I agree, love the image on "Sunset Barn." Do you know who the makers are of these puzzles?
For us, if we like some of the images and quality, then we seek out that same brand if we can find it - still used, of course!
Printable View
I agree, love the image on "Sunset Barn." Do you know who the makers are of these puzzles?
For us, if we like some of the images and quality, then we seek out that same brand if we can find it - still used, of course!
Saw some nice 1000 piece puzzles in the Five Below near me. I haven't bought one yet, so don't know the quality of the pieces, but the pictures were nice. Actually did some cleaning on the games shelf and found a puzzle I hadn't done yet. May start it soon... not sure. Need to declutter some stuff for a donation pickup.
Lainey, the maker of the Sunset Barn puzzle is SunsOut. I have found that this company makes the largest variety of the kind of images/puzzles that I like. But I've had a number of problems with some of their puzzles......occasional missing pieces, poorly cut pieces, etc. I found out that they use various different cutters and it seems their quality can vary. But I do love the images they offer. I've done several from Cobble Hill and they are extremely well made. There are several pretty reputable puzzle companies out there. Unfortunately, a lot depends on the cutters they use. But I have found that most companies are very good about standing behind their stuff. Lots of people just get mad and throw out a bad puzzle......but I've always communicated with the companies and they have tried to make things right. Unfortunately, I buy a lot of puzzles made in the past, and they get rid of their patterns/dies, after a certain length of time, so they can't send you a new one. And even if you have missing pieces and buy another copy of it (like from eBay), they are not all cut the same, so chances are good another piece won't fit the same hole. I've tried to make my own pieces that were missing, but it's pretty hard to duplicate the colors.
Haha.....forgive me. I'm rather deep into puzzling. haha DH says I should write a book on it.
The one I'm working on now is made by Springbok. It's an image of pumpkins and gourds. I bought it some time ago and just started to put it together. But I read reviews on it, and a lot of them said bad things about it......one person had 15 missing pieces, and many others complained of the pieces being poorly cut. When I first started it, I found so many pieces with bad/ragged edges, I almost gave up. Then I started to get into it, and discovered that if I smoothed the edges with an emory board, most of the pieces did fine. I'm sure lots of people wouldn't want to put in that much effort......but I'm maybe too persistent. haha (or maybe just OCD?)
I love images that "glow". I continue to find it incredible that people can actually draw this stuff. I can't even draw good stick figures.
I guess I'm not being very environmentally friendly by always buying new, but part of that is because you never know if all the pieces are there in used stuff, but the biggest thing for me is the ick factor of the cooties on the pieces. But that's my problem... At least these puzzles and their boxes are very biodegradable. Most all use soy ink.
I could talk forever about puzzles. :~) But I also have lots of other things in my life that I do, in between the puzzles. :)
Other names of reputable companies are: Buffalo Games, Ravensburger, White Mountain, Masterpieces, Ceaco. Like I said though, so much of how "good" it is, comes from the quality of their various cutters.
I thought a Fall one would be good. I like changing out the one hanging in our entranceway, depending on the season.
Attachment 2424
Here's another one I did. I love the artwork of Terry Doughty. You must think all I do is puzzles. haha Actually, I get a lot of other stuff done. I just do the puzzles in-between the other stuff. But......I could possibly spend more time on housework. haha
All of these puzzles definitely look better from a distance. What I really liked about this one, was the very interesting shapes of the pieces. They fit in ways you wouldn't expect.
Attachment 2441
I've done several since that last one. I have no idea why I love doing these so much.......but I do!
Attachment 2653
Attachment 2654
Attachment 2655
Attachment 2656
I've realized I like nature scenes mixed in with some people. Seems to be a bit easier for me to do.
btw, one of our local libraries has started a "puzzle swap." For an hour on a Saturday each month you can trade up to 5 puzzles. I didn't attend that one, but I'm hoping to check out future swaps. Of course, I have to get the okay of my SO/puzzle hoarder first.
Hi Lainey. I guess I'm weird, 'cause I don't like people in my puzzles. I'm pushing it even when there's a broken down tractor in any of them. haha
I guess I just like nature......plain and simple. A couple of mine had people in them, but it didn't seem to hurt to image. haha
Good luck at the puzzle swap.
Well, I'm a puzzle addict for sure. Since I have so much body pain, I guess it's nice to just sit without pain and "accomplish" something.
I've done several recently. Here are the last 2. I really love the quail one.
Attachment 2697
Attachment 2698
This is one of the tougher puzzles I've every done. 750 pieces, no edges, with 5 "extra" pieces.
Attachment 2705
Wow........that does look hard, especially with the pieces (I think) being all the same shape and no edges. I've never done one with no edge pieces. Funny, there are extra pieces. I wonder if someone else is missing those exact pieces?
