Karen then: I don't think doing that solid color yellow puzzle would be very fun Karen now: Here's my giant collection of solid color jigsaw puzzles :D
Just rewatching this after seeing it first time several years ago and I am laughing so hard at the banana puzzle. It is amazing how things change. And excited to see a Colin Thompson puzzle in the keep stack!
Being bipolar I get a lot out of doing jigsaw puzzles..it can make me feel calm during a manic episode and get me out of a low point if I'm depressed. One of the few things I enjoy no matter which end of the spectrum I'm on at any given time.
I'm not bipolar but can totally relate to your comment. The great thing about doing a puzzle is it gives you time to think. The downside is also that it gives you time to think...
I had a puzzle that was like 50% sky 10%kangaroo and 40% grass and it’s weird but coming home every night and testing every piece on every other piece untill it fit while listening to music and watching movies was so much fun for me I loved doing that and every time I got a piece it was so satisfying
i tried to do that puzzle of the cabin and mountain Big Ben. puzzle many many years ago it was way ro hard for me at the time i have gotten a lot better at puzzles. Since then i could do it without any problem now
"They make terrible crayons, no wonder they make terrible puzzles" Hahaha I laughed out loud at that. As a preschool teacher I too loathe THOSE crayons. 😄😂😄
Priya, I agree with you! I love doing landscape puzzles. I actually am a photographer and use Ravensburger.com to have them make my photographs into jigsaw puzzles!
I agree with you 100% my husband and I work together on puzzles! He is 85 and I am 75 and we sit on opposite sides of the puzzle and have so much fun doing them. During this Covid time it has been wonderful to do these together!
Nah, Bob Ross is a master of color theory and composition. He would never make a painting that's just two muddled colors, with the entire bottom half being an uninteresting rock, the top half being sky, and a little cabin shoved off to the side out of focus. Most of his paintings would make way more interesting puzzles than these. And I'm sure that his reaction to her criticism would be overwhelmingly understanding. He may even become excitedly inspired to compose a painting that specifically makes for an amazing puzzle, with overlapping and interlocking swaths of bold color, mixed with easily-identifiable focus elements.
@@CheshireCad I see your point, but there are some paintings of his that are mainly 2 colors, lake, mountain, sky and a little cabin in the side. I do think that if he was asked to, he would make great illustrations in the jigsaw puzzle style.
Feeling exactly the opposite as Karen 🤣 I love all these photo puzzles. I can just dissociate myself right into that place. Love me some rocks and trees 🤣
I am the opposite to you. I started doing puzzles in the 1970s. Nature photographs, particularly mountains are my favorite. I love the Ravenberger Neuschwanstein Puzzles. Cartoons, illustrated and non-traditional subjects (example ice-creams lined up) do not feel like real jigsaw puzzles and I am not interested in doing these.
Interzone88 check out the websites " seriouspuzzles" if you like Neuschwanstein". New puzzles! One of my favourite also! Actually had a chance to go there a few times, along with hiking up the path( 2 1/2 hrs) back of the castle! Amazing view:)
Great video. I have to agree, I've become more picky about puzzles I like and dislike. Although I love the beach, I don't like puzzles with beach scenes. They have too much blue for sky and water, with the rest being beige sand. Some of my favorite puzzles are those with words, such as collections of books, so that I can identify matching pieces by the font as well as the color. Thanks for sharing your puzzle criteria with us, Karen.
I agree with you 100%. There is nothing worse then spending tens of hours staring at a pic that you hate. Or a puzzle that is frustratingly difficult. There is a happy medium, and when you find it, hours fly by in absolute pleasure. I also think you are crazy; but that is a good thing too.
My mom does super generic and boring puzzles like these, but I LOVE the fun new puzzles that they make today, so I totally agree with you on the idea that “life is too short to do a puzzle you’re not excited about” lol
Karen two years ago: "There's this puzzle that's just yellow and I don't think that would be very fun" A video of Karen doing that exact same puzzle today: "Am I a joke to you?!"
My biggest peeve is I get the impression that the original painting is much smaller than the puzzle image. They blow up the scale on the painting to make a 500+ piece puzzle, and it just ruins it. All you see in the pieces are brush strokes and the texture of the canvas. The colors are all washed out and the image is blurred. It just gives me a big headache trying to focus to put it together, and I think the result just doesn't do justice to the original image. He's a talented artist and his stuff is pretty, it's just not to my taste.
I couldn’t agree with you more! I rarely do a photograph puzzle; I much prefer interesting illustrations, especially collage style. I view selecting jigsaw puzzles like I view selecting books to read - my time is limited and this should bring me enough joy to make it worthwhile = I’m very selective. I’m also irked when people assume I’ll like any jigsaw puzzle made just because I love jigsaw puzzles. P.S. This video made me laugh out loud several times! 😄
So, so agree on the Big Ben and generic landscape puzzles! I got started from my Mom's collection and did so many of those. These days I'm picky about image I like, image that's interesting to do at puzzle scale, and interesting piece shapes (that's the biggest element for me; I'll keep boring puzzles with interesting piece shapes).
OMG you crack me up!!!! This is what I remember, I'm 55 and I never knew there were cool art puzzles! Well now I do and I am hooked! Thank you for a great show!
