Color Garden

Color Garden – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

This puzzle has an awesome image with blocks of color that I very much enjoyed assembling. This is the companion puzzle to Abstract Love that I posted about previously – there is a line drawing on the back of this one as well for you to color in with the paints provided in the subscription box for that month.

Again, for me, choosing which colors to put where and making certain that I didn’t mess anything up would have been stressful for me – so I chose to only assemble the puzzle.

If you were unsure about whether or not you placed a piece correctly on the front you could also use the line drawing on the back to make sure you had it right; which is handy when assembling the puzzle in a place with less than optimal lighting. 🛀

With my daughter really getting into these mini puzzles and working on them whenever she’s here they’ve been going rather quickly; at this rate I’ll be running out of them before too long – even with my subscription. That’s alright, we can always get more. I love that she wants to help me with them. 💛

Casual Friday

Casual Friday – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

Loved this puzzle – and as an added bonus – I was helped along by both my daughter and my hubby! Hubs put together the border (part of it was wrong but that’s ok, I put it right eventually); and my daughter put together the dark blue shirt. I know that’s only a few pieces, but it counts and I loved that she helped. She also helped me choose this puzzle to assemble before we started, it was her favorite of all the MicroPuzzles here to choose from.

This would be a great puzzle in a larger piece count, the colors and patterns on each shirt were quite fun to sort out and put together.

My brain isn’t working this morning, so there’s isn’t much more I can think of to say about this little puzzle – other than that I still love working with the little pieces, and there’s something so satisfying about completing a MicroPuzzle for me.

Burn It & Outback Footy

Burn It & Outback Footy by Sue Janson – Mr. Bob Puzzles – 40 pieces

I love both of these images, although I think the Outback Footy side might be a bit of a challenge in a larger piece count – there’s a lot of brown in that one. This is another of the acrylic puzzles from Mr. Bob that I was sent to try out, and I loved both of them!

I wanted to assemble and write up a post about this as soon as possible so I wouldn’t forget to tell y’all something that had completely slipped my mind. While cleaning out my old emails and reading through some of them I came across a request Mr. Bob had for me regarding these acrylic puzzles – he asked me to run them through the dishwasher! 🧼

The puzzle you see above has been through a cycle of my dishwasher, and it emerged completely unscathed! This was buried in my old lady brain, I didn’t remember it at all until I was going through my emails. Mr. Bob wanted to show that these puzzles would last a lifetime, and through whatever punishment a person could throw at it. He told me he’d put one of the puzzles through a cycle of his washing machine (for clothes) and it came through with flying colors.

When I asked him if there were any other tortures he wanted me to inflict on these little beauties – in the name of puzzle science, of course – he asked if we had a cement mixer available! 🤣

It’s too bad they don’t seem to be going forward with their acrylic line, I think they’d have been excellent puzzles. They certainly would last for more than a lifetime.

After assembling this puzzle I did suggest that if they were going to produce the acrylic puzzles that it may be better to only make shapes with the whimsy pieces and not cut the extra lines into them. You can see from the pictures above and below that the extra lines cut into them make it more difficult to see the image underneath – at least that’s how it was for these aging eyes.

It would have been better to turn these over to the “Burn It” side so you could see in the milkshake that it’s more difficult to read the words underneath. But you can still see that the extra lines distort the image. If you can’t tell from the image at the top of the page, the sign on the ice cream cart says “Burn It to Earn It” – you gotta chase it to taste it apparently. That way you can burn off some calories before you take in more. 🍦🏃‍♀️

I had a wonderful time trying out these puzzles – love that you get two for the price of one, and appreciate just how sturdy and long-lasting they truly are.

*And I’m a little sad that I didn’t get the chance to try one of the larger 500 piece acrylic puzzles that they were working on. Mr. Bob was going to send me one to review – that would have been an amazing puzzle to assemble!*

Abstract Love

Abstract Love – MicroPuzzles – 150 pieces

The blocks and shapes of color in this image made for such a fun assembly – absolutely loved this one! As an added bonus my daughter helped me finish this one when she came to spend some time with me following my surgery, puzzling with my loved ones always makes me happy. 💕

I was about halfway through the assembly before I realized that the image spells out “love” in an abstract way – well done Captain Obvious. Sigh.

This is one of the puzzles that came in my subscription box from MicroPuzzles in the summer of last year, Both puzzles are double-sided, and the reverse side is a line drawing of the color image on the front. The surprise gift in the box was a small set of paints, two small paintbrushes, and an easel to display your artwork once it’s been painted. So fun!

I didn’t paint anything, as you can see. I’m too much of a perfectionist, and deciding what color goes where and making sure I didn’t mess things up would be too much stress for me. My decision was to just enjoy the puzzle itself and forego the painting.

These mini puzzles are quite small, in this review of Stained Glass Tree you can see how small they are with something next to the completed puzzle for reference. I know that these little ones aren’t for everyone, but if they look like something you might enjoy they are highly recommended.

Even with my aging eyes I can still see well enough to work with these little pieces, and there’s something about putting the small puzzles together that is so satisfying. Can’t wait for this month’s subscription box to see what’s next!

Peanuts – Day 4

Peanuts by Charles Schulz – RoseArt – approx. 125/500 pieces

On our last day of the Peanuts puzzles we have Linus and his security blanket (felt a kinship with him as I was a thumb sucker for a little bit too long as well), Snoopy again, and my most favorite of the Peanut characters – Pig-pen. I was a tomboy who spent her days climbing trees, digging in the ground and in general having as much fun and getting as dirty as possible. I hated having to take a bath or shower at the end of the day and one of my parents’ nicknames for me was Pig-pen. 😎

I hate having to say over and over that this set of puzzles disappointed me, but not everyone reads every post and I feel obligated to say that although I’ve always been happy with the quality of these RoseArt/Lafayette Puzzle Factory sets – this one was different. The fit wasn’t good, the chipboard was too thin, and there were one or two missing pieces. *I can’t really be sure about the missing piece count because these are shaped puzzles and it could be one larger or two smaller pieces missing.*

In general, these puzzles sets are great for when you don’t have much time or space to puzzle; you can use the colored backing to sort the pieces and just grab one color and start assembling one small puzzle at a time. I love them, they’re great when I’m feeling anxious about sorting or starting a larger piece count puzzle; I can just grab this “500 piece puzzle” and put together each little one without worrying about anything else.

Specifically though, this Peanuts set was less than optimal quality, and unfortunately I wouldn’t recommend them. I wish this set had been more entertaining to assemble, but it just wasn’t.

I really did want to enjoy it. 😢