Maybe they are spares, in case you lose any. haha What company was it made by? I definitely prefer puzzle pieces to have random shapes. Sure can make it easier. Good job, happystuff!
Hi CathyA - it is called Impossibles by Bepuzzled. And the five extra pieces are actually advertised on the box - LOL. Part of the challenge, I guess.
LOL.......so the extra pieces are to make it even harder. haha Maybe I've said this before, but I've heard of some people requesting that a puzzle be sent without any image of what it's supposed to look like, so that's a much bigger challenge. Wow....not sure I'd like that.
I've never heard of that! I'm not sure I could do a no-image puzzle. Maybe a small one to try it out?!?! LOL
Yeah, maybe something like 15 pieces. :~) I have to say, over the years, I've gotten more into not looking at the image on the box, but most of the time I just go by shape and color. I'm a real "shape" person, which is why I like puzzle pieces to be all different shapes. I think more puzzle companies are getting into that. Have you ever done a wooden puzzle? Most of them have interesting pieces of objects in them.......a dog, a tree, etc. They are a different kind of fun.
We're doing a panoramic puzzle now - 3 feet wide. Not our usual either, but since it was on sale for .99 it's cheap entertainment!
Hi Lainey. I've done a couple of those.........one with quail overlooking a farm in the evening, one of ducks, and I still have one I haven't done yet of a fence line of different birds. I like those because you don't have to reach very far to get to the top. :) What's yours of?
One of the only puzzles I still keep is a panoramic 1000 "mini" puzzle. LOL. Someday I'll pull it out again. Right now I'm working on a city-scape of Guanajuato, Mexico. Pretty nice and much easier than the golf clubs - lol.
It's a lineup of different birds. Birds that would not be together in nature, but look make a pretty scene.Quote:
Originally Posted by CathyA
Haha.....I think it's one that I have, but haven't put it together yet. There are some puzzles of birds I'd sort of like to get, but if they have sort of "unnatural" settings, I don't like it. Like there's a couple of ones with birds on a birdhouse that would never be in that setting. I guess, for the most part, the image has to make sense to me. And I don't like photographs that are made into puzzles. I don't know why. I just prefer painted images. I hate it when I love 99% of the image, but then they put one thing in there that's sort of out-of-place, so I can't get it. There was one puzzle of a nighttime scene, I think of a farm. In the tree was an owl (brown), and then a sort of light grey owl right next to it. I like the artist, but I thought it was pretty stupid of him to do that. Then I started to realize that it was a Halloween-spooky-type puzzle and that light owl was a ghost owl. hahaQuote:
Originally Posted by Lainey
And this is the last puzzle I mentioned... cityscape in Mexico. Attachment 2725
No more puzzles left in the house, though, so on to something else until I get a new one. LOL.
Just finished "Brown's General Store", a Buffalo brand puzzle. It was both fun and fun to look at, so we haven't taken it apart yet.
Here's a link to it:
https://buffalogames.com/aimee-stewa...jigsaw-puzzle/
I like this style, which is under their Aimee Stewart collection.
Wow happystuff........that's a great image! Was it really hard?
Lainey.....that looks hard too! I guess I choose mostly nature puzzles, that aren't too busy (since I have a simple mind.....haha).
Here are several that I have done lately. funny thing..........I began a rural image puzzle of wild turkeys. right after I started it, I looked out my window and there was a hen turkey in our drive!! I've seen in in the past, about 1-2 times/year, but it was really weird to have it show up in our drive right when I started this turkey Puzzle! I'll post that puzzle later when I'm done with it.
Here's the newest ones I've finished:
Attachment 2756
Attachment 2757
Attachment 2758
Attachment 2759
And here's a pic of that turkey in our driveway.
Attachment 2760
My newest. I love Cobble Hill puzzles. They are real quality puzzles and I love all the different puzzle piece shapes. And I've never had a missing piece from them!
This one was fun......but the top area was a bit of a challenge.
Attachment 2842
This one just about did me in. It was soooooo hard. But a pretty image.
Attachment 2925
Found a puzzle at a garage sale and can't wait to start in on it. It's called "All the world's a stage" and contains scenes from Shakespeare's plays -1500 pieces. Told myself I can't start it until I get three other projects out of the way - LOL.
Found a 1000 piece puzzle at our library's boutique. It's rows of Christmas cookies decorated as ugly Christmas sweaters.
I think this one was one of the nicest ones to do. It was great quality and the puzzle's colors were true to the advertised image. Many times I've found that the puzzles end up being too dark, but this one was very bright. It's called "A Bend in the Road" by Al Agnew.
