Inexplicably Mushrooms
I’m not quite sure why, but mushroom and bumblebee imagery gets me every time! I admit I have plenty of home decor of both, and of course I gravitate toward puzzles of these themes as well. I really can’t explain it (I don’t even like to eat mushrooms!), but perhaps it’s best to embrace it and just share my recent puzzling mushroom adventure!
This first puzzle, Botanical Mushrooms Luxe in 1000 pieces from Lang, is such a great example of the muted but captivating colors common in a lot of mushroom imagery. The beautiful artwork by Nicole Taramin really drew me in. I built the dark stripy mushroom and the moths first, filled in the rest of the colorful mushrooms, and then was left to work out the various stalks, greenery, and sky.
Botanical Mushrooms Luxe by Lang
I didn’t realize when I ordered this puzzle that it is part of Lang’s Luxe series. In addition to the usual qualities of Lang puzzles—white board backing, all “H” pieces, and a resealable bag and poster—these pieces and the box have a fabulous “soft touch” texture! I’m not sure that I’ve seen this premium, velvety texture on white board pieces before. They also sprinkled in some metallic/foil elements into the puzzle, like the spots on mushrooms and moths, and it worked so well with the design. The various layers of the cardboard and backing made the pieces a little prone to pulling apart, so I did have to be extra careful when I put a piece in that wasn’t right and when disassembling. But boy do those pieces feel nice! It’s uncommon to find soft touch pieces at this price point, and I’ve gone ahead and added some other puzzles from this line to my wishlist. A few that Puzzle Warehouse carries are Lush Life, Butterflies, Feel Alive, Wild at Heart, and Home for Christmas.
Mushroom Boy by New York Puzzle Company
Next I puzzled Mushroom Boy in 500 pieces from New York Puzzle Company. This puzzle has been on my wishlist for so long—I was glad to finally do it! The artwork by Emily Winfield Martin is also quite captivating. I began with the ground and the boy. I admit I then had a moment where I wasn’t sure what to do next—this kind of design where you have to study the box intimidates me! But I was able to focus on the red mushrooms, orange mushrooms, and some interesting stalks and fill in from there. It was actually quite enjoyable!
Mushrooms / Champignons by New York Puzzle Compan
Another New York Puzzle Company that would absolutely make you look at the box is Mushrooms / Champignons in 1000 pieces. Honestly, this puzzle has been sitting on my puzzle table for a few months waiting to be included in this blog post. But, much like the background of the last puzzle, it intimidates me, especially at 1000 pieces! I do think the scale of the mushrooms would help, as some are much larger than others, but it wasn’t in the cards for me to do it this time. If you have completed this one, let me know how it went!
Much less intimidating to my sorter brain was Beautiful Mushrooms in 1000 pieces from Ravensburger. I absolutely love puzzles illustrated by Nathanael Mortensen—he always includes such happy rainbow colors! I started by sorting out some of the most vivid colors and built those sections first (see below for a progress shot). In the end, I was left with a pile of greens and browns in the background, and that progress was much slower than the rest. But all in all, this was a very quick and fun puzzle for me, and I’m sure I will do it again in the future!
Beautiful Mushrooms by Ravensburger
The last puzzle on my mushroom tour is Mysterious Castle in 1000 pieces from Pierre Belevedere / Trefl. I absolutely love the artwork in this puzzle! Those neon-esk colors are very different from the muted tones I mentioned above, but they sure grabbed my attention!
Mysterious Castle by Pierre Belevedere / Trefl
I built the mushrooms first, then the castle, and finally the large swath of night sky. The one drawback of this puzzle is that many pieces fit multiple places, so I had to be extra careful when assembling each section. The sky was particularly tricky, and I had to sort by shape to finish up. And because pieces sometimes fit in multiple places, I tried really hard to confirm with 2 sides of any piece to make sure it fit! It was a tedious finish, but look at that gorgeous result!
A new release that immediately caught my eye is Shroomland in 1000 pieces with art by Gal Barkan from Heye. That one jumped right onto my wishlist! I just love the artwork!
Shroomland by Heye
I also wanted to mention that eeboo also has quite a few puzzles that fit in this theme, including Mushrooms and Butterflies in 500 pieces and Mushroom Rainbow in 1000 pieces. Although I may not take on the rainbow myself anytime soon, I do love the colors, and the 500 pieces looks like a lot of fun to me!
Mushrooms and Butterflies by eeboo
Even after doing plenty of mushroom puzzles, I still keep picking them up! It seems I don’t have any bumblebee puzzles in my to do pile, but it looks like Puzzle Warehouse can help me with that too (perhaps a future blog topic?)! Do you have an inexplicable fondness for mushrooms, or some other imagery, too?
- Gail, @jiggies_and_gems
