Selfies – Part 3

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Selfies by Howard Robinson – Cra-Z

Day three of these adorable, silly, ocean selfies – and honestly I think these may be three with the cutest expressions on their faces. I mean, they just make me smile. Even this morning when I was in a bad mood for no reason whatsoever, I opened up this post to finish writing and saw the faces and now I have a big, goofy smile on my face. Puzzles are so awesome!

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Remember the two clownfish from day one – Bernard and Helen? This is their daughter, Lena. She is a soft-spoken, kind-hearted, sweet gal who is always determined to be happy. Lena works in the business office at Ebb Tide University, and is always thoughtful and supportive of all her students. In her spare time she enjoys working on home renovations with her husband Todd; right now they’re building a small playground in the backyard for their grandchildren. 🐠🐠

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This was one of the most difficult puzzles in this set for me, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I always put the box away and put these puzzles together without the help of the image, so this one had me working a bit harder than I thought I would have to. It was worth it though, look at that smile!

This guy reminds me of the surfer dude turtle in the movie Finding Nemo, and so I have named him Keanu. He’s currently “in between jobs” and spends most of his time hanging out with his friends and having deep philosophical discussions – or perhaps I should say they have what they think are philosophical discussions. Keanu is a kind, well-meaning dude, but he doesn’t always make the best decisions. Just ask his former boss.

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I went and did some research to find out what species this fish was, because I wanted to see if the artist took some license with those lips. He didn’t! Best I can tell, this is a Longhorn Cowfish, and this is definitely what they look like – kissy lips and all. When I first saw it, I laughed out loud at the “ducklips”. Well, the artist didn’t do that, Mother Nature did!

This is Cheryl, and she’s an Instagram model. She thinks she’s gorgeous, and every new follower she gets just reinforces that belief. She’s not fun to be around, as most of the time she’s mentally arranging her next post so that others will tell her how pretty she is – and she will definitely believe them. Cheryl is petty and self-involved, and every “hobby” she has revolves around making herself look good. Cheryl is an idiot.


One more day to go – stay tuned! 😎

Selfies – Part 2

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Selfies by Howard Robinson – Cra-Z-Art – 125/500 pieces

I mean, just look at this picture. You have to be an excellent artist to get the anatomy of a great white shark correct and still make it look friendly! Howard Robinson did an excellent job with each of these underwater animals, and the expressions on some of them are absolute perfection.

Full confession here, both hubby and my youngest son helped me name a few of these selfies. I was making myself laugh while I was getting these posts written up, and they came in to see what was funny. Once I explained that I was giving each little puzzle a name and a backstory they couldn’t help but blurt out name suggestions. I took the good ones. All the rest of the info came from me, but I need to give credit where credit is due. 🙂

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This is Winifred, she’s a white shark -and she’s great! She loves travel and meeting new species – she is definitely NOT a homebody. Winifred knows she can be a bit terrifying when you meet her for the first time, so she’s gotten herself some contact lenses that add a bit of white to her normally jet black eyes. It makes a world of difference! She’s also taught herself to smile so that she only shows her bottom row of teeth which is much less frightening. She’s a sweet, gentle soul who wishes she wasn’t so scary to others, because she would love to have more friends.

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I have no idea what species of fish this is, so again I’m going with what the face looks like to me. This is Lorenzo, and he’s angry. He can’t really decide what he’s angry about today, but he’ll figure something out. If you gave Lorenzo a million dollars he’d complain about the denomination of the bills. If you gifted him a year’s supply of his favorite food, he’d complain about not having a place to store it. He’s rarely happy, and not much fun to be around at all. He likes (enjoys might be going too far) woodworking, refurbishing old furniture, and lip syncing to Lady Gaga songs in the living room. He’s a complicated guy.

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This little beauty is one of my favorites; the colors are lovely, but if I’m being honest – the four human-looking teeth are kinda creepy. And forgive me for saying so, but that smile makes him look like he’s not quite all there. That is why I have christened him Dweezil. Those of you who remember the 80s should get the joke. 😉

Dweezil enjoys pretty much everything. He has a full-time job as a dental floss tester, and in his spare time he builds sand castles. Unfortunately he lives near the North Atlantic Current, and his castles rarely stay up for more than a few seconds. Still, he has fun with it, and isn’t that what really matters? His older sister Moon Unit lives nearby and the whole family gets together for dinner at least once a week.


Intrigued yet? Checking puzzle sites to see if any of these puzzles are currently available? I certainly hope so! 🧩💗

Selfies – Part 1

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Selfies by Howard Robinson- Cra-Z-Art – 125/500 pieces

Another fun and fantastic set of smaller shaped puzzles from Cra-Z-Art. If you hadn’t already figured it out I’ll say it plain as day – I love these puzzles! 💖

Cra-Z-Art, sometimes under the name of Lafayette Puzzle Factory, has many sets of these shaped puzzles, and I find them to be fun to assemble – and perfect for me when I am unable to sit at my puzzle table. I can take a group of pieces and assemble them on trays in bed. Perfect! Each smaller puzzle has a colored backing so that if you prefer you can separate them and assemble each puzzle one by one. Or, if you like, you can disregard the colored backing and assemble them as a regular 500 piece puzzle. Either way they’re extremely entertaining. I’ve assembled them both ways and found them to be engaging, beautiful, and lots of fun!

This set should be called “Underwater Selfies” if you ask me, but who am I to tell a puzzle company what to title their puzzles? According to the box, these are just Selfies. They are all the artwork of Howard Robinson, who is probably best known in the puzzle community for his animal selfies images. They’re all so well done, and adorable – very hard to resist in my opinion.

