Black Sheep Wool Farm

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Black Sheep Wool Farm by Roger Nannini – Ceaco – 300 pieces

Here’s another in the Home Sweet Home series from Ceaco and Roger Nannini, the pieces are thinner and easily bent, but the fit was excellent and the artwork made for a really fun assembly.

I’ve changed my tune about Ceaco puzzles recently, and am more likely to give them a try than I was before. I wish they used better chipboard that doesn’t split and bend so easily; but they have a lot of beautiful images to choose from and the fit is very good.

For some reason I really enjoyed the symmetry of the animals in the foreground. I don’t know that I can really explain why this pleases me, but it does.

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The assembly was a little more challenging than I thought it would be. I started with the sky (that’s my usual starting place), and then assembled all the words. Buildings came next and they were really fun to put together. There were so many trees in the background it added a bit to the difficulty, but it was still a fun assembly all around.

This is a thrift store puzzle that has been assembled many times before, but if you find a newer one I would recommend giving it a try. The artwork makes for a fun puzzle!

Bearsville

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Bearsville by Roger Nannini – Ceaco – 300 pieces

This was a quick, fun puzzle that I put together one afternoon when I needed a puzzle fix in between larger piece count puzzles. It’s part of Ceaco’s Home Sweet Home series by artist Roger Nannini. I found I enjoyed the artwork very much!

Ceaco puzzles aren’t my favorite brand, but to be honest my opinion of them has gone up quite a bit after working with a brand that was much, much worse. Of the 25 puzzles I have assembled this month from 14 different brands, the Ceaco puzzles have been the best fitting of all of them. Shocked? Me too!

It’s interesting to me how a much lesser quality puzzle boosted my impression of Ceaco. Perhaps it just caused me to re-assess what I would and would not put up with in a puzzle. The fit is amazingly important to me – too loose is extremely annoying and frustrating. Too tight is the same way; if it takes upper body strength to smash the pieces together I always second guess if the pieces actually fit together (and it hurts my thumb!)

The pieces are on the thin side, with a good variety of piece shapes – made from multi-layered board that tends to split easily – but the fit is excellent. The image reproduction is good, with beautiful colors and crisp lines. This puzzle has been assembled many times, there is documentation on the side indicating each time it was put together. From what I’m reading it’s been put together at least 11 times before me. You can see in the picture above that many of the pieces were either split or bent and the finished puzzle didn’t lie flat. I don’t feel I can comment negatively on the quality of this specific puzzle if it’s been assembled so many times; I have no idea what it was like when it was new. That said, I actually think it’s held up well.

I enjoyed this puzzle very much, the artwork was interesting and made for a great afternoon of puzzling. I suppose I have more puzzles to choose from now that I’ve re-thought my stance on Ceaco. 😏