Woodland Fairy Mk. 2

So I finished my 1,500 sunsout puzzle and honestly, it wasn't my favorite... The pieces were really easy to misplace, the fit is loose, and the puzzle is just soooo shiny it's hard to work with it... that said, I liked the artwork, i'd definately do more puzzles from this brand.

I was attracted to this artwork because of the fairy, one of my pet peeves, is the bastardization of the fairy (or faerie) in our culture... people think of fairies as tiny little creatures that carry wands and fly around from flower to flower, the problem with that is the image most people have, is of the Pixie, NOT the fairy... The fairy is a human sized winged human like creature that brings magic to people and places not once imbued with magic...

I like to think that the fairy seen in this image as the fairy queen titania, william shakesphere really hadthe right idea =)

anyways, pics now...

 I started with the greenery

 More Greenery

 Then the mushrooms

 Then Titania, scarf, wings, and hair/face, this was a LOT more difficult than I thought it would be...

 The golden parts of the floor leaves

 and a Random picture of Lucy sleeping on my arm =)

 I then did the dress, and started the dead leaves on the forest floor...

At this point I discovered the pattern, alternating rows of thin long then square pieces, and big thin then big fat pieces

 Finished work on the floor

 Did all of the background blue... Using the alternating pattern

 Started doing horizontal rows on the left side, using pattern

 Finished left side

 Did the bottom right, and middle right, then removed the top to work without having to stretch...

 And finally finished, I think it's a gorgeous puzzle if I do say so myself

 Another pic from a different angle

Now what's next? I'm thinking I might do this 1,000 piece Educa puzzle I bought a little while back... I'm sure it'll be a bit easier, and it'll prime me for the 33,600 piece Wildlife puzzle that I'm getting on Wednesday!! (hopefully)

Woodland Fairy

My next puzzle... It's going to be a beautiful but rather difficult looking puzzle called "Woodland Fairy" it's a sunsout puzzle, which I'm mainly doing being I have my eye on the Noah's ark, and nativity puzzles by artist Tom Dubois, but they're by sunsout, and I've only done their novelty shaped puzzles up to this point...

Here are the puzzles mentioned

 The noahs ark puzzle comes in a single 6,000 piece version, and the invitation puzzle comes in a 3,000 piece version, I'm trying to decide if I'd like the brand enough to work a full 6,000 pieces, or if I'd prefer to just grab the collections

My moms a nativity scene collector (among many MANY other things) so this would be a nice buy

anyways, I thought I'd share my new difficult process that I decided to start after the sorting issues I had with double retrospect section A (I'm referring to the fact that I had to resort a good portion of the puzzle because I didn't think about the pieces with multiple colors)

anyways, to start out, I sorted out the edge pieces, I didn't want to sort the entire thing yet, but I wanted to start...

And finally I made up a hierarchy of sorting =)

Here's how it works, the items at the very top of the list have priority to anything under them, so if I run into a piece that has both part of a small fairy, AND a green plant, i'd sort the piece into the fairy pile, if I found a piece with both part of the large fairys wing AND the blue shawl, i'd sort it into the fairy wing pile...

It really doesn't matter what order these come in, as long as there's a hierarchy... I don't want to start building the wings and parts of the wings are in the blue shawl pile, likewise I don't want half the blue shawl in the fairies body pile

and it's probibly pretty obvious, but I'd better say it anyways, once I finish sorting I'll work on the sections in list order, so first I'll do the fairies, then the unicorn, the fox, the butterflies, etc.

I hope that all makes sense, I think it'll go a LONG way to making this a more organized and quicker puzzle to complete.

Glitter Puzzle Mk. 3

Just finished the last of the three glitter puzzles... Now I can get away from these stupid ceaco puzzles, I love the artwork, but the puzzle quality was awful... the pieces bent easily, the top image layer peeled easily, and there were sections where the edges were chipped, and there ended up being white spots in unfortunate areas.

Now for the pictures...

 Pieces sorted, edge pieces complete (the missing sections have animal parts on them, so they were on my desk at this point

 The zebras

 close up of the zebras

 cheetas

 tigers, which connected the cheetas and zebras

 lions and giraffes

 rhinos, birds, and a tusk =)

 hippos

 Now all animals combined, only the elephant left remaining

 Elephant done!

 and puzzle done!

 and finally a couple shots of all three puzzles together...

Now on to my next puzzle... I'm going to be doing a sunsout puzzle titled "woodland fairy"

I already dumped the pieces, and I think i'll probably think about doing the edges tonight.

I like chickens Eddie!! GRAVY!!!!

If anyone gets the reference in my post title, You get a cookie =)

Now I mentioned in my last post that I was working on a puzzle for my moms birthday =) and I was going to actually glue (GASP!!) it... well, that's not happening... My mom decided that it was much too large to glue, and to put it away, and then I could just assemble it at a later date for her =)

So I took a TON of pictures of it, and she'll have those to put on her fridge and so on...

The puzzle in question is a 1,000 piece F. X. Schmidt affair, it's a shaped puzzle of one of my moms favorite animals, a Rooster =D

it took me approximately 3 days to assemble, I would have finished it sooner, but things happen xD

anyways, PICS!!

