Eye Candy

My puzzle closet sans the two biggies, Life and DR. It's so nice and.....full! Not sure if that is a good thing or not.

Thomas Kincade Kicked My....

I finally finished this Kincade puzzle. It took two months! I had the edge done for a very long time and only really gave it's big effort in the past two weeks.  It has been harder than ever to find time to work on them with the baby and all.

So, one more down. Couple to go.

Home and Garden Show in Germany



Took a long detour in Germany.  According to the box, circa 2000, this is

"Home and Flower Garden, Owen, Germany"

1,000 pieces

 

(anywhere near you, Lia?)

My husband actually did a large part of the flowers in the lower right hand corner.  I was so tired one night trying to puzzle, I actually dozed off sitting up and then did one of those falling jumps.  Freaked me out.  My husband came in about then and saw how exhausted I was and asked if he could work on the puzzle.  HA!  Of course!  Get this thing out of here!  I need to move on.  He worked on it until 2am. He is not a night owl, so this surprised me.  But about 2, I woke up and told him to go to bed.  I don't sleep well with lights on.  He had only about 30-40 of the blackish pieces left of the evergreens on the right.  I whipped those off today very quickly.  Now to decide my next victim.

Some of the Nation's Greatest Leaders!

This was a very unique puzzle.  I got it from a friend who knew how much I loved puzzles.  She is very generous and giving with an amazing heart!  She owns a Christian bookstore with a resale shop in the upstairs.  She and her husband, with the use of this store, have given so much to community in the way of clothes, toys, household goods and food to families in need.  She is a very good friend of mine. 

Anyway, she thought I would enjoy this 3D puzzle.  Honestly, I thought it very intriguing but after putting it together, I realized I didn't really care for it.  LegoWarrior helped me put it together.  It was basically built in layers with each layer consisting of two pieces each.  Each piece had a triangular hole which slid over posts that connected to the base.  I didn't think of taking pictures of the process.  That seemed impossible and too time consuming to figure out.  Luckily for us there was a cheat sheet that showed which pieces went together and which layer they were.  Each piece had a number on it.  So technically it was a 180+ piece puzzle.  We did use the cheat sheet.

Here it is:

These were the great men of our nation.  It's too bad that there haven't been good enough men to be remembered in such a way as this since these guys.  I could write a lot more on great leaders, but I'll leave that for another blog.

 



Abraham Lincoln

 

George Washington

 

Thomas Jefferson

Theodore Roosevelt

 

And this great little man, my oldest, Lego Warrior.  He loves helping me put together my puzzles.

Back from the Outback

Oi, Mate!

We finished the Australian Animals/Map puzzle.  750 pieces and I had Mr. Man's and LegoWarrior's help.  It's kind of pretty.  Was up until 3am again though.  These late nights are rough, but it's the only time I really get a large chunk of time to work on them.

This one is getting packed up, taped up and shipped out to the rummage sale and a new one is coming out.  Nine left I think.

It went together pretty easily.  Some of the different shades of green, tan and brown got confusing once in awhile, but not too bad.  There it is!

All in the Family

My four-year-old daughter love to do puzzles too!  She did have Grandma's help, but she's still very good at them.

Princess and her Grandma.  This Lion King puzzle has 200 pieces, well...minus two.  Found at a rummage sale.

This 48-piece dinosaur puzzle she did completely by herself. 

 All done! She's so adorable!

 

 



 King Tut's Tomb had 100 pieces and this one was hard for her.  Grandma helped her quite a bit on this one.

 

 

 Almost done...

 

 

 Last piece!

 

 

 All done!

 

 

  Kind of a pretty puzzle.  It'd be tough if it were 1,000 pieces with all that gold.

 

 

 

I love it that my kiddos like puzzling too.  We all like to work on them together.  Often when I'm working on one of mine, at least one or two of the kids will ask to come and help me.  They usually don't have the patience after they try a couple pieces.  That's okay.  I'm glad they try.

 

ENJOY!

Hit the Finish Line at 3am

Number 11 knocked out at 3am. Ten to go. 

Say so long to Vermont:

This one went really smooth.  There are enough differing areas that it was a snap to put together. 

Now I'm off to wrap this one up and start the next! 

Made My Final Selection

Many of you and my friends and family think I am ridiculous for waiting to do LIFE.  So I decided to pull out all my puzzles and narrow it down to the ones I will do before I get back at it once and for all.  I did have a loose number before, but I needed a visual.

I suppose I'm doing this because of my perfectionist, all-or-nothing attitude.  I have always practiced delayed-gratification by self-deprivation.  How well has it worked?  Lets just say that it works sometimes.   Sometimes I get a lot accomplished and other times this strategy has only caused further delays and procrastination.

Anyway, I'm too tired for psychology today.  On to the puzzles......

I narrowed it down to these ten puzzles.  One is 750, one is 1,200, seven are 1,000 and that sculpture one.  Why these you ask? I was gonna tell you.  These have sat on my shelf the longest and a few of them I don't really care for.  If I save ones I don't like for after LIFE and DR, it'll seem like a let down.  Who wants boring after you've had the best?

