Play Room by Mark Gregory – Vermont Christmas Company – 100 pieces
This puzzle has beautiful artwork and exceptional quality. If you’re looking to buy a puzzle for a child, this brand is highly recommended.
Reminds me of my youngest son, he adored trains when he was little. As a child with autism, he loved lining things up – which is easy to do with the cars of a train. Then he’d lay his head on the floor and move the train to watch the wheels turn. I cannot count the number of hours he spent doing that. This brings back a lot of mommy memories. And smiles.
This is one thing that was NEVER allowed in the playroom/bedroom! No paints without momma supervising. Ever. And when they weren’t being used, they were in mom’s bedroom on a high shelf. The last thing we needed was bright colors stained into the carpeting.
I Love the 1980s by Charlie Girard – White Mountain – 1000 pieces
It’s so sad that this puzzle wasn’t any fun. I mean, just look at it, a jumble of different images, no cottages or kittens, no landscape, no brush strokes, it didn’t have 200 sky-colored pieces – what a colossal disappointment…. NOT!
OF COURSE I LOVED THIS PUZZLE! It’s everything a growing girl needs; a collage with bright colors, interesting images, a fun theme, it’s all there. 🙂
This puzzle had been assembled by several people before it got to me, but was still in great shape. White Mountain puzzles can sometimes be hit or miss, but this one was very good quality. And they have some of the very best collages around, so even if they quality disappoints a little with one puzzle, I’m always willing to take the chance with another. I’m a collage junkie.
I’ve been reminiscing about the 80s quite a bit lately, and if you’re sick of hearing about it you should move on with your daily routine and stop reading this immediately, because there’s going to be a lot more reminiscing here today. This puzzle is titled I Love the 1980’s, and I did. I still do. It’s more fun for me to think about the 80s right now then spend too much time worrying about this bleeped-up world we’re living in today. JMHO of course.
I remember every single thing shown in this collage. I haven’t seen every television show or movie, didn’t own every one of the toys, or listen to all of the music – but I remember each one. The Police, for example – not my cuppa, as we say. I was a cheerleader (insert laughter and groans here) and there were some older “mean girls” on the squad who tried and very often succeeded in making my life miserable. They LOVED The Police; always listening to them and talking about them during practices and bus rides. So my teenage brain decided that if those b*tches thought they were great, that this band definitely wasn’t worth my time. Therefore – (sorry Sting) – I never purchased or listened to any of their music. I didn’t buy the album shown here, but I definitely remember it.
I remember all of it, but have chosen just three sections to show and talk about. Otherwise I’ll sit here all day with my 80s mall hair and neon pink and green earrings like, totally going on and on. Barf me out! Gag me with a spoon!
I loved Cyndi Lauper – still do. People who express themselves in their own way despite what others think of them are awesome in my book, and Cyndi is one of those people. Her music was upbeat and fun, sometimes thoughtful and haunting and beautiful, love it! Plus, I kinda had that hairdo for a while. LOL It wasn’t bright red, or quite that long, but it WAS shaved close on one side and a little wild. 😉
Pop rocks are just plain fun in my book, even now as a gray-haired old lady. I never believed the whole “if you eat pop rocks and drink Coke you’ll explode” crap, but it was hilarious to listen to, that’s for sure. My mom loved Pop Rocks too, and I remember being very selective about what candy I would buy with my allowance – Pop Rocks usually made the cut and I always shared them with mom.
I chose this section of the puzzle because even though I’ve never seen an episode of this show, it was HUGE in the 80s and the cliffhanger at the end of that one season was the topic of conversation for the entire summer. Seeing this makes me miss the cliffhangers at the season’s end of a show. Did they die? Is that character killed off? Who did that? You don’t really see that much these days. There are too many shows and no real seasons anymore.
Forty years ago at the end of the season, a gloved hand was shown shooting J.R. Ewing, the show’s main character and villain; fade to black. Who shot him? Will he live? What’s going to happen? Because at the time there were pretty much only three networks on tv, everyone knew about it and it was the topic of conversation the whole summer. It was a huge deal. HUGE. Seriously, it was in the paper, serious news shows talked about, it was on the cover of Time magazine for goodness sake!
Can you think of a show on now that would garner the same sort of attention? I can’t. Our viewing options number in the hundreds, perhaps thousands every day. Too many shows, no real seasons anymore, too much going on. I remember being thrilled to watch the last episode of the season for my shows, because most of the time there was a cliffhanger – so exciting! And then we had to wait all summer until the new season started again to find out what happened. I miss that shared experience and excitement.
