a long post filled with memories of my childhood. During the 1990s I was a young wife and mother with 3 small children; by 1992 I had all of my children and spent the rest of the decade being immersed in raising them and keeping our home. Most of the things shown in this collage are things I am familiar with, but there just isn’t as much identification with any of them as is usual with these decade images. I had to really think about which smaller pictures to take so that I could talk about them.
In the end I decided that since I spent the 90s raising children I should chose one section that reminds me of each of my babies – cause I’m a mom, that’s what I do.
Our whole family enjoys the Harry Potter books and movies, but my daughter (a voracious reader her whole life) was the most taken with them. She still remembers sitting in the living room with me while I read this aloud to them. In the 2000s I was always the one who was tasked with taking her to the bookstore so she could be there at midnight when the newest book was released. I love that she’s a reader, it makes me unbelievably happy. ❤📕
Surprisingly, I had to make her stop reading many times – otherwise she would have stayed inside all day with her books. Eventually I made a bargain with her that for every hour of reading she had to go outside and play for at least 15 minutes. She hated it most of the time, but she needed fresh air and exercise too!
Ahhh, the Game Boy. My oldest son carried his Game Boy with him everywhere he went for several years. He has autism, and the lights and sounds, the tactile feeling of the buttons, and weight of the handheld game itself was always soothing for him when he became overstimulated. He is now and has always been a video game prodigy, always being better at every game than the rest of us. Patterns and repetition are comforting for many people who are neurodivergent, and video games provide both of those things – no wonder he was so exceptional at all those games – he kicked our butts whenever we played together!
It makes me smile to remember him as my cute little boy carrying his Game Boy like a security blanket everywhere he went. 😊
To infinity – and beyond! That was the rallying cry of my youngest son for quite some time, and boy were we ever sick of hearing it. He also has autism, and for quite a while only used quotes from movies to talk to us. When he was upset or angry he would say something someone from a movie said when they were upset or angry. *There was a TINY problem at school when he decided to quote The Princess Bride when he was upset. He screamed “I want my father back you son of a b*tch!” at the top of his lungs. Of course he would find the only cuss word in the whole movie. Yikes.*
We all had to be very up to date on which movies he was watching so that we could interpret what he was trying to communicate to us. Buzz Lightyear was a particular favorite of his, there were so many quotable moments. I heard a LOT of those quotes. Thank goodness he eventually starting using his own voice and thoughts to talk to us.
This puzzle was an entertaining assembly from start to finish, if it looks like one you’d enjoy it is definitely recommended. 👍
My Jigsaw Journal 