Color Dream

Color Dream by Nadieh Bremer – Artifact – 403 pieces

Oh man! This was a challenging, beautiful, fantastic puzzle to assemble! It was quite difficult, as I didn’t use the image on the box – but I absolutely adored both the challenge, the image, and the assembly itself. 🧡💜💙💚

This was my third puzzle with an image by this artist, and I am completely smitten with her work – it makes for such fun puzzling! And I also have to give a shout out to the designer of the pieces, Chandler Millwood (who designed all three of Nadieh’s puzzles), whose design was like artwork in itself. Stunning!

Look at all those loops and swirls, it was such a challenge, but so much fun! The groups of stars in each corner, the connectedness of everything – just a wonderful design to go with such a lovely image.

The star in the center and the loops that form the flower-like image around it aren’t visible from the front. It made for such an interesting puzzle! I know, my use of exclamation points is getting ridiculous, but this puzzle made me so happy that I just can’t help myself!!

There was a surprise in the box, the description on the website alluded to it, but I skipped right over it when I was ordering the puzzle. It said “Tools included to make your own tiny orbit artwork.” Whatever does that mean?

It came with it’s own tiny little wooden Spirograph! Does anyone remember those from when you were younger? I certainly do, and let me tell you there have been a LOT of little pictures made with this already. I have to fess up and tell you that it didn’t occur to me until I was probably 50% through the assembly that all the little images on the puzzle are ones that you could make with a Spirograph. I was looking at the shapes and putting together colors and suddenly realized that all the loopy, swirly, interesting shapes are ones you could make with the toy in the box. DUH!

This puzzle was unbelievably difficult, entertaining, beautiful, and FUN!

Plumes of Color

Plumes of Color by Eduard – Buffalo – 300 pieces

Is this not a GORGEOUS image? It’s even prettier in person! A beautiful image and a great quality puzzle, what more could a puzzle gal ask for?

Being that I was too nervous to sort or assemble a larger puzzle right away, this was one of the few smaller piece count puzzles that was here at the house; obviously it had to be next.

The only problem was that I’d spent a good number of hours re-reading through much of my blog and came upon a post about a gradient puzzle from a few years ago that was pretty darned difficult. In that post I wanted to remind myself that although they are usually lovely to look at, gradient puzzles can be extremely challenging and care should be taken in judging whether or not the pretty picture would be fun to put together. Yikes.

Luckily this puzzle, at only 300 pieces, wasn’t nearly as difficult as I’d built it up to be. Good fun was had and it kept me out of trouble.

For a little while. 😊

In Progress…

Plumes of Color by Eduard – Buffalo – 300 pieces

As I was too chicken to sort or assemble a larger piece count I am currently working on this beauty. It isn’t as difficult as it may look, but it isn’t too easy either – it looks like it’ll be a “goldilocks assembly”.👱‍♀️

Plus, I’m having pretty radical oral surgery in less than two weeks, so I’ve got to get my puzzles-ready-to-post count up before that happens. It’s going to suck, to be sure; but I don’t want to give myself any excuses for staying in bed and wallowing either.

I’ve discovered upon reflection about the last two breaks I took that if there is a post typed up and scheduled I’m more likely to keep at it even if I’m not feeling my best. If I have to get up and write something to post that day it’s more likely that I’ll just stay in bed and do nothing. So, here I am working on smaller puzzles in the hopes that it’ll be quite some time before there’s another mental health break from puzzling.

Ain’t she a purdy puzzle? She’s gonna be stunning all put together!

Geometric

Geometric by Josie Lewis – Buffalo – 500 pieces

Unfortunately I did not enjoy this puzzle as much as I’d hoped. The image was difficult; I knew it would be, but it was just not entertaining for me at all. I think because it was one of the first puzzles back after dealing with a serious medical issue and being stuck in bed most of the day for almost two weeks. My brain just couldn’t seem to get in gear and I felt stupid and slow trying to assemble it.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the quality, the quality was excellent.

I started with the reds/pinks…

Then the purple/blue pieces…

Greens and yellows were last.

I should have known better, but I got sucked into the pretty picture. I need to remember this puzzle the next time a beautiful gradient image catches my eye. Gradient puzzles are so interesting and gorgeous to me, but many times they’re much more difficult than they look.

Or it could be that I’m losing my touch.