Just found your channel yesterday and today I subscribed. I told you yesterday I was a senior citizen that had no patience,but today I bought one that's 3D. It's not too big, so I hope to get back to trying them again. Thanks
I've watched only 5 minutes and I'm like "girl, you are breaking my heart!". My favorite puzzles are photographs and I love the MB Big Ben series. You can't even find them anymore 😫.
I literally gasped when you said you didn’t like Thomas Kinkade puzzles! I’ve been wanting to collect the disney puzzles for sooo long! This was such a fun video!
For me, the reason I love landscape photo puzzles is because, I love to travel and and see new places so when I'm putting one together I picture myself going there and climbing that mountain or sitting in a kayak on the lake or sipping coffee at that little cafe in a beautiful town somewhere in france. I always research where the picture was taken and what there is to do there and how much it would cost to go on that trip. Puzzles for me are little dreams of places where I want to be!
I know a guy that recently bought a summer cottage in the southern part of Denmark. Old house with a very nice garden. He was very surprised when he found that a picture of this house was the content of a Ravensburger puzzle.
Hey Karsten, sprichst du Deutsch? Das ist eine interessante Geschichte. Vielleicht könnte dein Bekannter Ravensburger anschreiben und nach dem Puzzle fragen. Liebe Grüße
I agree. I’m new at putting puzzles together and have a Thomas Kincaid 3D puzzle. I started with the sky, but got so frustrated, because it was unending sameness. So, I looked up how to put together a puzzle and came across you. I’m not frustrated with the puzzle anymore. I stepped back and decided to do the house, trees and flowers and do the sky at another time. Thank you for your videos!
I agree with you on most of these. The Big Ben was an MB series from the 80s-90s. I'm an avid stamp collector, so everyone thinks I want every stamp thing on earth. Not so much... Good video!
Same! Ravensburgers stay in the house. Kodacolors and Big Bens are in my attic. I'm fortunate enough that I don't own any Rose Arts. (I did do a 1989 Big Ben from the attic a few weeks ago. It wasn't too bad. It had been a long time since I had done a photograph of a place, so I liked the change.) Everyone knows I love puzzles, so I kept getting really difficult, repetitive puzzles as gifts. This year I started being honest about puzzles I like and don't like. The last two puzzles I've gotten as gifts are definite favorites. I think most puzzlers would rather have fewer puzzles that they love than have tons of puzzles they complete out of obligation. This was the first video I've seen of yours. I'm definitely going to go back and watch more!
I love how you said exactly how you feel and you didn't mince any words.I have been reading most of the comments and I agree with most of them. I don't like the same puzzles you don't either. You are really fun to watch and I like how cheerful and expressive you are.
Hi Karen - I'm new to puzzling and watching your videos has been so helpful. I really enjoy each video. I appreciate this particular one as it will help me avoid grabbing boring puzzles with your well thought out reasoning. Thank you!
Karen, I agree. I'm strictly a Wysocki puzzler. I've completed 16 of his 1000 piece puzzles and have 9 more to go in my collection. My husband doesn't understand why I like certain puzzles and won't do others. I tried explaining to him, it's like reading a book or watching a movie. If it's not interesting, then there's no point. He also doesn't understand why I glue them together then put them under the couch. After all that work, I don't have the heart to tear them down and put them back in the box. LOL :)
I totally agree with you on the idea that “life is too short to do a puzzle you’re not excited about”, but I like nature and photograph puzzles - guess I'm more into pretty pictures than 'artsy' puzzles just because they're more difficult. Good thing there are so many to choose from to please the many different kinds of tastes that puzzler's have!
My dad ONLY does Thomas Kincade jigsaw puzzles :D he likes how in every corner there is something different, with lots of different colors for flowers, so that you can always tell where the pieces should go.
HAHAHA I just got to the part about Rose Art "They make terrible crayons, so I'm not surprised they make terrible puzzles" that is the tea and I'm pretty sure if we knew each other in real life we would be best friends.
I’m new to jigsaw puzzles, I’m on my fourth one since late September and am now hooked. What I love about ones with painted scenery is that when I go outside I see nature so much more deeply, noticing colors, patterns, shapes. I’m always thinking ‘this scene would make a great puzzle’. I have been gone out at night and seen colors that are from the puzzle I’ve worked on superimposed over reality. Cool phenomena.
Outside of a few circumstances, I only do Charles Wysocki puzzles. I have over 100 of them but I haven’t actually counted in years. I really like the art and they’re satisfying to put together in a way that many other puzzles just aren’t for some reason. I’ve never been a fan of photorealistic puzzles for whatever reason and these just kind of clicked with me as a kid and I’ve been putting them together and collecting new ones when I can ever since. I’ve done some 2-5k piece puzzles and a lot of the “Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle in the World” brand double-sided puzzles, but I still always come back to my 1,000 piece Charles Wysocki puzzles. They’re like comfort food. I have two of those Thomas Kinkade puzzles with the weird shapes too. They’re actually more interesting to put together than you would think.
