Next up Forest Cathedral from the new Heye puzzles, part of the Inner Mystic series.
I’m really glad I got this, it’s not my usual style, but I loved it, and I’m definitely getting the other puzzle available in this series. I hope there will be more instalments. For even more great images, here’s the homepage of the artist, Andy Kehoe.
This painting by Kandinsky from 1913 works great as a puzzle, and with Ravensburger quality, it was a joy from start to finish. A good way to start off the year. Towards the end, I was certain I had lost a piece, but I found it in the box, still in the plastic bag.
I have a database with information about my puzzles (past and present) and when I’ve assembled them. This record goes back to October 2007, so that I have a more or less complete record of my puzzling activities for the past 11 years. Here’s a breakdown with number of puzzles completed and pieces placed.
| Year | Puzzles | Pieces |
| 2008 | 23 | 37 000 |
| 2009 | 22 | 33 040 |
| 2010 | 6 | 14 500 |
| 2011 | 12 | 19 500 |
| 2012 | 6 | 22 000 |
| 2013 | 6 | 7 000 |
| 2015 | 6 | 12 000 |
| 2016 | 27 | 35 500 |
| 2017 | 45 | 55 000 |
| 2018 | 75 | 85 659 |
Even though 2014 is missing, I did do some puzzling. I worked on and off on a rather difficult 5000-piece puzzle that I finished in January 2015. From the autumn of 2012 to the spring of 2016 I studied (for a degree in software engineering), and that obviously severely limited the time I had for puzzling. After I completed my degree I’ve been puzzling more and more… I don’t expect I’ll keep it up, though. I will always do some puzzling, but some years I seem to spend all my free time puzzling…
Here’s a breakdown of the year 2018 according to brand:
| Brand | Amount |
| Heye | 16 |
| Ravensburger | 12 |
| Schmidt | 7 |
| Grafika | 6 |
| Castorland | 4 |
| Clementoni | 3 |
| Educa | 3 |
| Piatnik | 3 |
| Tactic | 3 |
| Hope Alderley | 2 |
| Nathan | 2 |
| Peliko | 2 |
| Ricordi Arte | 2 |
| Art Puzzle | 1 |
| Calvendo | 1 |
| Cobble Hill | 1 |
| Eurographics | 1 |
| Falcon | 1 |
| Galison | 1 |
| Play Time | 1 |
| Pomegranate | 1 |
| White Mountain Puzzles | 1 |
| Wild Horse | 1 |
Heye and Ravensburger unsurprisingly well in front of the rest.
One more breakdown, according to piece count:
| Piece count | Amount |
| 1 000 | 39 |
| 500 | 14 |
| 1 500 | 11 |
| 3 000 | 4 |
| 2 000 | 3 |
| 200 | 2 |
| 4 000 | 1 |
| 759 | 1 |
Happy New Year!
I don’t really like puzzle balls, but I am, of course, prepared to make an exception if it says Borussia Dortmund somewhere on it 🙂 This puzzle ball also works as a night light if you take out 4 pieces at the bottom and place it on the light provided (as I have done). You activate it by clapping your hands.
My first puzzle ball was considerably larger, 540 pieces.
Great fun, old James Bond movie posters with Sean Connery and Roger Moore.
I actually did this one once earlier, in May 2017 (no pics from then, though). I did it again partly because I was hoping for a mashup with the previous puzzle, Colourful Ribbons. That didn’t work, unfortunately. While each piece has the same basic shape (same number of pegs pointing in the same direction) as the corresponding piece in the other puzzle, the cut is still different, so that the pieces won’t fit in the other puzzle.
Fun and easy!
I’m back in Dortmund, and the Da Vinci Collage is finally finished. As is often the case, the border was the most difficult part.
UPDATE: There are now further details and spoilers about the series on the dedicated page. There is also an individual spoiler page for this puzzle.
Ravensburger has a new series (currently 3 puzzles) that combines a puzzle and an escape room game. I won’t show the finished puzzle since it’s not quite the same as the image on the box.
The box contains the puzzle, the solution in a sealed envelope and a booklet with instructions.
Then you have a really nice puzzle to complete, and afterwards, you can start looking for tasks to solve in the image… As stated in the instructions, there are 6 mysteries in the picture. The answer is always a number. Finally, you have to put it all together …
There is help online (the QR code in the instructions), and of course the solution in the envelope, and I needed a lot of help. In fact, I wish the help had been more detailed, I wasn’t always certain how I was supposed to get to the correct answer, even when I had the hints and the answer…
Anyway, I really enjoyed this enormously, it would have been lovely as just a normal puzzle, but then I got to save the world as well! With a liiiittle help, of course 🙂 I already ordered another puzzle from the series, and will probably get the third one as well.
UPDATE: Here’s my best shot of the bottom right corner, requested by Cindy:
Hope this helps!
The only good thing about this puzzle was that I paid nothing for it 😀 I bought another puzzle at a flea market, and the seller wanted to get rid of this as well. I don’t blame her.
This unnamed puzzle by Wild Horse (Holland) was of quite poor quality, with thin pieces often fitting where they don’t belong. I almost gave up on the sky, I thought I was hopelessly deadlocked, but the problem was that there were missing pieces. If this had been a 1000 piece puzzle I don’t think I would have finished it. Six missing pieces.
I did the first of Heye’s new puzzles! This one is part of the new Romantic Town-series, where the image is continued over several puzzles, like Degano’s Zoo-series, but the images also work as separate puzzles.
This was one of those puzzles where you do the sky first because it’s the easiest part 🙂 I’ve noticed this with other busy cartoon puzzles as well.
This was OK, but I still like Degano’s Zoo-series more.
Puzzler1909 