Puzzled Bear

Hello - like a few other folk out there, my human has decided that puzzle a day keeps the boredom away... or... all work and no play is not a good day... or something like that.

Anyhow... today I am supervising the construction of this puzzle!

Looks pretty straightforward, a paltry 550 pieces...

Although... they are pretty big pieces so this might take up quite a bit of space on the table.

First up... sort the pieces... cause all good puzzlers sort first apparently.

See... all done...

We have edge pieces...

And lawn pathway pieces...

Then sky with bits of anything.

Pure sky... oooh... sky is bad!

Then foreground tulips

Green shrubbery

Anything with building bits...

And... the dreaded miscellaneous pile!! Mostly the rest of the flower beds...

Ya know... this place looks familiar to me... it's those chimneys...

Let me think on it...

First... we work on the sky edge...

Sky is bad... all that blue... although...

There are tonal colour variations in the blue which is key...

When Gramma puzzles, she is always trying to sort the pieces by shape... but Mama is much more of a tonal/colour variation and likes to see it all as a big smush because the colour jumps out better... two different methods... do you puzzle?

Those chimneys... hmmm...

Alright, sky edge is done... now... we could do the rest of the edge but then... it's a big stretch to do the upper part of the puzzle...

So I suggest we just focus on the sky first... and get the bottom edge of the sky in place by tackling the "sky with bits" pieces...

Like that... and now...

We just assemble the sky... sounds easy...

And... we're done! See.. there were some cloudy bits too which helped.

And we get a closer look at those chimneys...

Where oh where have I seen them before?

 And... skipping right along... we got the building done and then the grass pathway pieces and the flower beds!

Then the front tulip beds...

All that's left is the dreaded green shrubbery - almost as bad as sky...

But there are bits and pieces and good tonal variations...

So that bush is done...

And this is getting completed quickly...

Last piece! Don't mind if I do...

Boop...

Done!

Oh... and those chimneys... I remember!

See how fancy they are... Beanie Mouse went to a place in London that looked just like this and had the exact same chimneys!

Whew... mystery solved...

Although... I could have saved myself a lot of head scratching by just looking at the box...

See... says right there... Hampton Court Palace Pond Garden, London, England... huh... go figure.

Are you doing any puzzles??

Crafting Bear... sort of...

Hello, it is I, Sandy Bear and my trusty colleagues, Zotti and Rusty. Today we are crafting... a beary exciting project!

We have a roll of second-hand wall paper ($5) and as you can see... it is impossible to work with because it keeps wanting to roll back up...

This is where Zotti and Rutsy come in... a beary important job... stay tuned...

 What exactly are we doing with the wall paper? Well... it's not wallpapering... that's for sure! Noooo... we are...

... lining dresser drawers! Yes... gotta keep the humans busy you know...

 This used to be Grampa's dresser and it's now in our spare bedroom... Grampa had some big sheets of card stock in the drawers but... they didn't fit bear well... actually, not at all...

Soooo... today... we are going to measure and cut...

See... beary important job for these two stuffies... Now... let's see... 27 1/2 " long...

That's right about there...

Cut that... and then... 13 3/4 " deep... and...

Here we are... we are just using double-stick tape to hold it down... nothing fancy here.

It does need a bit of tweaking in the corners...

 Ohhh... and that corner has crud in it... did we vacuum this drawer? Maybe not...

Let me just get on that...

By the way...

Never turn your back on a human and a vacuum cleaner... ahhhhhh... tickles!!!!!

Whew... there we go... one down and 3 more to go... What are you doing today?