Attachment 2998
We just did Edward hoppers Nighthawks. Boy, half of the puzzle was shades of black.
I was looking at that one recently. I've never bought from that company. Were all the pieces mostly the same shape? I think that makes it extra hard. I like all different shaped pieces.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tybee
Was the image light enough? I've discovered that a lot of puzzles end up being darker than they should be, which is unfortunate. It looks like it got good reviews though.
The pieces were okay, but not cut the best, so that sometimes you had to wonder, is this right--there was not that satisfying little click feeling.Quote:
Originally Posted by CathyA
The image was not light but I don't think the picture itself is very light--I think it was pretty true to the painting. We were constantly turning on extra lights and just seeing the pieces was difficult, with our aging eyes.
And literally half the pieces were various blacks, which meant the first half went fine and then the end really got to us.
But it was super fun to do this painting we knew so well and to see how he had done the color shifts--it was challenging, but we learned a lot about the painting.
I don't think we are at your level puzzle wise though--this was only our second puzzle since we started doing them--we gave up on one as being too hard, another painting puzzle, really pretty, but we were so frustrated.
Currently doing a New England snow scene primitive painting of a village and it's going much better--it is from eurographics puzzles and quality is really nice.
https://www.eurographicspuzzles.com/...px?o=6000-5334
Bought it yesterday at TJ Maxx for 14 dollars.
I'm pretty stubborn and have always refused to give up on a puzzle.......no matter how miserable it was making me. hahaha
When you said you were doing a snow scene, I got nervous for you, since a lot of snow can be challenging too.........(Who knew white could be so many different shades?)....but after looking at the link of the puzzle, I think there will be enough other colors for you to, that it won't be too hard.
It's pretty amazing how the quality can differ so much from puzzle to puzzle, and company to company. They all use different "cutters", and I suppose it depends on their work ethic as to how good they cut their puzzles. Also......it makes a big difference if their equipment is sharp or dull. I do a lot from SunsOut, because they seem to have the most rural images, which I prefer. I bought a lot of their older ones and had trouble with the quality, but the newer ones have been great. (So maybe all my bitching to them helped.....haha).
Cobble Hill company is also great. I've found that if there is something wrong with a puzzle, most of the companies are very fair about sending another one. I had one puzzle where the image was cut off around the edge by several inches. It's nice to get a replacement, but it isn't a lot of fun to have to do it over again.
I see people complaining of having missing pieces all the time. I'm sure that happens, but you wouldn't believe how many people find those pieces later.. I've even read of their friends finding them in their house, after they visited the puzzle-doer's house. haha
I did a puzzle a year or so ago and was missing 3 pieces. I looked EVERYWHERE, over and over. I finally made pieces from the image on the box. Fortunately, you couldn't tell too much. BUT.....over a year later, I was sitting in my "puzzle chair", and looked down, and on each side of the puzzle's arms, were indentations in the arms' plastic.......and there were those puzzle pieces!! So now, I have pretty rigid rules about looking all around the area when I get up from the chair, and right before I sit down in it. haha I'm not too compulsive, am I? :~)
I used to do my puzzles in the living room, by a window that wasn't real bright. then I moved to a corner of the dining room with much more light. It makes a huge difference to be able to use sunlight to work puzzles by.
Which was the puzzle you gave up on?
It's funny to read reviews......some people say it's the hardest puzzle they've ever done, while others say it was the easiest and so much fun. Sometimes I think the people who say a really hard one went fast and easy, are lying. haha
I'm definitely a puzzle addict. I have no idea why I like them so much, but I do!
Good luck with your newest puzzle!
Oh.....I get a chuckle of something I saw someone post online. It's true......after working on a puzzle for a long time and you're missing a piece, it can mean going crazy. The post this girl put up was so funny!
Attachment 2999
That is funny, Cathy!
I don't remember the name of the painting on which the national park picture was painted. It was a great painting, probably from the 20's or 30's. I have repressed the whole thing.
LOL! Yeah, I've had to repress some things too. hahaha
Let me know how your latest puzzle goes. Hopefully it will be enjoyable.
That is funny! lol
Well, I finally finished the project that was taking up the puzzle space. And, except for baking and cooking, I'm close to finishing holiday preparations, so.... My holiday jigsaw puzzle is set up and started as of last night!! It is 1500 pieces and called All the World's a Stage. And the question on the front of the box is: Can you find all 38 of Shakespeare's plays in this puzzle? LOL - let the fun begin!
Puzzles are up to 35% off at Amazon today, FYI.
Finished: It's called All The World's a Stage
Attachment 3063
Wow happystuff......that's great! How many pieces was it?Quote:
Originally Posted by happystuff
1500. It went quicker than I thought it would.Quote:
Originally Posted by CathyA