Tag Archives: Halloween

Belated – Trick or Treat! My Halloween Puzzle Review

November 12, 2019 PuzzlePaws Leave a comment

Sometimes getting back into the saddle after a length of time can be difficult. I had finally shaken the nasty cold that had plagued me just in time to work NekoCon October 31-November 3rd. Unfortunately, even though I had gotten my flu shot days before, after con I had a small relapse of the cold.

While I was well enough to blog last Friday, I’ll admit to having a bit of a mental block. I wanted to write…but the very thought of tackling nearly a month’s backlog of emails and empty space was daunting. It still is. But! SC and I did an awesome puzzle for Halloween in the short space when I felt well, and I miss having the schedule of posts to organize my weeks. So this week you get a bonus post or two. I have a small backlog of projects to write up before I can tackle new ones.

My mom knows I love Dowdle puzzles and she got me a handful of different ones during a summer sale.

if you can’t read the above photo, the Dowdle website has both the poem and a scavenger hunt here.

I don’t have my usual frame and pieces photos as I assembled this puzzle in a bit of a hurry with SC. I wanted to do SOMETHING for Halloween since I’d been too ill to decorate and had the last convention of the season coming up in a few days.

So I sorted the pieces according to location; sky/street/townhouses and we spent an enjoyable 3 or so hours trading pieces and exclaiming over all the little Easter Eggs that Eric Dowdle puts into his art.

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Because it was Halloween, I did dress up the cats in costume! Pandemonium as a BumbleBee and Hurricane Enlil as Sharknado!

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I have to admit, this 500 piece was a great way to get back to my puzzling habit. It’s bright, colorful, and busy; and the pieces are the perfect size for slightly arthritic hands.

PUZZLE SPECS

Company: Dowdle Puzzles
Title: Trick or Treat
Artist: Eric Dowdle
Year released: Unknown
Pieces: 500
Cut-Style: Random
Finished size: 16″ by 20″
Bonus poster: Yes
Made in USA

QUALITY:

Box: Sturdy and compact, 7.5″ by 7.5″ by 3″, with paper sleeve
Board: Medium weight chipboard, sturdy pieces
Cut: Steel-cut Die
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Semi-gloss, with great color saturation
Puzzle Dust: Minimal
Piece shapes: A good mix of traditionally cut and irregular pieces
Piece Fit: Very Good. Some of the irregular pieces make it so that pieces can only be moved in small groups.

Disability Notes: The slightly larger size pieces of the 500 piece puzzle are kinder to the hands while still being complex enough to challenge lovers of larger piece count puzzles. Honestly, I want to try this brands 300 and 100 piece counts for this winter when my hands threaten to swell into claws. I can recommend this for people with mild to moderate arthritis or hand/eye coordination.

Where to buy: Trick or Treat is available on the Dowdle Puzzles website for $19.99 USD.

Dowdle Puzzles : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I received this puzzle as a gift. The opinions are my own.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page.To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Coloring Book

Celebrating the Creepy and Beautifully Odd: Jasmine Becket-Griffith’s Halloween Coloring Book

October 29, 2018 PuzzlePaws 1 Comment

Apparently, I’m not the only one in my house climbing the walls in anticipation of this Wednesday. the decorations are all up, the cats that will tolerate clothing have been dressed, and I’ve been binging on Halloween makeup tutorials.

With all the birthday and decorating insanity behind me, I needed a quiet day to color. For me, coloring is twofold, it relaxes me and on a bad day, it makes me feel as if I’ve gotten something accomplished.

I met with Jasmine Becket-Griffith’s husband, Matt at DragonCon. Unfortunately, due to both of us having incredibly busy schedules, we never crossed paths. But! Matt was amazingly helpful, had remembered the email I’d sent Jasmine about the blog and offered a coloring book for review. I ended up buying a second one because the best way to love an artist is to buy their stuff! (I couldn’t decide, and her art really is that good!)

