u/JAKSHAW

A rainy day is perfect for a PUZZLE CRAFT day!

A puzzle friend recently sent me this bonus mini in a puzzle that I purchased from her. After completing the beautiful butterfly mini from what I believe is a Cra-Z-Art set by RoseArt , I decided to craft it into an ornament. It can also be used as a gift tag if you’d rather. I did a similar project last December and it’s quick and easy!

You’ll need the following:
Mod Podge (matte/glossy, your preference)
Small/Medium paintbrush or sponge brush
Parchment Paper (or back of a baking pan 😊)
Choice of ribbon to length desired
Hole Punch

Being creative is fun, and it engages the hands and brain in a way that will make you feel great!

If you decide to try your hand at this project, do it for the joy of it! And if you’ve done other PUZZLE CRAFT projects in the past that you’ve enjoyed, please share them! 😃

This puzzle definitely intimidated me in the beginning. I think it started when I noticed the “extra difficult” challenge rating on the front of the box and saw the shapes after removing them from the bag. I spent a crazy amount of time shape sorting and organizing pieces on my board in an attempt to delay starting. My fear was that I might soon find I wasn’t up to the challenge. And that’s messed up! Because this is a travel puzzle that I signed up for, and an image that I adore.

My ADHD brain sometimes has me procrastinating things for reasons I don’t understand…. good things and bad things are equal in this regard, there’s no understanding or explaining the why of it. I usually have to just push past that feeling and find a way to get myself into “go” mode. Now, after completing this one, I can’t help but wonder if extra difficult might be too high a challenge rating. Once I began looking at and piecing together the obvious connecting pieces, it flowed so nicely and was completed much sooner than I originally thought it would be. I began with pieces that had eyes in them, then moved onto connecting cat tails, cat feet, etc. I soon had a board filled with small sections that became increasingly larger and could then easily be connected together. I so enjoyed the challenge! And the cheetahs are beautiful!

🐆 “The Puzzle That Can’t Be Tamed”
🧩 251 pcs (72 of them cat shaped! 🐈‍⬛)
🔖 Wentworth Wooden Puzzles
🎨 M. Farella
🧩 Puzzle Jam Inc Travel Puzzle Library

Thanks to all my cheerleaders, and to my friend Susie for her advice to focus on the connections. She is so wise!

My beautiful puzzle board was a great purchase from Zacko Puzzle Boards. Such artistry!

**If you read all the commentary of this lengthy post, then you deserve an award🥇😃 …and my heartfelt thanks as well❣️ I’m wordy!

So many thanks to a special group member for sending this lovely Ivory Cat multi-pack to me! I love it! She also sent a bonus puzzle, with an advent puzzle also inside. Thank you so very much! The card, shown with the puzzles, is by the Indigenous Collection, whose art I love! 🥰

No tag for the member because I didn’t ask her permission before posting. But I don’t think she will mind. If so, she can reveal herself and let me know 🤭

This lovely puzzle with its beautiful art and vibrant colors is easily recognized as being produced by Elena Essex Designs.

Let’s ponder for a moment how much more amazing a walk on the beach would be if we’re filled with shells that look like these!

This was one of the most enjoyable Art and Fable Puzzles that I’ve assembled to date. I can’t really define why I enjoyed it so, it just played out that way. Of course there was the frame, with the text making a quick it a quick and easy job, then I realized there was also an inner frame…more fun! From there it was a matter of piecing together different sections based on how they spoke to me. 🥰 I loved it!

I did discover that I’m missing one piece which is a first for me with my Art and Fable puzzles. It was a new, sealed box puzzle and I searched everywhere but didn’t find it. So I did a lazy puzzler camo job using green paper for my photos.

☀️🌙 East of the Sun and West of the Moon
🧩 500
🎨 Kay Nielsen
🏷️ Art and Fable Puzzle Company

This traveling tailor comes and goes with a song as he plays his violin while operating his whimsical flying machine. From the look of it, he seems to be self-powering his flight by pedaling the unicycle at the base of the patchwork balloon that’s packed with all the tools of his trade. This puzzle art was fun to build from the screwed perspective of the village to the gradient cloud filled sky!

Donations from the sale of each Art and Fable puzzle go to a charitable cause, and I was pleased to see that Habitat for Humanity is the organization that benefits from this puzzle!

🧵 Tailor
🧩 500
🎨 Boris Shapiro
🏷️ Art and Fable Puzzle Company

(From the puzzle box) The artist has stated that she is inspired by dreams and the conundrum of their contradictory nature, being both meaningful and meaningless. She hopes that her audience will interpret her work as they would their own dreams, informed by their own subconscious. Watcher, Protecter is a work that delivers beauty, magic and kindness as in a calm and wonderful dream.

🦉Watcher, Protector
🧩 500
🎨 Ausa Julia Hylton
🏷️ Art and Fable Puzzle Company

Music Lover

I found this at my local thrift store and decided to buy it for a certain Canadian friend who collects this genre. Hoping it was complete, I set out to solve it, only to discover it was quite the challenge. It being push fit and only having a small B&W box photo to go by, I pushed on and feel a rush of accomplishment upon finishing. ☹️ Sadly, two pieces are missing. The box lists the count at ‘over 250’, so I may have had a clue that there was at least two missing if I had looked closer at the back of the box, where someone had actually noted in faint pencil, that there was 249 pieces. Not sure if the clever collector is still interested, but it’s his if he is!

