Blooming Books by Ben Giles – Galison – 750 pieces

This puzzle was both a joy and a pain to assemble, but in the end it felt like an accomplishment to finish it and I was pretty proud of myself for not giving up. This was a gift (who from I do not remember) so of course I wanted to assemble it – if someone takes the time to pick out a puzzle for me, it is always appreciated, even if it’s a brand I don’t care for or an image I wouldn’t pick out for myself. Whoever gifted me this puzzle, thank you!

Galison is a brand that I don’t buy, new or used – for three reasons. First, their lack of variety in piece shape; their regular puzzles only have ballerina pieces (two male/two female ends), it’s boring to work with only one shape and when there are large areas of one color or pattern it makes assembly much more frustrating and difficult. Second, I’m a very tactile person and I don’t care for the “sharp” white backing they use on their chipboard, I don’t like the feel of it in my hands. Third, and most importantly for me, I had a terrible experience with Galison a while back and their customer service (or lack thereof) was almost non-existent. It really ticked me off, and I made a post called No More Galison Puzzles For Me…Ever.

But like I said in the beginning, this was a gift, and even though it’s been sitting in my house for years I wanted to finally assemble it and send it on to the thrift store – I need the room on my puzzle shelves! One good thing about Galison is that their shaped puzzles are truly a random cut, and it makes for a much more interesting assembly. I was actually looking forward to this one.

The pieces were quite thick and the fit was very good. Those are all the pros for this puzzle, unfortunately.

Most people don’t start with the edges on a shaped puzzle, but I do. I can usually find most or all of the edges and it helps me to begin where I normally do with a rectangular puzzle. Unfortunately the edge pieces didn’t always connect which made me have to revise my plan for the assembly. What I ended up doing was work on the border until I got to a place where the pieces just sat next to each other and then I stopped and went through all the pieces until I found enough inside ones to keep that section of the edge together; then I continued with the next part of the frame. It went on this way until the border was complete, and amazingly it wasn’t as frustrating as I thought it would be.

I’ve been much more laid back lately about how I assemble puzzles, just letting my weird brain take me where it wants to go. It’s been good, and I think that helped me with this assembly. I thought I knew how it was going to go, but had to take a detour and figure out another way to get to the end. It didn’t cause me anxiety or upset, I just went with it and it was nice.

You can see from this closeup that the image reproduction was not good on this puzzle, the flowers and butterflies looked like a a bad copy from an old mimeograph machine. On the poster included with the puzzle, however, although the flowers look like they were pasted onto the image of the books, they do not look pixelated like they do on the actual puzzle. It seems as though it’s just a bad reproduction.

Interestingly, I still enjoyed working on this puzzle. I took my time, let the puzzle take me where it wanted to go, and let myself appreciate the ride when I could.