I could talk about, at length, pretty much everything shown on this collage. However, that would make for a ridiculously long post and you would all get bored eventually. Feel free to discuss or ask me anything in the comments if you’d like, perhaps we can continue our 80s discussions there. 😉
Well? Does he? As the pet parent of a Boston Terrier I can tell you that this look says “Why are you doing this to me? Can we please get this stupid picture over with?” So the title I’ve given this silly, sweet puzzle has been shortened from what it is in my mind. When I look at it, what I hear in my head is “Do I Look Freakin’ Merry to You?”.
This is the second – and last – Christmas puzzle I assembled for Christmas in July. I normally try to do a few Christmas puzzles every July, but I just wasn’t feeling it this year. But the fact that this adorable image is a Boston Terrier and that it was only 100 pieces made the decision pretty easy. This is my kind of Christmas image!
Brother Sister Design Studio is a brand/trademark of Hobby Lobby. As I don’t shop there for personal reasons, this is the first puzzle from this brand that I’ve assembled. For a store brand it was better quality that I thought it would be – I would characterize the quality as good. Although as I’ve only assembled this one puzzle I cannot make a final determination on the brand’s overall quality.
I enjoyed the assembly very much, mostly because of the adorable image; and I was surprised by the detail you could make out in the reflection from the dog’s eye…
You can see the room where the picture was taken in this reflection! It jumped out at me while I was assembling the eyes, so I had to take a closeup to show you. The image reproduction was the best part of the quality in my opinion, although the finish was quite shiny and made assembling the darker parts a little more difficult under the artificial lighting at my puzzle table.
So, as this pup would probably say, “Happy freakin’ Christmas in July.” 🎅
This is another puzzle that I have named (with a little help), because there is no title on the box anywhere. After some discussion with my puzzle pal Penny we have decided to name this one after the characters in a silly Ray Stevens song “It’s Me Again Margaret”. Willard & Margaret. I just love the sound of their names; and the names absolutely do NOT seem like the right ones for these pups, which makes the title even more funny to me. 😁
Re-marks has a large catalog of puzzles to choose from, and I find that because many of the images are ones I enjoy assembling I am willing to overlook some quality issues that come up from time to time. I have had the odd problem here and there, but overall I find their puzzles to be good/very good quality. The pieces are a good thickness with a very good variety of shapes that fit together well (although sometimes loosely). The image reproduction is very good as well, with beautiful colors and sharp lines.
The quality of these smaller 100 piece puzzles from Re-marks is very good, and reminds me of a White Mountain puzzle in both the quality of the chipboard used and the shapes of the pieces. They fit together well and I’ve seen no image lift on any of the pieces even though this is a second-hand puzzle. They’re fun to assemble too, and the images makes me smile – they’re both silly and entertaining to put together. 🙂
It is always my intention to be objective, although I freely admit that I am not perfect. I do try to remind the readers that all reviews are basically subjective; it is my impression and opinions about the puzzle I am assembling, nothing more. Take every review with a grain of salt – ultimately you have to decide for yourself which aspects of a puzzle’s quality are most important to you. I’m just trying to provide my perspective in the hopes that it might help you decide which puzzles you do or do not wish to try.
This was such a fun puzzle, with absolutely beautiful artwork by Steve Read. It’s been on my shelf for quite a long time, I’m not even sure how long. While looking for a puzzle with less than 1000 pieces I spotted this one way in the back; thank goodness!
Quality-wise, this puzzle was only good/fair. The fit was pretty loose, which is always a bit disappointing. But, as a whole it was still entertaining to put together, that is more than half the battle! The artwork by Steve Read is stunning, and I’m kicking myself for not getting a good closeup picture of the fairies’ faces – they are absolutely gorgeous!
There are 22 fairies in total for you to find, some of them took me quite a while to locate. If you’re not paying attention this fairy hidden in the toadstool is easy to pass over. Of course you’re seeing it right away – I’m showing you right where it is! 😉
This fairy wasn’t too difficult to find, but it did take me a little longer than I’d like to admit. My glasses needed to be cleaned. I’m not old. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I got a really great glow in the dark picture with this one, which surprised me. This puzzle has been on the shelf for at least 2 years, possibly more. I was pretty sure that the chemical that makes it glow would have petered out, but this puzzle produced an awesome picture.
I don’t usually get such good glow images, so this one really pleased me. I love a good glow in the dark picture!
My Jigsaw Journal 