I’ve followed Jasmine’s art for years, and this coloring book blows me away! There’s a great mix of adult and child level difficulty and with the Halloween theme, the subject matters ranges from creepy to almost…cute.

The book is full of 96 images on 55 pages of a smooth, heavy artist’s paper. While the pages are not perforated, the book can and does lay flat. Or, if you are like me and prefer to work on a clipboard, excising the pages with a craft knife is simple since the back of each page holds only text describing the picture next to it.

How does that math add up? The 96 images on 55 pages? It’s easy! Jasmine added some of her images in small quartets for a quick color session.

I did manage to finish my chosen page, The Queen of Halloween. Which was colored while listening to an audiobook and talking to the cats.

My Halloween Helpers, Zoomie and Pandemonium.

I wish everyone a safe, and Happy Halloween!

Where to buy: You can buy Jasmine Becket-Griffith’s Halloween Coloring Book (SIGNED) at her website for $29.99 USD. You can also buy her other coloring books there as well. You can also find Jasmine’s coloring books on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, for a little less, but they won’t be signed! If you aren’t sure you want to invest in a full coloring book, Jasmine also has a $5 USD Coloring Tier on her Patreon.

Jasmine Becket Griffith’s Art : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I received this coloring book for free in exchange for a review. The opinions are my own. All art shown on this post is Copyright © Jasmine Becket-Griffith and Copyright©Blue Angel Publishing. The coloring is mine.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Puzzle Review

Halloween Cookies and My Sisters

October 22, 2018 PuzzlePaws 1 Comment

My parents and two of my younger sisters visited for my birthday last week. It was a whirlwind few days, but I managed to wrangle both Hime (not her real name but she’s 9 and I’m keeping her online presence on the DL) and Little-Big (she’s younger than me, but MUCH taller!) into doing a puzzle for the blog. This wasn’t overly hard, LB and I grew up doing puzzles, and Hime has been doing them electronically for the last year.

As the theme of my week with them was Halloween decorating, Cobble Hill’s Halloween Cookies was perfect! The Family Pieces puzzles have pieces in large, medium and small so everyone in the family can participate!

LB’s hands are on the left and Hime’s are on the right.

I wasn’t able to get my usual picture of the frame(edges) as we had a bit of a problem finding them all! While the Family Pieces puzzles are meant for a range of ages to partake in the assembly, this one was incredibly tricky! We ended up filling in the frame as we found the pieces and filled in the puzzle.

Yes, I totally stealth-moded a candid pic of the girls hunting for pieces.

We assembled this puzzle differently from my usual method. Because LB and Hime hadn’t worked with random cut pieces before, we focused on the pattern recognition of the cookie designs. Teaching Hime to focus on searching for black and white webbing or pretzel pieces helped her not be discouraged as her older sisters seemed to take random pieces and made them fit. She made or finished several of our cookies once she got the technique down!

This photo doesn’t do this awesome puzzle justice!

Overall, it took us 2 hours and 20 minutes from start to finish. I figured it was a great way to spend time with the sisters I rarely get to see. When I asked the girls their opinions on the puzzle, I got these responses:

LB: I liked the bonding, but I’m not sure if I like the random-cut pieces. They’re new to me I would have liked to have a poster or picture separate from the box lid.

Hime: It looked good enough to eat! I had fun and like the family bonding. I have no dislikes.

PUZZLE SPECS

Company: Cobble Hill
Title: Halloween Cookies
Artist: Cobble Hill Creations
Year released: 2018
Pieces: 350
Cut-Style: Random
Finished size: 26″ x 19″
Bonus poster: No
Made from recycled materials
Made in USA

QUALITY:

Box: Sturdy, Medium-weight, 10″x14’x2.5″ Matte-Linen Finish
Board: Thick and sturdy pieces, good for all 3 sizes of pieces
Cut: Steel-cut Die
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Satin,
Puzzle Dust: Small amount, more than the other Cobble Hill puzzles I’ve done before
Piece shapes: A good mix of traditionally cut and irregular pieces in 3 sizes
Piece Fit: Very Good, but loose. You cannot pick up multiple large or medium pieces and move them, but the small pieces could lock together and be moved in small batches.

