Thursday 02-15-17 80% Done!

img_2746
32,256 pieces assembled – 8,064 to go!

I did my best to get a good picture, and this was the best I was able to take. I thought about standing the board up against the wall, but that’s how the whole Jungle Book fiasco happened. So here’s the best I could do for now, Hakuna Matata!

This section was fun, and just gorgeous! I loved every minute of the assembly, and I’m kinda sad that it’s over with to be honest. This section took 15 days, which isn’t bad considering there were some medical issues going on and some days I wasn’t able to do much puzzling at all. Some days I took trays of pieces to bed with me and worked on it laying down in another room! 🙂

I’m loving this whole puzzle so much, but I’m dreading being completely finished. I still have no idea what to do with the completed puzzle, none whatsoever. 😦 Any suggestions? Please help!! I know when all 10 sections are complete I’m going to want to assemble them all so I can take lots of pictures of my accomplishment. But if I don’t figure out what’s going to happen with the finished puzzle I may end up having to disassemble the puzzle back into 10 sections. The very thought of that makes me cringe!

Next up……. Beauty and The Beast, isn’t it lovely?

4005556178261-det-11-internet-typ-72-rgb-1200

It will probably be a day or two before I’m able to start working on Beauty and The Beast. The Lion King is still on the board so we have to carefully get Simba and friends taken off and stored, and there is still sorting to do. I am really looking forward to this one, I’ve been looking forward to it since September! I’ve saved the ones I thought would be the most fun for last and here we are – I’m so excited!

Couples

img_1944
Couples by James Mellett – White Mountain – 1000 pieces

Another collage – of course. (And another cockeyed picture where you get to see my bedspread 🙂 ) I really enjoy collages, and White Mountain always does them so well. Couples and Valentine’s Day, how sweet! Almost as sweet as the day after when all the candy is 50% off!!!

This was really fun artwork, there weren’t only human couples there were plenty of fun things that make a great pair – chips and dip, cookies and milk, ebony and ivory piano keys, apple pie and ice cream, etc.  Also there were a lot of non-human couples like Bert and Ernie, Buzz and Woody, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Yogi and Boo Boo and so many more.

This is another one that is fun to do with others with lots of laughing and talking about the couples and figuring out who or what things are. And as always, if you’re not sure who or what things are you can check it on the White Mountain website where they have an answer key.

So many great finds at thrift stores! 2 or 3 days worth of puzzle for 99 cents, you just can’t beat that! For mom and I it also leads to buying puzzles online. She finds a cool puzzle at the thrift store, we assemble it and love the quality or artwork and then we end up looking up other puzzles by that manufacturer or artist and buying a bunch online. Yes, we have gone slightly insane, but on the other hand we are adorable and puzzles isn’t too terrible an obsession/addiction, right?

Yarn Party

img_2692
Yarn Party by Linda Picken – Karmin International – 550 pieces

Another thrift store puzzle, this one hadn’t even been opened yet! This was my first puzzle from Karmin. Although I’ve seen the name before, hadn’t worked a puzzle from them.

I enjoyed this puzzle, even though I was unimpressed with the quality of the pieces. They were quite thin and easily bent, there was a large amount of puzzle dust both in the bag and in the box itself, and there was quite a bit of glare from the coating on the pieces. Luckily the puzzle wasn’t overly large and I was able to carry it on the board to a place in the room where I could take a picture of it without all the glare bouncing off of it.

That being said, still enjoyed myself. The image was cute, the piece shapes were interesting and not everything has to be perfect all the time. Even though the pieces were thin I still had fun putting the puzzle together and found that I enjoyed the assembly in spite of the quality! Sometimes I’m too in my head and I should just relax and have fun, right?

Confection Street

img_2634
Confection Street by Charles Wysocki – Milton Bradley (Mosaic) – 300 pieces

Today is my Grama’s birthday. Since she’s been on my mind, especially since last week’s National Puzzle Day post I decided to do a post on this puzzle.  It belonged to Gram. My mom decided to keep this puzzle of hers to assemble and glue. Mom did most of the assembly, but I did help and I glued and helped frame it.

Charles Wysocki’s artwork is a favorite, so this was an obvious choice to keep and it is a mosaic puzzle which was interesting to us, we’ve never seen that before. This is a Milton Bradley puzzle made in the 70’s. While doing research to find the name of this image I found that Milton Bradley made a few of these mosaic puzzles. I can’t imagine they were popular or a good seller, because OH MY GOODNESS was it horrible to work!

img_2635

The pieces are in square shapes as you can see from the picture above, and nothing clicks together. This may seem like a good idea in theory, it looks like a mosaic tile work, how fun! NOPE. Every piece just lays next to the adjacent piece and heaven forbid you bump the table or the puzzle itself! We had to be extremely careful, and even the gluing was a chore and required both of us.

While we enjoyed the artwork and the pieces were thick enough, those were the only good things about this puzzle. A mosaic puzzle is not a good idea in my opinion, there needs to be some way to attach the pieces together or it just becomes a chore and is not fun at all. Fun is the reason we do puzzles in the first place!

This was a puzzle that belonged to Grama though, and that’s why we assembled it. My mother and I both love puzzles because of her, what a great gift! Thanks Gram, Happy Birthday!

Sanctuary

img_2128
Sanctuary by Sheila Wolk – Sure Lox – 300 pieces

This was one of those puzzles that came in a “10 puzzles in 1 box” deal. I really liked this image, and one of the others which I did and took pictures of, but we didn’t keep the box or any of the puzzles. They went back to Goodwill. Not great quality. 😐 But even when we are not happy with a thrift store puzzle, we didn’t pay that much for it – $1.99 is the most we ever pay, so we’re not upset.

That being said, I still love the image in this puzzle. The colors are muted but pretty, the clothing on the fairy is fun and interesting, I just liked everything about it. It took me quite a while to find the artist and title of this image online, I had nothing to go on other than it was in a 10 in 1 box, that’s all I knew! I’m glad I could find it though to give credit to the artist for her beautiful artwork, Sheila Wolk this is a gorgeous image!

The pieces were very thin, there was no diversity in the piece shapes as they were all 2 hole 2 prong types. Boring. The pieces fit together well, which was a plus, but otherwise it was all about the picture for me. I liked the image so much I did it anyway! I’m glad I have the picture, because I still enjoy looking at it. It’s so pretty!