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Meet Bernard and Helen. They’ve been together for a while, and you can tell. Helen is the one on the left nearer the top, and Bernard is the grouchy looking one on the right, closer to the bottom. Bernard is the manager at a food mart selling algae, plankton, and small crustaceans; and Helen is a renowned artist. At the moment, Bernard is cranky because Helen spent the day watching her shows and celebrating the moments of her life with several cups of International Foods French Vanilla coffee. They’re having a tiff at the moment, we should politely back away and leave them be.

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I have no idea what species of fish this is, so his name comes from my impression of his countenance; to me there seems to be a youthful look about him. His name is Timmy. Timmy is still in school, but he’s planning on graduating next year if all goes well. He has a part time job after school delivering meals to local shut-ins and he also likes to help his mom making dinner every night. He plans on attending the Cordon Bluefin Culinary School after graduation and becoming a chef. Timmy has plans – big plans!

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This is Dakota, she’s the oldest of three girls. She’s a professional cheerleader for the local water polo team, and in her spare time she likes to watch makeup tutorials on YouTube and try out the lessons on her friends and younger sisters – Daniella and Dorinda. Her aim is to be a professional makeup artist (although between you and me, she unfortunately isn’t very good at it). Here’s hoping she finds a career path that’s a little better suited to her. Perhaps a trainer at the local pilates studio? Who knows!

These underwater selfies were lots of fun to put together, and I highly recommend giving any of these sets a try if you haven’t already. They’re good quality, with beautiful artwork, and most especially they’re enjoyable to assemble. 🐬

Birds – Part 5

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Birds – Lafayette Puzzle Factory (Cra-Z-Art) – 100/500 pieces

The final part of the series of Bird puzzles from Lafayette Puzzle Factory/Cra-Z-Art – they’re fun to assemble and pretty to look at! I enjoy these small shaped puzzles so very much, I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at them too. 🙂

There are still four more new sets that I haven’t done yet, but for right now I can’t find them, because while I was sleeping one day my husband decided that he was going to give me a larger set of shelves in the puzzle room. He took all my puzzles, piles of puzzles, and everything else and put them all together in an order he thought was best.

I know he was trying to be kind and thoughtful, and while I do appreciate the sentiment …… I would very much like to hurt him. A lot. Honest and truly. A LOT. He’s extremely lucky that I love him. So very lucky. 😡

Anyway, back to the birdies!

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Chickadee

Chastity the Chickadee. For some reason that name makes me laugh. 🙂

The picture of all three birds shows the large difference in size between some of these puzzles – there are much fewer pieces to this small puzzle than in the next one. I find it refreshing that they’re not all the same size or piece count. At least it isn’t boring to put them together.

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Blue Jay

This beautiful bird seems more feminine to me, so I have named her Bernadette the Blue Jay. Bernie for short. The color is so striking, I wish more of the bird’s back was shown so that there was more of that gorgeous blue for us to see! The slightly orange color on the breast is quite pretty in it’s own right, this bird is one of my favorites.

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Common Yellowthroat

What a sad name – Common Yellowthroat. If someone called me a “common Stacey” they would NOT have a good day. I’m just sayin’. Since the species says she’s common, I have given her a fabulous name – Countessa the (not so) Common Yellowthroat.

I had a really good time assembling these puzzles, and I had to stop myself from giving them all backstories even though I said they didn’t have enough personality to inspire me. Once I gave them names the whole backstory just popped into my head, I made up the personalities I wanted them to have. Perhaps I should stop puzzling and try my hand at writing the great American novel.

Or, perhaps, I should stick to my beloved puzzles and just let myself be silly and crazy once in a while with these smaller shaped puzzle sets. That’s probably for the best. 😉

Birds – Part 4

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Birds – Lafayette Puzzle Factory (Cra-Z-Art) – 100/500 pieces

This is the brightest, prettiest group of birds so far – the colors are beautiful! If there was one thing I didn’t like about this set of puzzles it would be that they all seem a bit duller than they should. That’s only my opinion, of course. But there’s something less bright and cheerful about this set to me. Perhaps it’s all in my head, that could very well be. We all know it’s a rough neighborhood to live, my head. Yikes.

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Red Cardinal

Meet Ralph the Red Cardinal. He looks like a fun guy. When I was putting this bird together the color of the tail threw me off, it seemed much too dull to be part of this smaller puzzle. I assembled all of these puzzles without the aid of the box images, so at first I wondered if it was a branch that the bird was sitting on. The color seemed so deep and different from the body of the bird. Of course, once you follow the shapes and put everything together you see where it all fits.

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American Goldfinch

This is Aunt Gertie the American Goldfinch. She looks like the nice, fun aunt who lets you get away with stuff your parents would never allow. I like Aunt Gertie.

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Tree Swallow

This bird looks a little cranky to me, I’m not sure why. It looks like if I needed something I’d better think twice before asking this guy for help. His name is Tremaine. He will give you everything he has and will always help, but you’d better be sure you know what’s going on before you involve him. 😉

These birds with the duller back-ends and undersides took a little longer to put together than I thought they would. If you’re not using a picture to help guide your assembly sometimes where pieces should go and how they fit together isn’t readily apparent at first. At least that’s how it was for me. You look at them and think that it should be a quick assembly, that wasn’t always the case for me.

Whether they went quickly or a little more slowly, they were all still enjoyable and entertaining – and that’s the whole point of this wonderful hobby we call jigsaw puzzling. 🧩