What a fun puzzle! It was refreshing after working the large Cinderella section to have a puzzle where I barely had to look at the box and could put together large sections of it. I’m not sure I would call it a collage, but it felt that way to me. Really relaxing and entertaining, along with educational.
The Eurographics brand is quite good – random cut, good thickness, Â and the image was crisp. Really fun to assemble; it was easy to pull out all the words and put those together, then the flags, etc. The frames for the Union and Confederate generals were different as well, so that made the portraits easy to pull out and assemble too.
Under each general’s name was a short bio including dates of birth and death, major battles and campaigns participated in, and place of burial. I had never heard of many of these men and I learned a lot.
And oh my the facial hair – mutton chops for days, impressive beards and fantabulous mustaches!
This is an amazing company from Germany that I’d never heard of before. They don’t carry very many puzzles (there were only 9 to choose from last time I checked), but they are of amazing quality. The puzzle came in a large round tube, there was a poster inside, and the pieces were unbelievably thick! They were cardboard, but so thick and dense it almost felt like wood.
I believe this was purchased at Barnes and Noble in the clearance section, and how I wish there had been more of this brand! The image is interesting and the colors were bright and fun. It wasn’t overly difficult to assemble, grid cut, and the feel of the pieces made for a wonderfully fun tactile experience. I would love to find more of this brand here in the states, there are 3 or 4 of their other puzzles I would enjoy doing very much.
Cinderella is finished! I’m super proud of myself, and very thankful to my mom and husband for helping put the last pieces in today. Thanks guys! Actually, thanks mom. Hubby never reads this blog. He gets to hear about the puzzle and sees it every day. 🙂
I sure was right when I said that this would be one of the difficult ones. But it took me only 16 days to complete this section compared to 20 days for Snow White. I think I learned a few things working the first section that sped things up a bit, and I also think I worked harder on it because I wanted to get it over with. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did; but at times it seemed as if I was making no progress at all. And again, there were raging hormone days which made slight frustrations seem way worse than they actually were.
She is beautiful and I’m glad she’s finished. The twinklies were the last pieces to be assembled and it seemed more difficult on this section than it did on Snow White. Perhaps that’s just my perception, but it sure did feel as if I spent WAY more time looking for pieces. It is helpful though that there is a pattern to the pieces along the connecting edges. You can see in the picture above that it alternates, this is helpful in determining what shape pieces you’re looking for next.
Tomorrow she’s coming off the board to be put on cardboard to rest under my bed until assembling day. I really should figure out what I’m going to do with the puzzle once it is complete! Buy a bigger house with a wall large enough to display it? Or with enough floor space to put it on the floor and cover it with a clear sealer? If I do that though, I can never ever move! Also, do I really want people walking all over it? I think not!
Dumbo is next, but I’m not sure if I’ll start sorting tomorrow or not. I have pulled the bag of pieces but that’s as far as I got. I am still working on the Civil War Generals puzzle, but I may get antsy to get started on the next section. I do want to finish the Civil War puzzle, because it’s quite fun – interesting and informative. Lots of words too, which I LOVE to put together. Although you may be seeing Dumbo progress start very soon!
World War II Posters – White Mountain Puzzles – 1000 pieces
I adore collage puzzles, and this one was no exception. As an added treat all the posters were interesting and actually had my mother and I looking things up online to find out more information. Apparently saving your used “waste fats” like bacon grease or meat drippings for use in explosives was one of the ways people could help in the war effort. Also saving scrap metal, rags, not wasting food, not traveling, etc. So many interesting tidbits!
Collage puzzles seem to suck me in because finishing one small section leads to having pieces already in place for the next section. It’s easy to pick out all the pieces of the same color to work on each “little puzzle”. This was a super fun puzzle for me; informative, interesting, and just plain cool looking! Thanks to my daughter for buying this one – I’m not sure if I would have purchased it myself but I’m glad she did. White Mountain has so many excellent collage puzzles and many of them are on my wish list.
Candied Apples and Candy Corn by Jane Wooster Scott – Ceaco – 584 pieces
This is not your normal Ceaco puzzle, the pieces were backed with thick cork board and there were a lot of whimsies – there were balloons, a dog, a train, birds, even a clown! SO MUCH FUN! As an added bonus there are 42 pieces of the puzzle that you can assemble separately to make a juggling clown. I didn’t do that part, but what a cool idea!
The puzzle was only 584 pieces, but they were quite large – almost too big for my whiteboard which I used at the time for regular 1000 piece puzzles (20″ x 27″). It wasn’t an easy puzzle by any means, the two trees at the top took me an hour 😮 It’s more challenging with the random cut of the pieces and whimsies, but I enjoyed every moment and love, love, LOVE THIS PUZZLE!
I used to tell my mom to stop buying puzzles at thrift stores because we have so many, and she’s always buying more. Not anymore. If it makes her happy she should go for it, I should keep my mouth shut – not to mention she sometimes finds amazing puzzles like this one. Best thrift store find of the year! (I checked online to find a price, and found one new for sale at a retail store for $124.00!)
My Jigsaw Journal 