Berry Bucket

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Berry Bucket by Jane Maday – Ravensburger – 500 pieces

Berry Bucket was completely entertaining to put together, and the finished image is beautiful! Great quality, the pretty summery artwork, and working together with mom made this an excellent all around assembly.

I worried that the sunflowers would be a frustrating, but surprisingly they were great fun; working from the center outward was the key. The greenery was the most difficult, but didn’t seem tedious or overwhelming at all. It’s just a great puzzle image that made for a wonderful assembly experience.

Jane Maday’s puzzles are so lovely, I need to find more of them!

Review: Viva le Vinyl

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Viva Le Vinyl by Aimee Stewart – Ravensburger – 500 pieces

This bright, entertaining image was great fun to assemble and went together even more quickly than I thought it would. Aimee Stewart’s use of colors makes putting together her puzzles, for me, an absolute joy!

It doesn’t look like it from the picture, but there are a lot of words to assemble. All the background, everything all the records and paraphernalia are sitting on are concert tickets, record covers, notebook pages, etc. Words, words, and more words! You know how much I love that. 🙂

To be honest, this image scared me a little bit, and I put off assembling it for quite a while. I love the artwork of Aimee Stewart so much, but all the black of the vinyl records had me thinking this might not be as fun to assemble as her other images have been for me. As dumb as it sounds, I didn’t want to have a less than awesome experience with one of her puzzles! I shouldn’t have worried, it was great fun and went together so quickly because I couldn’t seem to keep myself from adding just one more piece or finishing just one more section. I loved it!

Details:

  • Title:                  Viva le Vinyl
  • Artist:                Aimee Stewart
  • Brand:               Ravensburger
  • Piece count:     500 pieces
  • Size:                  Approx. 20 x 14 in. (49 x 36 cm)
  • Purchased:      Used, thrift store

Quality:

  • Board:               Excellent
  • Cutting:             Very good
  • Image:               Excellent
  • Box:                   Good, square box
  • Fit:                     Very good
  • Puzzle Dust:     Small amount
  • Piece cut:          Grid cut
  • Piece shapes:   Very good variety
  • Finish:               Slightly shiny finish, lays flat

Overall Rating:      Very good, recommended

Fairytale Fantasia

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Fairytale Fantasia by Aimee Stewart – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

And now we’ve come to the end of the oldies but goodies, this is the last of the puzzles from over 2 years ago that I’ve never posted about. It’s been great fun going back and remembering all these puzzles!

It’s odd to me that I can remember specific things about each of the puzzles from back then, but I can’t tell you how old I am without doing math in my head first. What did I have for lunch yesterday? I have no idea, but I can tell you many things about this puzzle I did about 2 1/2 years ago. Weird old lady brain! 👵

This shelf, for me, was the easiest of the Aimee Stewart shelves that I’ve assembled. Glorious Vintage, Fantastic Voyage, World of Books, etc., these were all much more of a challenge in my opinion. I enjoyed them all, but this was the least difficult; Glorious Vintage required the most brain power, all that green had my head spinning!

For Fairytale Fantastia all the books, the beautiful colors, and the whimsical characters made this puzzle a joy to put together, and one of my favorite shelves by this artist. If I’m being honest, pretty much all puzzles by Aimee Stewart are in the favorites category (except for her Neuschwanstein image, Castle Dream. It’s just not my cup of tea/pile of pieces). 😉

And as usual, the quality of this puzzle was as excellent as the artwork. Ravensburger pieces have a wonderful feel in your hands, the “softclick” technology provides a great fit, and the image reproduction is amazingly done. No wonder they’re one of my favorite puzzle brands!

I wish there were more Aimee Stewart puzzles here at the house that I could dive into; but, alas, I’m Stewart-less at the moment. All this reminiscing has me in the mood for her awesome use of colors and whimsy – and looking at her artwork always makes me a little happier than I was before. ☺

Fantastic Voyage

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Fantastic Voyage by Aimee Stewart – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

Here’s another oldie that I didn’t post about because of the truly horrid picture I took. The vertigo seems to have resolved itself very nicely. 😉

It’s by Aimee Stewart, one of my absolute favorite artists. Fantastic Voyage was pretty challenging, but I enjoyed the journey of it. Her artwork is deceptive; the colors are blended so expertly and the overall look of the image is so beautiful that you don’t think the assembly will be that difficult – but it is. It takes more time than you assume it will, but in my opinion it’s absolutely worth it. It’s a gorgeous puzzle!

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If you haven’t tried an Aimee Stewart puzzle, I urge you to give it a go. They’re stunning, and I’m pretty sure you’ll be glad you did! 🙂

Jungle Friends

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Jungle Friends – Ravensburger – 200 pieces

Even though this puzzle had 2 missing pieces it was still fun to assemble – I had a great time with it actually. 👍

Mom has quite the knack for finding awesome puzzles like this one at the thrift stores. I’m kinda missing all those awesome finds these days, she’s in the process of moving and doesn’t have time to go thrift shopping. (Besides, if she came home with more puzzles I think my dad’s head might explode – they still haven’t finished packing all the ones we already own!)

I enjoy kids puzzles very much, I’m a “grownup” but putting together a kids puzzle makes me just as happy as any adult puzzle ever could. Sometimes it’s not the puzzle, it’s the puzzling. ☺