Commenting on your own video lol. Me looking for a laughing emoji that doesn’t make this seem mean but can’t find one so I’m laughing under the mask 😷 and remember laughing with you not at you
@@jdawgmadfresh1 You'd be surprised at how many TH-camrs Pin their own comments and give themselves hearts. Lol What amazes me are the people who pin and heart their own comments buy don't seem to have time to respond or even heart viewer's comments. 😌
I remember doing a bunch of Big Ben puzzles growing up, over and over again, rotating through the collection multiple times, and at some point realizing that each puzzle had the same pattern of shapes. A die-cut stamped grid of puzzle pieces. Now I want to go dig them out of my parents' place & see if they aren't completely interchangeable pieces, where you could do a blending of two images by alternating pieces from different puzzles!
I enjoyed seeing your cringe-face as you reacted to the puzzles. It's terrific. The Big Ben Tyrolean Village is my favorite landscape puzzle. Rooftops, lots of detail, and the little buildings that almost disappear into the mountain. You're the ginchiest!
I just started doing puzzles again since my childhood and this video brought me right back home to NJ with Bradlees and Jamesway!! I’m live in Georgia now so it was a great stroll down memory lane!!
You should try this puzzle series, it's called Wasgij, basically the picture on the box isn't the actual picture and you puzzle what they are seeing. They are the only puzzles I do now (lol) and I think you would find them really fun.
I puzzle virtually every day and I agree with you about photos and Kinkade. I have given all of the ones I had to the library. I like illustrations - Heronim, Wysocki, Jane Wooster Scott, and Linda Nelson Stocks, among others. I love your videos.
Great video, I do love the nature ones, and challenging ones, cause I'm in no hurry to finish a puzzle. The MB ones were the only ones easy to find in stores. After watching your channel a whole new world of puzzles opened up for me, brands and stores I had not heard about. Thank you for sharing.
I'm with you on the landscapes. I won't put together a puzzle with water, sky, and reflections being a good chunk of the puzzle. I have terrible memories of trying to do a puzzle with my family that was a lighthouse being bombarded with waves. The lighthouse was easy to do, but the rest of it all looked the same. It sat on the table for days and eventually we just piled it into the box in and threw it out. Never again will I do a puzzle where the majority of it looks exactly the same. Ugh.
I love the pile of kittens puzzle picture. It's cuteness overload for me. I would assemble any of those puzzles because I am a puzzle addict and can't help myself. Thanks for sharing!
I just found your channel because I’ve been thinking of getting back into doing jigsaw puzzles. I love your energy and I’m excited to start puzzling again.
I'm new to puzzling still. I feel like most puzzles have at least one fun thing to like about them. Puzzles are fun for the experience, or visually attractive, or both. Personally, with or without puzzles, I love photography such as any photo with a cool sky, or macro photos, so I do like Photo puzzles, but I favor ones that are actually appealing to me. I love the feeling of a beautiful photo and then being able to do more than just look at it, but actually do an activity with it, and then when it's done, it's either pretty enough that I like to day-dream about framing my hard work, or I break it apart to enjoy it again. For other puzzles it's just the experience of doing a puzzle, even if it's not visually the most attractive. For example, I go to Goodwill to hunt for unopened puzzles, and even if a puzzle isn't really something I would normally pick out, if it's good enough I can still find myself with a cheap 3$ factory sealed puzzle. Puzzles from Goodwill are a real hit-n-miss, but for just a quick grab and to enjoy the puzzle experience they work for people on a budget. I would take all of your unwanted puzzles just to have cheap puzzles, lol. I do also like the playful puzzles you like to do, because they are the most like a "toy", which is fun! However, my most memorable puzzle so far has been the "Robert Silver's Photomosaic Dolphin Puzzle", because I love analyzing all the details, and I love how there are so many tiny pictures to make up one giant picture, and doing that puzzle gave me very rewarding feelings of accomplishment.
I got a puzzle in japan and it’s pieces were so tiny you pretty much have to use twisers to pick up the pieces but I’ve got such a small desk so I want more puzzles like that normal ones are to big that I have to take everything off my desk just to do a puzzle and it’s putting me of most puzzles
I like those "boring" ones because of the outcome, the beautiful landscape you'll have at the end. Not all are great, but those with A LOT of rock or sky you get them for difficulty. Some of the giant ones I find noisy, too many little colored details, instead of relaxing I stress out from the noise. So, to each their own, right? :D Love the gradient ones or the one color, like white and with no edges, make it difficult.
Oog, some of those puzzles were just...no. I can't stare at those generic landscape or painting scenes now, but in the 90s we had a ton of them. So glad puzzles have evolved!
I figure out it ain't just the pictures (many of them were actually beautiful to me), but how they affect the puzzling process. Now I understand why you said in another video that you like puzzles with several images cased in a grid.
Having done only a few jigsaw puzzles in my lifetime, I am so amazed to see all the success that you have created for yourself based on your passion for puzzles! I am only just getting back into the jigsaw puzzle hobby because I took a trip to Wal-Mart and picked up a puzzle. That section, in my local Walmart, where all the jigsaw puzzles are is just so satisfying. They’re assorted so beautifully and there are so many colors. I enjoy hearing you talk about everything that you love and hate about jigsaw puzzles. I am happy that I have subscribed to your channel, you are truly amazing:)))
I tried a 3d puzzle for the first time and it's getting me out my nerves already. I get so anxious when the pieces dont perfectly fit and you need to apply so much strengh for them to do it. My hands hurt. I hate when you need to lie to someone that gifts you with a horrible or too difficult puzzle. I prefer flat puzzles
*lol* thinking of all the times i tried to declutter, filling up boxes for donation, flea market etc., putting them in some dark corner, life happening, then years later i find those boxes again, rummage through them, pull things out and go: 'hm, whatever posessed me to want to give *this* away ? that thing is sooo staying in my life !!' although i'm from a different corner - puzzlewise i'm the one who actually did those babies-as-butterflies-photo puzzles, glued them, framed them *and* hung them on the wall ! (had babies IRL then, sans wings, tho, so i guess it was kind of a life theme ..). and i'm all into Switzerland puzzles (mountains !!) and i'm obsessed with New York puzzles (i've done the Brooklyn Bridge as daylight, nighttime, panorama and glow-in-the-effin-dark puzzles ..) - i so much love your puzzle videos !
