I’ve been in Dortmund for the weekend but didn’t feel like working on Epanouissement coloré right now, so I pulled out a fun and easy 500-piece puzzle instead. This was just what I needed, nice colours and not too challenging.
Lovely collage with colourful owls. This was very enjoyable.
A map of Great Britain and Ireland, with some information about Oxford University on the left. I prefer maps of individual countries to world maps, usually, perhaps because I’ve done so many world maps. This was nice, although the actual map part was quite difficult.
Not the most exciting image for a puzzle, but it is kind of interesting. Most promotional puzzles are a lot smaller than 500 pieces, and they’re typically not quality puzzles, but this is a genuine Ravensburger! Which is why I bought it, of course. Makes me think there must have been a puzzler in the marketing department 🙂
I think the puzzle is from the 80s, and the image shows the factory of Finnish furniture manufacturer/chain of furniture stores Asko. It was factory (heh) sealed. The factory is located in Lahti, and the sliver of dark blue between the sky and the city is lake Vesijärvi, which would have made a much prettier puzzle 🙂
I have some furniture from Asko, and they’re good, solid pieces. I don’t know if it’s true, but I once heard a story that Asko wanted to open a store in Spain. Apparently, no one told them that “asco” is “disgust” in Spanish, and somehow, the store never quite caught on…
I loved this, it was great from start to finish! It was also quite easy to pick out the pieces for the different hearts. My favourite is the black and yellow, of course. I’m definitely keeping this to do again later.
I got this from a large flea market in Hämeenlinna, where you can rent a table and put up your stuff, but you don’t have to stand there yourself, they have a joint cashier where customers pay. This place is huge, so I can’t say for certain that it was exactly the same table, but I’ve picked up quite a few puzzles on different trips in the same area, and I think it’s the same seller. The puzzles are always in good condition, and the pieces are in a ziplock bag in the box. Too bad it’s 100 km from where I live. Then again, on second thought, perhaps it’s just as well 🙂
I rarely buy children’s puzzles, but occasionally I get some when someone sells puzzles as a bundle. This puzzle features Tatu and Patu, who are the protagonists in a popular series of children’s books in Finland. In fact, only one of them is present in the actual puzzle, and he seems to be having a restless night.
In the top left-hand corner, you can see both Tatu and Patu. I’ve actually read some of the Tatu and Patu books (to my brother’s children), and they are pretty entertaining.
He was reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.
On the other side of the puzzle, there’s “the world’s most boring bedtime story”. I had to use two pieces of cardboard to flip the puzzle and ended up redoing part of it anyway, the fit is definitely not tight. I read the story, it’s about someone called Silverhair, who goes into the woods to pick blueberries and ends up at a house belonging to some bears. He deliberates endlessly whether to eat some of the porridge he finds already served at the table and how much money he should leave for it and so on. Eventually, he makes himself a cheese sandwich instead, leaves two euros for the bears and goes home. The end.
I started on the Heye hearts-puzzle, and I’m loving it! There’s even a heart in my favourite colours, black and yellow, so obviously I did that one first. Then on to the edges.
I finally managed to finish this, but I almost gave up. There were 200+ pieces of the background where the image was no help, and unfortunately pieces would also fit where they didn’t belong. It happened several times that I had tried all remaining pieces for a spot, only to find that the only one that would fit was a piece I had already placed elsewhere, and the piece looked fine in the original spot, too. I recently talked with a puzzler who told me she enjoys this, as an extra challenge, but I must say I hate it! Tactic has been a bit hit and miss, and this was probably the worst I’ve done so far.
As you probably know, I’m desperately in need of more puzzles 😀 Which is why I again trawled the flea markets of southern Finland and came up with these. I’m especially happy with the Heye hearts-puzzle, I’ve been wanting to try one of those, and I also love the 1000 piece Clementoni.
Art Puzzle is a Turkish brand, and the quality turned out to be good, with a glossy finish. Great news, because they’re also quite cheap! The pieces are a bit smaller than usual, but not by much.
I really like Karla Gerard’s colourful villages, they make great puzzles, although sometimes the trees can be difficult. Not here, though, this was nice from start to finish. Also, I seem to have finished this on my 50th birthday 🙂
Puzzler1909 