I’ve been awol and missing my Reddit puzzle friends! I’ve also missed seeing the puzzles you’ve had on your tables! I’ve been in a bit of a puzzling slump lately and had several things going on that have had me busier than usual and my attention scattered. Here’s to trying to climb out and up. I’ll be slowly catching up on everyone’s posts from the past few weeks since I already feel compelled to see and comment on them all. 🤭 🤗 Hugs to all!

Another Kindergarten puzzle for me today because it’s just so freaking adorable!

“Woodland Friends” 100. CEACO Puzzles. Kayomi Harai, artist.

This could easily be the cutest thing you’ve seen all day! 🤗 I am in love with this cute cat that so closely resembles my sweet Shadow Baby 🫶 (Cat tax photo included)

Who doesn’t get a kick out of watching squirrel shenanigans? Such cute puzzle art! I love these Chubby Buddies so much…and they sure do love themselves some cake. I would wager to bet they love it even more than I do! Squirrels gotta be squirrels I suppose. 🤭

🐿️ “Chubby Buddies” 🧩 500
🏷️ Cobble Hill Puzzles 🎨 Heather Gauthier

😀 I love these puzzles. I’ve completed three different animals so far, and hope to run across some others in my future. Although only 150 pieces, these puzzles are quite large, and each one is packed with lots of fun and great art!

Puzz Art Lion, art by Aurelia Fronty
Puzz Art Elephant, art by Simona Mulazzani
Puzz Art Chameleon, art by Amélie Videlo

Simmered Moment …Sometimes, just a scent rising from a pot is enough to awaken a world of memories. Soup has this discreet power: bringing us back to the gestures of yesteryear, to kitchens warmed by the flame, and to misty windows that hold the memory of the seasons.

Peeling, cutting, letting it simmer... simple gestures that cross time and warm the heart as much as the body. Each steaming bowl tells the story of generous harvests and patient hands that lovingly prepare the sweetness of autumn. — Larry Bambelle (translated from box)

What a nice puzzling session I had with this puzzle! I typically will sort my puzzles then begin with the edges, but the is one compelled me to start piecing together some of the colorful sections. Before I knew it, the puzzle was completed in full with the exception of the edges that I then finished. Although it’s hot as hades here in the south, this lovely chef and her helper, along with the autumn vibe definitely had me wanting to start a pot of soup!

This is the third advent style seasonal puzzle exchange that my friend Jill and I have done. Every three months or so, we each choose a 1000 piece puzzle for the other and then we complete it. When we begin to disassemble it is when the fun really begins. Each of us divides our puzzle into 30-ish sections that we then package in fun and creative ways for the other to enjoy each day during the month of our exchange.

Jill chose this lovely Villager puzzle for me, knowing that I had not yet experienced a Villager puzzle before. And I absolutely loved it! The sections came packaged in plastic balls that had been decorated with summer colors and doodles, and marked with numbers to indicate the order that I should open and complete them. As you can see in the photos, she had me creating the puzzle from the outside in, saving the image reveal as long as possible. It was a great deal of fun! As a part of the package, she included a gift puzzle for me to open at the end on my birthday! It’s one that I’ve taken notice of and admired for how pretty it is. I look forward to completing it…and to our Halloween exchange in a couple of months.

This one is full of so many delicious looking cupcakes that are all nicely presented in their own individual grids. I’ve explored them all and decided I would definitely try Vanilla Lemon and Pink Velvet first. Then perhaps the Peanut Butter. In slide 2, I was a bit creative and baked a cupcake from the puzzle pieces. What flavor do you imagine that one to be?

This fun traveller arrived recently and it’s unlike any puzzle that I’ve done before! The combination of a crossword with a jigsaw puzzle made for a really fun and unique experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. The back of the box provides a word list, but I found myself puzzling steadily along without the need to reference it. I would definitely welcome more of these puzzles into my life. Feeling thankful that this Australian puzzle was made into a travel puzzle in the US so others could experience it! It’s on its way to spend some time with a couple of different Florida puzzlers next. 🐅🦒🦋🦘🦍 🦢🦝 🐬

Even those with a strong dislike of insects may find themselves zooming in to explore the art of Robert Steven Connett. He has a way of bringing bugs, spiders, and other creepy crawlers out of a place of fear and into a place of fascination! This beautiful puzzle is one of my favorite from his art that Art and Fable Puzzle Company has produced in puzzle form, perhaps due to it being my first exposure to his work.

DEAL ALERT: Microcosmic Garden is Art and Fable’s July Puzzle of the Month, meaning that you can purchase a copy of your own via their website at 40% off this month by using the discount code: MICRO40 I am not an affiliate, just a fan.

This little number has caught my eye many times in the past, causing me to acquire it. Today was the day I decided to complete it, mostly because when I saw the box I thought it looked like a burst of rainbow colored fireworks and I thought it fitting for the Fourth of July. 🎆