I love puzzles with color to there just so much more exiting and I love how you like almost everyone's comment it's so nice and I love your channel so much.
I also don't love photography puzzles, but if i do do one, its more likely landscape over like buildings or people and such. I LOVE thomas kinkaide puzzles! That was a bit surprising but everyone has different tastes :) Now I'm in the mood to do a puzzle this weekend!
I work on jigsaw puzzles with my grandmother. When I scout out new puzzles, I always have to look for ones that have bright colors. If I get a photo, it has to have enough distinct 'sections' to keep us from getting stumped or just outright bored. So many jigsaw puzzles are like 60% sky, or 40% sky but then 60% grass and trees. She likes the 10-in-1 multipacks because they save on storage space, and one of them had a 1,000-piece white tiger in a snowy forest. It took us over a month of beating our heads against it before we finally polished it off. We both declared it was the first and only time we would complete it, so we shipped it off to relatives who also enjoy puzzles. One thing you learn by doing a lot of puzzles is that what looks good whole might not be so nice in pieces. Cabins at night are visually nice, but that ends up being a lot of dark colors that blend together if the lighting isn't amazing. Also, I'm in your corner on Kinkade puzzles, but my grandmother LOVES them, so I try to get her at least one multipack a year. There are just so many times you can do a pastel orange/pink/baby blue sky, and that's what most of his jigsaw puzzles have. At the piece level, it's a lot of colors blending together. Can really make it hard to tell what you're even looking at.
Hi do u keep the puzzles together when u finish them or pull them apart again . I started getting into puzzles about 4 or so years ago and i love it. Its the only hobby i have started and continued i have people now wanting to buy them because i glue them onto wood and i then make my own frame and paint the frame and cover it with a gloss finish with hanging kit on back and people buy it to put on their walls as art pieces. At the moment i have over 20 completed ones from 1000 pieces to 1500. I normally do 1 every 2 wks.
I love stuff with one color. It's an exercise in shape recognition and getting faster at recognizing different nuances of the shapes of the pieces. It's exactly what i enjoy doing, smt that drives me insane and is insanely similar. I love that!
I actually like the one with the cabin and mountains, looks beautiful and peaceful. I love nature and hiking though. To me the puzzles with just colors and no design like the all red one are awful! Also I love cats, just did a cat puzzle!
I like the Jan Van Haasteren puzzles the most (especially 'at the beach') even when i made the puzzle i can look hours and hours at and i still see something that i haven't seen before.
I completely agree with you on these particular puzzles. They are quite boring. I personally love puzzles themed around astrology, zodics, fantasy and owls. That 9000 piece astrology puzzle you did is incredible and I've added it to my list of dream puzzles. It'll be a long time before I can afford it if it comes available again but I hope one day I can do it.
I enjoyed this video. You did a great job of putting into words my exact feelings about puzzles that I don’t like. I got into puzzles this summer. I have done 12 so far. There was only 1 puzzle (not included in the 12) that I started to do and did not finish. It was a photograph of a waterfall, greenery and sky, but it was all dark and it was so hard to see where pieces would belong. When I realised that the puzzle wasn’t going to be fun because it was so frustrating and boring, I packed it away. I agree that puzzles should be fun and I would rather spend a little more to get a puzzle that I like.
These are pretty vintage-y. I went over most of Amazon's collection and couldn't find anything similar to those. Don't get me wrong, they're bad, but also outdated. Speaking of Amazon, it seems like the Jigsaw puzzle collection there is fairly limited, to my surprise. Do you have some favorite brands or sites go recommend me, please? :)
Bits and Pieces has tons of puzzles on their site, and for my favorite brands, just watch my puzzle collection videos to see which ones I talk about the most!
Amazon used to have a ton of high quality puzzles from great manufacturers. I loaded up with many Ravensburger, Schmidt, Gibson's and Educa when they went on sale for surprisingly low prices a few years ago. Now on Amazon they're pretty much gone. JigsawJungle seems to have a good selection of quality puzzles.
I prefer illustrated over photo puzzles too. But I love illustrated landscapes. I don't do puzzles I am not excited about because I have to pay for them all.
Karen then: I don't think doing that solid color yellow puzzle would be very fun
Karen now: Here's my giant collection of solid color jigsaw puzzles :D
ha!! Just thought the same thing after watching her put an all white puzzle together with a piece missing!
And the banana one is one of her favorites!
She also didn't want puzzles to be "frustratingly difficult" and then did that 16-pieces puzzle where every hole was the wrong shape for the piece :D
Just rewatching this after seeing it first time several years ago and I am laughing so hard at the banana puzzle. It is amazing how things change. And excited to see a Colin Thompson puzzle in the keep stack!