I am in the middle of one right now that I hope to finish tonight if the baby cooperates.  Mr. Man is out of town for the weekend, so I should get quite a bit accomplished.   This one is going fairly smooth so far.

 

Fresh Meat!

Fresh meat curtesy of East Topsham, Vermont.    (At least that's what the box says).

SSShhhhhh! I added more to the COLLECTION!!

I know, I know I shouldn't have gotten MORE, but I promise I won't do them until LIFE is done!  PROMISE!

Craig's List can be hazardous to an addict.  LOL

A lady was selling a whole box listed as "20+" for $10!  I texted her and found out that most of the puzzles have all their pieces but there might be a few missing.  Not sure.  For $10, I thought I'd take the chance. 

Want to see my spoils?

Here's the lot of them on my bed.  The lady advertised 20+, but there turned out to be 35 puzzles in the box!  I got rid of the three on the right.  The top two were duplicates and the bottom one said right on the box that it had a piece missing .  I'm not even going to bother with that one.  That leaves 32 puzzles for me for $10.  IF the pieces are all there, or even in most of them, this is a great deal!

 

 



This one is okay.  Pretty I guess, but it doesn't thrill me much.

 

 



I think this was the one that has hidden pictures.  That should be interesting.

 

 



I like these collage ones.

 

 



I have a feeling this one might be on the difficult side.  Not very pretty either.

 

 



These boats should be whipped off fairly quickly.

 I plan to no longer buy any more typical scenic puzzles.  They always seem to be the same.  Whatever the subject is (mountains, house, animal, lighthouse in this case) and sky, water, and/or grass.  Just repetitive to me.  I thought I had done this lighthouse before from a different view. But I was wrong.  HERE is the one I was thinking of.

 

 

 Typical.

 

 

 Ditto.

 

 

 Slightly different from your typical scene I guess.

 

 

 I'm not a huge fan of this kind of art, but I have never done any of this kind so I am excited to do this one.

 

 

 Reminds me of LIFE.  And Lisa Frank.

 

 

 Good ole' Hometown Collection.

 

 

 2000!  Again, I have a feeling this won't be easy.  Lots of gray, tan, white shades.  Kind of ugly.  Not really looking forward to this one.  This particular one made me rethink my puzzling experience.  As of right now I pretty much will do any puzzle I can get my hands on as long as it has all its pieces and I can get it for a good price.  I don't really care what it looks like.  But I'm wondering if those parameters will hold me back.  If I have a puzzle in the line up that I'm not looking forward to then maybe it'll cause me to slow down (you know I'm slow enough) or to quit altogether.  I'm thinking from now on, I will only get ones that I really like and WANT to do.  IF I do this one, it'll be my first 2,000 piece.

 

 

 Another Wysocki.

 

 

 Not a big fan of Kincadesque either.  But this one will be unique.  You can't really tell in the photo, but the yellowish spots are metallic!  That's new to me too.

 

 

 This will be fun!  I checked in every box when I sorted them and found that this one has the booklet and the light! And it even works!  COOL BEANS!  This was one of the duplicates.

 

 

 Typical.

 

 

 See that in the corner?  MEGA!!!!  IT'S BACK!  I may not do this one.  I'll try it, but if it's the same poor quality as those other MEGA brand ones I tried a few months ago, this one will go in the free box at the rummage sale!

 

 

 Same MEGA issues with this one.  So I probably won't do this one.  This was also one of the duplicates.

 

 

 Typical

 

 

 Blah... I know there are many fans of Kincade.  I'm not one of them.  I don't dislike it, it's just not my style.

 

 

 

 Somewhat on the Wysocki order, but I actually like this one.  It'll be done very fast.

 

 

 This one looks like it'll be difficult.  Lots of yellow and brown.  Maybe not.  Sometimes you can't see the shade differences until you actually start studying the actual pieces.

 

 

 YES!  Educa!

 Ack!  More Kincade.  There were supposed to be three puzzles in this box, but I looked and I think there are only two.  I'm not even sure which two.

 

 

 Now!  This one looks fun!!

 

 

 Typical.

 

 

You couldn't imagine my excitement to finally find a Ravensburger in this box!  Quite a step up from Big Ben and totally the opposite end of the spectrum from MEGA Yuck.  I'm not into dolls, but this is a pretty picture.

 

 



 Eh.

 

 

 Could be fun. The lettering will help make it go quickly.

 

 

 Just so-so for me.

 

 

 Don't care for this one at all.  Not sure why.  I just don't like it.

 

 

Now THIS is my cup o' tea!  Puzzle within a puzzle.  Always unique.

 

 



Well now I've shown you the lot.  These are going to be after LIFE.  So they are just going to sit around for awhile.  There will be a break in between LIFE and DR.  I'll want to have more of a feeling of accomplishment so to get some smaller ones finished will be good for me I'm sure.

 

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed seeing what is to come in the future.  How soon?  Who knows.

 

Goodnight!