Main Street – Day 2

Main Street by Joseph Holodook – Cra-Z-Art – approx. 83/500 pieces

I really enjoyed these little buildings, they were so much fun to put together. Have you tried any of these sets before? There are plenty to choose from, and even if you usually only work larger puzzles you may find that these are entertaining at assemble as well.

The artist, Joseph Holodook, has quite a few images out there on puzzles besides the ones I’ve done in these sets of mini puzzles. Most of the ones I’ve seen are on MasterPieces puzzles, but there are a few other brands as well. He mostly paints Americana and Christmas images, and the detail in his work is amazing.

Whether old or new I do love a bookstore! Everyone in the street has a book, is reading one, or is buying or selling a book – this is my kinda town. Even the dogs are looking at a book cover! The quaintness of this image was so sweet. 📚💚

This big barn wasn’t as easy to put together as you might imagine, at least not for me; but I got there in the end. I love the words on the side of this one “We build shack to chateau” and “Don’t be a woodchuck, use a professional Romanchuk”.

Main Street – Day 1

Main Street by Joseph Holodook – Cra-Z-Art – approx. 83/500 pieces

Normally one of these sets of twelve shaped mini puzzles would be shown over four days, with three puzzles per day; but I’m stretching it out to six this time to give myself a few extra days to get more puzzles back in the queue. 😎

If you’ve been a reader here for a while you’ll know that each of these sets has colored backing applied to each small puzzle, twelve different colors so that you can sort them into each mini puzzle if you like. Or if you’d rather work these as a 500 piece puzzle you can disregard the backing and just start solving. The pieces are a good thickness with a nice variety of shapes that fit together well. Sometimes the colored backing isn’t cut all the way through leaving several pieces attached, but that doesn’t bother me much. The finish is a bit shiny, but not too terrible to deal with. Overall I find these to be good quality puzzles that are highly entertaining to assemble.

The detail in each of these houses/shops is amazing and they could all be their very own larger piece count puzzles. The colors are bright and fun and the Americana theme is entertaining to assemble. I’d love to go into an old-timey hat shop – wouldn’t that be something to see?

Does this look familiar to anyone? It did to me so I searched my site for the artist, and guess what I found? Check out Christmas Town Day 2, see anything interesting? There were three buildings in the Main Street set that were the same as in Christmas Town, but this is the only one that is EXACTLY the same with zero changes. The other two are the same building but in a different season with changes to the people and things on the outside.

I’m imagining what an antique shop would be like a century or more ago, what treasures would it hold? There would probably be more than a few things that we wouldn’t even be able to identify what they were used for – that would be fascinating!

I had such a good time putting these puzzles together, now all I have to do is buckle down and write up the next five posts for this set. Here’s hoping I don’t get carpal tunnel syndrome from all the typing. ⌨


*Side note – I checked out Cra-Z-Art’s website and found three new sets that I don’t have! Guess who’s going online shopping very soon????🛒💸*

Tea for Two

Tea for Two by Aimee Stewart – Wentworth – 176 pieces

How amazing is this puzzle? It wasn’t an easy one, but I enjoyed the challenge of working on three separate shaped puzzles simultaneously – and it being a gorgeous and colorful Aimee Stewart image didn’t hurt either. 💖

There have been a few shaped Wentworth puzzles with artwork by Aimee that I’ve done, and they make for entertaining but somewhat difficult assemblies. But the combination of a shaped wooden puzzle and her beautiful artwork make me VERY happy.

Tea time whimsies and beautiful flowers, couldn’t ask for more. But unlike most puzzles with whimsy pieces these shapes didn’t assist much in the assembly until you got several pieces together. Usually with the odd shapes you can tell which pieces go around them, but with so many curvy and wavy whimsies you couldn’t really use the shape to find the right surrounding pieces, you had to use the image. It’s part of why the puzzle was so challenging, and why this one was so much fun.

Gorgeous I tell ya, even from the back! I’m a bit sad this one is over and wish there were more shaped Wentworth puzzles here. There’s a 250 piece rectangular Wentworth on the to do “pile”, and the image is great; but I enjoyed the shaped Aimee Stewart puzzles so much and wish there were more here.

There is a gorgeous image of hers that I just found on their site and you won’t believe it – it’s a Christmas puzzle and I LOVE IT! It’s called Gingerbread Manor, check it out. Ain’t it something? I think with that image I would want it in 500 or 1000 pieces. I don’t usually get Wentworths that big, so I may have to start dropping hints about it for my birthday in October. 😎


*For some reason, sometimes my board photographs as if the fabric is orange. It is not, but that’s how it appears in the picture at the top of the page. The remaining two pictures are closer to the actual color of the fabric, but they aren’t the same color either. It has something to do with the angle I hold my phone when taking the picture and the lighting above the board; but that’s as close as I can come to giving an actual explanation.

The Circus Comes to Town

The Circus Comes to Town by Jan Dedman – Mr. Bob Puzzles – 40 pieces

I wish I could tell you that this one was fun, but it actually wasn’t – at least not for me. I’m not even sure why that is, but it’s the truth.

Mr. Bob Puzzles are very good quality, and normally bright, colorful images are exactly my pile of pieces; this image, unfortunately, was not. The quality was excellent, it just wasn’t the right puzzle for me at the time I suppose.

Usually the border isn’t where I start on a puzzle this small, but because there was a band of white around the edge the pieces were easy to find and put together.

I found the whimsy pieces a bit disappointing; they didn’t match the image at all. Australia is always one of the pieces in a Mr. Bob Puzzle, but the other whimsies were just generic forms that I’ve seen before from this brand – and they had nothing to do with the circus. I suppose you could say the teddy bear could be a prize one wins from a game at the circus midway, but otherwise none of them make sense, at least not to me.

Again, I love this brand of puzzle and have developed a wonderful friendship with the founder of the company; and even though this was a very good quality puzzle, I just wasn’t feeling it today.

It has much more to do with me than the puzzle itself.

Aloe You Vera Much

Aloe You Vera Much – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

To all my faithful tens of readers – Aloe You Vera Much! 💕 Isn’t this an adorable puzzle for the “holiday” today? I thought it was. (We don’t actually consider Valentine’s Day a holiday in our house, it’s expected that we treat each other with love and kindness all year long.)

It’s a cute little cartoon image full of succulents; which, by the way, was the extra little gift I got in my subscription box this month…

Absolutely the most unexpected of extras that I’ve ever received with my puzzle subscription, that’s for sure! I don’t know what went into sending these out to all of their subscribers, but it couldn’t have been overly easy. Luckily they didn’t have to worry about keeping them watered while they were in the mail. 🌵

I enjoyed putting this image together, and thought it was the perfect sentiment for today. Happy Valentine’s Day my friends!