I was thinking the same thing! 🤣
Being bipolar I get a lot out of doing jigsaw puzzles..it can make me feel calm during a manic episode and get me out of a low point if I'm depressed. One of the few things I enjoy no matter which end of the spectrum I'm on at any given time.
I love that puzzles can help you in that way!
I'm not bipolar but can totally relate to your comment. The great thing about doing a puzzle is it gives you time to think. The downside is also that it gives you time to think...
@@JT1358 yes think, about the painful past
I'm bipolar and I also love doing puzzles.
@@BeingBetter Im bi winning
I had a puzzle that was like 50% sky 10%kangaroo and 40% grass and it’s weird but coming home every night and testing every piece on every other piece untill it fit while listening to music and watching movies was so much fun for me I loved doing that and every time I got a piece it was so satisfying
i tried to do that puzzle of the cabin and mountain Big Ben. puzzle many many years ago it was way ro hard for me at the time i have gotten a lot better at puzzles. Since then i could do it without any problem now
There's something completely zen about doing that kind of puzzle for me.
"They make terrible crayons, no wonder they make terrible puzzles" Hahaha I laughed out loud at that. As a preschool teacher I too loathe THOSE crayons. 😄😂😄
Yass! I was looking for this comment! Haha I LOATHE RoseArt "Crayons"! Her comment had me dead!
Why does Rose Art produce such crummy crayons? Crayola crayons are a bit more expensive but are way better!
Shannon78 you're so right! 🤣
Those are the worst crayons!
The shade is real and delightful
Man I wish I could have all of your 'hate' collection ... I'm obsessed with landscapes and mountains 😞
Priya, I agree with you! I love doing landscape puzzles. I actually am a photographer and use Ravensburger.com to have them make my photographs into jigsaw puzzles!
Me tooo
This kind is also my favourite!
They look cool but I don’t think I could figure it out
@@dr.johnandyvonnewagner5067 Wow that's so cool! My favorite jigsaws are ones that have been converted from photographs and paintings
I agree with you 100% my husband and I work together on puzzles! He is 85 and I am 75 and we sit on opposite sides of the puzzle and have so much fun doing them. During this Covid time it has been wonderful to do these together!
Karen two years ago: [hates doing single color parts of puzzles]
Karen today: [has done several single color puzzles]
Sometimes those videos come across as her hating doing puzzles though.
Actually, she has done several GRADIENT color puzzles ;) She actually didn't finish one of her gradients because it was a single, solid color.
She addresses this in the video @7:50
@@nerwent1203 I think they're referring to the ketchup puzzle and the krypt puzzle. There may be others too, but those are both a solid single color.
@@marybell2897 there’s at least one more by now.
Karen: “Oh look, it’s a little cabin, it’s a mountain. These colours are so boring...”
Bob Ross: 😳
@Danielle Anderson IKR 😳
I was just imagining what Bob Ross’ reaction would be… 🤣
Nah, Bob Ross is a master of color theory and composition. He would never make a painting that's just two muddled colors, with the entire bottom half being an uninteresting rock, the top half being sky, and a little cabin shoved off to the side out of focus. Most of his paintings would make way more interesting puzzles than these.
And I'm sure that his reaction to her criticism would be overwhelmingly understanding. He may even become excitedly inspired to compose a painting that specifically makes for an amazing puzzle, with overlapping and interlocking swaths of bold color, mixed with easily-identifiable focus elements.
@@CheshireCad Jeez! That was heck of a response. I’ve got no idea how to respond to that… 😳🤣
@@CheshireCad I see your point, but there are some paintings of his that are mainly 2 colors, lake, mountain, sky and a little cabin in the side. I do think that if he was asked to, he would make great illustrations in the jigsaw puzzle style.
We did one of the Grand Canyon. It was amazing when finished - but hard!! @danielleanderson6371
Feeling exactly the opposite as Karen 🤣 I love all these photo puzzles. I can just dissociate myself right into that place. Love me some rocks and trees 🤣
I am the opposite to you. I started doing puzzles in the 1970s. Nature photographs, particularly mountains are my favorite. I love the Ravenberger Neuschwanstein Puzzles. Cartoons, illustrated and non-traditional subjects (example ice-creams lined up) do not feel like real jigsaw puzzles and I am not interested in doing these.
Interzone88 i feel the same way!
Interzone88 check out the websites " seriouspuzzles" if you like Neuschwanstein". New puzzles! One of my favourite also! Actually had a chance to go there a few times, along with hiking up the path( 2 1/2 hrs) back of the castle! Amazing view:)
Anything with architecture is really fun and relaxing. There’s plenty of visual interest ❤️
I'm just getting into puzzles & this is a good reminder to not get a puzzle unless I'm really really excited about the picture. :)
Great video. I have to agree, I've become more picky about puzzles I like and dislike. Although I love the beach, I don't like puzzles with beach scenes. They have too much blue for sky and water, with the rest being beige sand. Some of my favorite puzzles are those with words, such as collections of books, so that I can identify matching pieces by the font as well as the color.
Thanks for sharing your puzzle criteria with us, Karen.
