There is no information about the image on the box, so I don’t know if this is an actual ancient image or something more recent. As a puzzle, it was quite challenging, especially the white background and the hieroglyphs.

This is a painting from ca. 1516 by Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. If I didn’t know how old this painting actually is , I would find it very hard to date, there is something ageless about Bosch.

I was quite pleased with myself for recognizing the scenes on the left (Adam and Eve being thrown out of Paradise), but then I assumed the central piece was some sort of harvest festival. I should have known better, it actually depicts people engaging in various sins, and on the right there is hell, where all the sinning leads to.

By the way, a haywain is a hay wagon – I had to look it up.

I’m back in Dortmund for Easter, and started off with this beautiful puzzle. It’s a woodblock print from 1859 by Japanese artist Hiroshige. The mountain in the background is mount Fuji.

Not the easiest puzzle I’ve ever done, but well worth it for the lovely image. At the end, I had maybe 120 pieces that were all white, but there was a good mix of piece shapes, so that helped.

This turned out to be another all-nighter 🙂 I don’t think I’ve ever done a 1500 puzzle in one sitting before, but it happened with this one. I just took a short pause when I needed to eat. The colours actually look brighter than on this photo, but this was the best I could do ( I tried both artificial and natural light).

This was my third Bluebird Puzzle. The brand is French, but the puzzles are manufactured in Turkey and Poland. I have a bunch of 1000-piece puzzles, all made in Poland. I’ve only done one of those, but that had regular grid cut pieces, while the two others I’ve done (1500 and 3000 pieces) have had very small pieces. This finished puzzle is the size of a 1000-piece puzzle. Here’s a piece from a Schmidt puzzle on the left and one from this one on the right:

I don’t mind the small pieces, although I would appreciate a heads up on the box – now you have to look at the piece count and the size and do the math. Anyway, the quality is nice (both for the Polish and Turkish puzzles), the price is low and there are many nice images, so I’m happy 🙂

I knew this would be difficult, but I can’t remember when I last spent an entire week on one 1000 piece puzzle. The image is a Kandinsky from 1937, and I really like it, but it was so hard. Only the three gridlike squares (top right, middle of the right edge, and bottom left) were reasonably easy, after that all pieces looked pretty much the same 🙂

This was my second Bluebird puzzle. It’s a French brand, but the puzzles are manufactured in various countries. The first I did was made in Turkey, and this one in Poland. The cut is different, this one is much closer to what I would consider a normal grid cut, whereas the first (3K puzzle) that I did somehow was much more “pointy” (you can see closeups in the post about that puzzle, I think you’ll see what I mean). The pieces were also what I would call normal size, whereas the pieces of the 3K puzzle were much smaller than usual. The quality is nice, but not spectacular, but very good value since Bluebird puzzles are far from expensive. You can easily pay more for far worse quality.

I’m definitely doing something easy next!

Finished. This was my first Bluebird Puzzle, and overall my impressions are positive. The brand is based in France, and this puzzle was produced in Turkey. The pieces were much smaller than usual, this 3000 piece puzzle is the same size as a 2000-piece Ravensburger or Heye. There was a good mix of piece shapes, and I don’t think the two-tabs-opposite type was even a majority. The fit was also good (pieces only fit where they belong), but tighter than with Ravensburger or Heye. I enjoyed it, there was this satisfying little sound when I pressed a piece into place, but some probably prefer a looser fit. It did come apart pretty easily.

I wasn’t 100% happy with the image (more on that below), but especially with the low price (less than 20 EUR), it was well worth it. Oh, and the box is no bigger than it needs to be to hold the pieces – I always love that 🙂

I like the book-birds (butterflies?)

Gardening with starlight and a knight.

Love the ice bear, but not happy with the mirror-image titles in the background.

This house was my favourite mini-image.

So, there were a couple of things with the image I wasn’t happy with. The same books appeared multiple times, and some of the time the books in the background were seen as through a mirror. I presume this is due to sloppy photoshopping.

There’s been some discussion in the Jigsaw Puzzle Enthusiasts FB group lately about increased use of  Photoshop (or equivalent software), and not everyone is happy about it. It’s been pointed out that there are suddenly a lot of Parisian street scenes from Ravensburger, with only small differences. Sometimes the exact same elements are repeated. Personally, I thought I didn’t have a problem with this until now, but I think I now have to revise my position a bit. There were some horrible examples in the group, including a flower that ends abruptly (not by Ravensburger).

I still think it’s fine as long as it is done well (it is in the Ravensburger puzzles), and it’s not too noticeable. Based on this experience, I think it becomes noticeable to me when text is repeated, which is why I didn’t like having the same books in the background. Obviously, it’s cheaper to do a small section of background and then just repeat that than making a larger, more varied background, but clearly, this can go too far. I would love to hear what you think!