So I started with the edge pieces... The unfortunate thing about this brands edge pieces, are that they're not always connected to each other... They sometimes have a straight line edge connecting them and require a 3rd inside piece to actually keep them together... I honestly did not like that. I then did the red of the comb and waddle

I then worked on the blues of the sky, and tail feathers

Then the yellow of the foot and the pathways leading to the barn

The yellow of the field

All of the yellow in one picture

I then started the green on the neck

and the tail

Finally the green on the tail, almost completing the tail

I then started on the green grassy areas between the antiques... I Started this by finding all of the pieces that linked the edges, so My edges were now basically finished

Filled out some more of the green

more grass

and the last of the grassy areas (for the most part)

Next I started on the quilts, the doorway, and the 2 blue chest of drawers

I then pilled out the antiques barn

 and voila! It is finished

Close up of the antiques sale.

Overall a very enjoyable puzzle, I didn't like how the edge pieces were the way they were, but the pieces were of good quality... The only issue I have is how incredibly loose the pieces are... I mean, It will literally fall to pieces if I even attempt to THINK of lifting it...

Now onto the 3rd puzzle in the set of three 750 piece glitter puzzles, what's it look like, well I guess you'll know in a few days.

A couple new puzzles =D

So I bought a couple puzzles over my hiatus... And I promised to post pics if someone aside from penny posted a comment, so here goes, I'm going to avoid saying prices because I don't want to make some other people feel bad who own the puzzles and probably paid WAYYYY more for them =)

got this new, not much to really say I will tell price on this one because as of right now it's like $55 on amazon brand new =) (which is really pretty inexpensive for a puzzle of this size from ravensburger)

I was a little disappointed when I opened this because the idiot who first owned it had for some reason completed the first section, and then glued it... then opened the 2nd section, but hadn't really even started it... so I was forced to break apart the glued section very carefully  (only tore the image on two of the black pieces, which I'll just touch up with a black sharpie, noone will ever notice the tear), and honestly it came apart pretty easily (it wasn't glued very well) I'm hoping it wasn't glued enough to warp the pieces so that I'll have difficulty assembling it... it was inexpensive enough though that it didn't really matter to me... and two of the bags were still sealed... I'll assemble it, and the pieces are the REALLY hard cardboard, so I doubt that it hurt the puzzle... not only that, but the previous owner had failed to assemble section one correctly... so there were 3-4 pieces completely (and obviously) out of place... and no, I forgot to take pics of the glued sections xD

 I decided to mix this puzzle =) It should be fun I don't know, and I don't care if it's missing pieces... if it is, I'll either be bugging someone to help me make my own replacement, or buying a replacement from the jigsaw doctor... I decided that I'm not going to even think about buying the new 18k image for a long time, because honestly I don't like the way it's cropped, and I prefer the way this one is cropped (18k cuts off the entirety of jonah, and two of the pendentives (the corner images of old testament stories) I still eventually want it, but I'm in no hurry to buy it...

Finally I got this baby secondhand, Love the image, one of my favorite map puzzles... the previous owner had taped the box so there's some tape damage... but otherwise it's in great condition, one of the bags was open, but taped shut, and the other was still sealed.

needless to say, all of these puzzles came with their respective posters, and box contents. I'm quite happy with them, and looking forward to assembly.

As for my current project, I'm working on a 1,000 piece F. X. Schmid puzzle for my moms b-day which I'm going to glue (GASP) and give to her... I'll post images of that once I've finished =)

Glitter Puzzle Mk 2!!

I FINALLY FINISHED MY SENIOR RECITAL!!!!

The hardest event of my college life, and it's DONE!!

I also finished m secret project!

But I can't tell anyone what it is yet =) so don't ask...

anyways... the past few weeks have been hectic, I've had minimal puzzling time... the only puzzle I did was the second of the 3 glitter puzzles I bought by ceaco, but I only managed to do the easy parts... no time to do the solid blues and all... mainly the biggest time sink was that stupid secret project, BUT IT'S DONE!!

Now the only stuff I have left this semester are to finish my piano and guitar proficiency exams, my arranging and orchestration exam, and my clinical practicum.

anyways! I bought a few more puzzles, which will remain a mystery for awile =) maybe I'll post pics and info of one of them if someone other than penny comments on one of my posts (lova yah penny, but I'm starting to wonder if anyone else is reading this thing)

AND I PREORDERED WILDLIFE!!!!

That's right, I preordered the new worlds largest puzzle... hopefully I'll have the money when the time comes =D, I know a guy who already owns wildlife (Course you and your super early european releases, CURSE YOU!!!!) and I'm now counting the days until I get my hands on that bad boy.

anways... time for puzzle pics! I spent the evening last night finishing this ceaco puzzle, it was honestly almost more frustrating to do than double retrospect... mainly because of the poor quality of the pieces, I mean, sure it looks great now that it's finished... but some of the chipped edges and slightly bent pieces really grind my gears when putting it together...

 So I started with the tigers (I love the shade of blue in this puzzle)

 More tiger, I finally linked all 3 tiger heads in this pic =D

 Full finished tigers (except for a small section of the rightmost tigers tail)

 I filled in the water and the horizon, and then carefully removed the top half of the puzzle so as to work on it on my desk.

 Top half, those aurora lines all have glitter on them, so they were easy to connect... unfortunately you can't really see the glitter =(

 Top right finished =)

 once the top right was filled in, the rest came REALLY easily, It was odd, I could barely tell the aurora line left of the tiger was any different from the rest of the sky, until I found where it went...

Finished puzzle! I think it's really pretty =)