“in the puzzle scene”
I love that
I agree with you 100%. There is nothing worse then spending tens of hours staring at a pic that you hate. Or a puzzle that is frustratingly difficult. There is a happy medium, and when you find it, hours fly by in absolute pleasure. I also think you are crazy; but that is a good thing too.
My mom does super generic and boring puzzles like these, but I LOVE the fun new puzzles that they make today, so I totally agree with you on the idea that “life is too short to do a puzzle you’re not excited about” lol
Karen two years ago: "There's this puzzle that's just yellow and I don't think that would be very fun"
A video of Karen doing that exact same puzzle today: "Am I a joke to you?!"
"I'm going to say something very controversial... I do not like Thomas Kinkade jigsaw puzzles!" SPILL THAT TEA!
YYYEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!! UGH!
Why? What's wrong with them?
My biggest peeve is I get the impression that the original painting is much smaller than the puzzle image. They blow up the scale on the painting to make a 500+ piece puzzle, and it just ruins it. All you see in the pieces are brush strokes and the texture of the canvas. The colors are all washed out and the image is blurred. It just gives me a big headache trying to focus to put it together, and I think the result just doesn't do justice to the original image. He's a talented artist and his stuff is pretty, it's just not to my taste.
Neither do I, but what I hate even more than Thomas Kincade puzzles are Disney puzzles😩.
K. F. I’m currently doing 4 Thomas Kincade puzzles with Disney characters.😊🧩
"Life is too short, why would you like to solve a puzzle you are not excited about"
-Karen
this honestly helps me when it comes to choosing what i want to do in a day, or when i'm looking for an activity
That's what I always say.
Today I'm showing you the jigsaw puzzles that I DON'T want to do! Do you have the same preferences as me or are you into these?
Omg...I really love those...maybe you can send them to me...that would be amazing..haha😙
I actually really like the parots puzzle. And the cats and planes. And I\m in love with the 1000 pieces cats jigsaw.
I'm a geologist, so, yea, anything WITH rocks, mountains, valleys, glaciers, rivers......😉😉
I couldn’t agree with you more! I rarely do a photograph puzzle; I much prefer interesting illustrations, especially collage style. I view selecting jigsaw puzzles like I view selecting books to read - my time is limited and this should bring me enough joy to make it worthwhile = I’m very selective. I’m also irked when people assume I’ll like any jigsaw puzzle made just because I love jigsaw puzzles.
P.S. This video made me laugh out loud several times! 😄
So, so agree on the Big Ben and generic landscape puzzles! I got started from my Mom's collection and did so many of those. These days I'm picky about image I like, image that's interesting to do at puzzle scale, and interesting piece shapes (that's the biggest element for me; I'll keep boring puzzles with interesting piece shapes).
OMG you crack me up!!!! This is what I remember, I'm 55 and I never knew there were cool art puzzles! Well now I do and I am hooked! Thank you for a great show!
Lol, I may or may not be doing a puzzle with mountains right now while watching this.
"More than 10 years ago, when I was going to college" ... I tought you were around 23
Same ngl
Shes 29 i think maybe 30 im not 100% sure
She looks very young, which will always be a good thing!
I thought she was 15.
@@kroutonjr In a recent video she said she turned 30 on NYE 2020
I love going through Karen's videos because I feel like I just discovered a whole community I didn't know I wanted to be a part of.
same here :D have done 3 x 1000 puzzle in the past week with my girlfriend and its so stressful yet so fun 😀
Just found your channel yesterday and today I subscribed. I told you yesterday I was a senior citizen that had no patience,but today I bought one that's 3D. It's not too big, so I hope to get back to trying them again. Thanks
I've watched only 5 minutes and I'm like "girl, you are breaking my heart!". My favorite puzzles are photographs and I love the MB Big Ben series. You can't even find them anymore 😫.
Me too!
We’re all different!
I hope you reached out to her and she sold them to you! I know she would have!
I literally gasped when you said you didn’t like Thomas Kinkade puzzles! I’ve been wanting to collect the disney puzzles for sooo long! This was such a fun video!
The lady stood on a rock is a really spooky picture, it's like she's waiting to get killed by the wave.
john Taylor it’s freaky!
For me, the reason I love landscape photo puzzles is because, I love to travel and and see new places so when I'm putting one together I picture myself going there and climbing that mountain or sitting in a kayak on the lake or sipping coffee at that little cafe in a beautiful town somewhere in france. I always research where the picture was taken and what there is to do there and how much it would cost to go on that trip. Puzzles for me are little dreams of places where I want to be!
Im so glad you changed your mind about the cat one. Its pretty cool!
I loved the 1 that was all cats! I hated MB puzzles because they didnt interlock. Some had strange pieces that just leaned in place.😬
Thomas Kinkade paintings make the best puzzles!!
I personally like doing the picture ones, but that’s mostly because I started doing puzzles with my grandma and those are type we did together
I know a guy that recently bought a summer cottage in the southern part of Denmark. Old house with a very nice garden. He was very surprised when he found that a picture of this house was the content of a Ravensburger puzzle.
Hey Karsten, sprichst du Deutsch? Das ist eine interessante Geschichte. Vielleicht könnte dein Bekannter Ravensburger anschreiben und nach dem Puzzle fragen. Liebe Grüße
I completely agree with you! If the image doesn’t interest you, why would you want to stare at it for hours?