Disability Notes: I can definitely recommend this for any multi-age family, or for a person whose hands have good and bad days. My sisters and I had fun and the full assembly only took us 2 hours and 20 minutes. My hands didn’t ache after assembly, and the difficulty level was certainly up to adult standard. I can happily recommend a large piece puzzle for people with fine motor skill issues, or arthritis.

Where to buy: Halloween Cookies is available on the Cobble Hill website for $15.99 usd.

Cobble Hill Puzzle Company : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I received a complimentary puzzle from the manufacturer in exchange for review. The opinions are my own.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Puzzle Review, Uncategorized

Charles Wysocki’s Trick or Treat Hotel

October 18, 2018 PuzzlePaws 1 Comment

It’s definitely getting closer to Halloween! The store shelves are groaning under the weight of candy, SC is looking at scary makeup tutorials and I’m weighing the eternal adult question… Do I just buy my candy, or do I take a cut from the minions? It will most likely be a mix of the two, I’m hunting my favorite but hard to find candy, Trolli Watermelon Gummy Sharks and when I find them, I’ll buy tons! I’m also taking the minions (my godsons) out trick or treating, and will get a cut of the spoils.

Much like the childhood institution of trick or treating, I have fond memories of Buffalo Games’s puzzles. I grew up in a small town in Central New York, and Buffalo Games was one of 3 New York puzzle companies. Because of proximity, I put together a LOT of Buffalo puzzles. I learned to love the soft click of a piece snapping into place.

This is Charles Wysocki’s Trick or Treat Hotel. I’ll admit that it confused me to equate this puzzle with the usual hometown or cat paintings the artist is known for! How could someone who is called the Master Painter of Americana create such a creepy picture?

This 500 piece puzzle came with a fold out poster to help in assembly.

Zoomie, our very own PuzzlePaws, helped make sure the edge pieces didn’t disappear!

The edges went together just as I remembered, with that Perfect Snap™ that is a Buffalo puzzle signature.

Other than chasing off the cats, this puzzle came together rather quickly until I hit the sky. With the tree branches, cobwebs and odd scattered creatures, that section was quite the challenge!

As I assembled this puzzle, I kept finding all sorts of cute details that were mixed into the weird ones.

I love the black cat on this pumpkin witch’s head!

I’m not sure if that’s a stuffed demon or a ventriloquist’s dummy.

I think this is the best piggyback ride I’ve ever seen!

PUZZLE SPECS

Company: Buffalo Games
Title: Trick or Treat Hotel
Artist: Charles Wysocki
Year released: Unknown
Pieces: 500
Cut-Style: Random
Finished size: 21¼ in by 15 in
Bonus poster: Yes
Made in USA

QUALITY:

Box: Light and compact, 7.75″ by 7.75″ by 1.5″
Board: Medium weight chipboard, sturdy pieces
Cut: Steel-cut Die
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Semi-gloss
Puzzle Dust: Minimal
Piece shapes: A good mix of traditionally cut and irregular pieces
Piece Fit: Excellent. Some of the irregular pieces make it so that pieces can only be moved in small groups, but once assembled the whole puzzle is nearly solid!

Disability Notes: The slightly larger size pieces of the 500 piece puzzle are kinder to the hands while still being complex enough to challenge lovers of larger piece count puzzles. Honestly, I will be trying this brand’s 300, 750 and 1000 piece counts for later posts. I can recommend this for people with mild to moderate arthritis or hand/eye coordination.

Where to buy: Trick or Treat Hotel is available on the Buffalo games website for $10.95 usd.

Buffalo Games : Website / FaceBook

Disclosure: I received a complimentary puzzle from the manufacturer in exchange for review. The opinions are my own.

Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page.To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!

Little pieces make a bigger picture