These type of puzzles literally make up my whole collection 😭 I love the vintage landscapes!!
you roast things in the nicest way possible! It’s hilarious 😂
I agree. I’m new at putting puzzles together and have a Thomas Kincaid 3D puzzle. I started with the sky, but got so frustrated, because it was unending sameness. So, I looked up how to put together a puzzle and came across you.
I’m not frustrated with the puzzle anymore. I stepped back and decided to do the house, trees and flowers and do the sky at another time.
Thank you for your videos!
I agree with you on most of these. The Big Ben was an MB series from the 80s-90s. I'm an avid stamp collector, so everyone thinks I want every stamp thing on earth. Not so much... Good video!
9:50 I have those mountains and the lake from a different perspective. The spot the photo was taken from makes a huge difference.
Same! Ravensburgers stay in the house. Kodacolors and Big Bens are in my attic. I'm fortunate enough that I don't own any Rose Arts. (I did do a 1989 Big Ben from the attic a few weeks ago. It wasn't too bad. It had been a long time since I had done a photograph of a place, so I liked the change.) Everyone knows I love puzzles, so I kept getting really difficult, repetitive puzzles as gifts. This year I started being honest about puzzles I like and don't like. The last two puzzles I've gotten as gifts are definite favorites. I think most puzzlers would rather have fewer puzzles that they love than have tons of puzzles they complete out of obligation. This was the first video I've seen of yours. I'm definitely going to go back and watch more!
I love how you said exactly how you feel and you didn't mince any words.I have been reading most of the comments and I agree with most of them. I don't like the same puzzles you don't either. You are really fun to watch and I like how cheerful and expressive you are.
It's funny you make mention of the Big Ben puzzle in this video, because I remember doing this one in my childhood years.
Hi Karen - I'm new to puzzling and watching your videos has been so helpful. I really enjoy each video. I appreciate this particular one as it will help me avoid grabbing boring puzzles with your well thought out reasoning. Thank you!
Karen, I agree. I'm strictly a Wysocki puzzler. I've completed 16 of his 1000 piece puzzles and have 9 more to go in my collection. My husband doesn't understand why I like certain puzzles and won't do others. I tried explaining to him, it's like reading a book or watching a movie. If it's not interesting, then there's no point. He also doesn't understand why I glue them together then put them under the couch. After all that work, I don't have the heart to tear them down and put them back in the box. LOL :)
I totally agree with you on the idea that “life is too short to do a puzzle you’re not excited about”, but I like nature and photograph puzzles - guess I'm more into pretty pictures than 'artsy' puzzles just because they're more difficult. Good thing there are so many to choose from to please the many different kinds of tastes that puzzler's have!
I didn’t know i needed this channel in my life ❤️
My dad ONLY does Thomas Kincade jigsaw puzzles :D he likes how in every corner there is something different, with lots of different colors for flowers, so that you can always tell where the pieces should go.
LMAAAAAOOOOO "And here we have... rocks." Totally agree, so many of these are sooooooo boring.
HAHAHA I just got to the part about Rose Art "They make terrible crayons, so I'm not surprised they make terrible puzzles" that is the tea and I'm pretty sure if we knew each other in real life we would be best friends.
I have that Devils marbles in Australia. My daughter went there and I don't think she would do this puzzle either.
I’m new to jigsaw puzzles, I’m on my fourth one since late September and am now hooked. What I love about ones with painted scenery is that when I go outside I see nature so much more deeply, noticing colors, patterns, shapes. I’m always thinking ‘this scene would make a great puzzle’. I have been gone out at night and seen colors that are from the puzzle I’ve worked on superimposed over reality. Cool phenomena.
5:56 "they make terrible crayons so I'm not surprised they made a terrible puzzle" 🤣🤣🤣
I love landscape puzzles and photos. Because I can dream about traveling to the spot.
Outside of a few circumstances, I only do Charles Wysocki puzzles. I have over 100 of them but I haven’t actually counted in years. I really like the art and they’re satisfying to put together in a way that many other puzzles just aren’t for some reason. I’ve never been a fan of photorealistic puzzles for whatever reason and these just kind of clicked with me as a kid and I’ve been putting them together and collecting new ones when I can ever since. I’ve done some 2-5k piece puzzles and a lot of the “Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle in the World” brand double-sided puzzles, but I still always come back to my 1,000 piece Charles Wysocki puzzles. They’re like comfort food.
I have two of those Thomas Kinkade puzzles with the weird shapes too. They’re actually more interesting to put together than you would think.
Thomas Kinkade paintings make the best puzzles!
I just love all your puzzle videos. What a great collection you have....
Yay, it's up!
Commenting on your own video lol. Me looking for a laughing emoji that doesn’t make this seem mean but can’t find one so I’m laughing under the mask 😷 and remember laughing with you not at you
I see you have 195k subs in the DIY channel but your passion for puzzles won over the DIYs
I really love uow she hearts her own comments and even pinns them
@@jdawgmadfresh1 Well keep in mind she was still building an audience, this was just one way to show people that she has a second channel. 👍
@@jdawgmadfresh1 You'd be surprised at how many TH-camrs Pin their own comments and give themselves hearts. Lol
What amazes me are the people who pin and heart their own comments buy don't seem to have time to respond or even heart viewer's comments. 😌
LOL, I’m watching this right after seeing your premiere listed for the yellow puzzle.
Coming here 3years later where Karen actually collects solid color puzzles. 😊😉
I remember doing a bunch of Big Ben puzzles growing up, over and over again, rotating through the collection multiple times, and at some point realizing that each puzzle had the same pattern of shapes. A die-cut stamped grid of puzzle pieces. Now I want to go dig them out of my parents' place & see if they aren't completely interchangeable pieces, where you could do a blending of two images by alternating pieces from different puzzles!
I enjoyed seeing your cringe-face as you reacted to the puzzles. It's terrific. The Big Ben Tyrolean Village is my favorite landscape puzzle. Rooftops, lots of detail, and the little buildings that almost disappear into the mountain. You're the ginchiest!
I just started doing puzzles again since my childhood and this video brought me right back home to NJ with Bradlees and Jamesway!! I’m live in Georgia now so it was a great stroll down memory lane!!
You should try this puzzle series, it's called Wasgij, basically the picture on the box isn't the actual picture and you puzzle what they are seeing. They are the only puzzles I do now (lol) and I think you would find them really fun.
I've done one of those and I really enjoyed it! It's on my list of brands to review!
I puzzle virtually every day and I agree with you about photos and Kinkade. I have given all of the ones I had to the library. I like illustrations - Heronim, Wysocki, Jane Wooster Scott, and Linda Nelson Stocks, among others. I love your videos.
Great video, I do love the nature ones, and challenging ones, cause I'm in no hurry to finish a puzzle. The MB ones were the only ones easy to find in stores. After watching your channel a whole new world of puzzles opened up for me, brands and stores I had not heard about. Thank you for sharing.
I'm with you on the landscapes. I won't put together a puzzle with water, sky, and reflections being a good chunk of the puzzle. I have terrible memories of trying to do a puzzle with my family that was a lighthouse being bombarded with waves. The lighthouse was easy to do, but the rest of it all looked the same. It sat on the table for days and eventually we just piled it into the box in and threw it out. Never again will I do a puzzle where the majority of it looks exactly the same. Ugh.
You are sooo cute ! Your positive attitude is infectious !!!
I love the pile of kittens puzzle picture. It's cuteness overload for me. I would assemble any of those puzzles because I am a puzzle addict and can't help myself. Thanks for sharing!
I'm happy to have found you Karen. I just completed my 2nd puzzle with many more to come...
I just found your channel because I’ve been thinking of getting back into doing jigsaw puzzles. I love your energy and I’m excited to start puzzling again.
I'm new to puzzling still. I feel like most puzzles have at least one fun thing to like about them. Puzzles are fun for the experience, or visually attractive, or both. Personally, with or without puzzles, I love photography such as any photo with a cool sky, or macro photos, so I do like Photo puzzles, but I favor ones that are actually appealing to me. I love the feeling of a beautiful photo and then being able to do more than just look at it, but actually do an activity with it, and then when it's done, it's either pretty enough that I like to day-dream about framing my hard work, or I break it apart to enjoy it again.
For other puzzles it's just the experience of doing a puzzle, even if it's not visually the most attractive. For example, I go to Goodwill to hunt for unopened puzzles, and even if a puzzle isn't really something I would normally pick out, if it's good enough I can still find myself with a cheap 3$ factory sealed puzzle. Puzzles from Goodwill are a real hit-n-miss, but for just a quick grab and to enjoy the puzzle experience they work for people on a budget. I would take all of your unwanted puzzles just to have cheap puzzles, lol.
I do also like the playful puzzles you like to do, because they are the most like a "toy", which is fun!
However, my most memorable puzzle so far has been the "Robert Silver's Photomosaic Dolphin Puzzle", because I love analyzing all the details, and I love how there are so many tiny pictures to make up one giant picture, and doing that puzzle gave me very rewarding feelings of accomplishment.
Puzzles have improved with color quality and appearance instead of a photograph when we puzzled in the 1970’s
"I can't wait to be a grandma some day" made me smile.
I got a puzzle in japan and it’s pieces were so tiny you pretty much have to use twisers to pick up the pieces but I’ve got such a small desk so I want more puzzles like that normal ones are to big that I have to take everything off my desk just to do a puzzle and it’s putting me of most puzzles
I like those "boring" ones because of the outcome, the beautiful landscape you'll have at the end. Not all are great, but those with A LOT of rock or sky you get them for difficulty. Some of the giant ones I find noisy, too many little colored details, instead of relaxing I stress out from the noise. So, to each their own, right? :D Love the gradient ones or the one color, like white and with no edges, make it difficult.
I totally agree. I love the beautiful illustrated puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles have come a long way!
Oog, some of those puzzles were just...no. I can't stare at those generic landscape or painting scenes now, but in the 90s we had a ton of them. So glad puzzles have evolved!
We are 100% on the same page here.
I figure out it ain't just the pictures (many of them were actually beautiful to me), but how they affect the puzzling process. Now I understand why you said in another video that you like puzzles with several images cased in a grid.
You can make a pair of puzzle earrings or some kind of jewelry with the miscellaneous puzzle pieces for your main channel!
Oh wow i thought this was her main channel
@@LL-wu5ui yeah me too. what is her main channel tho?
She could make puzzle jewelry or art with the random pieces to those incomplete puzzles, instead of just throwing them away.
@@LL-wu5ui it is now. she used to have a DIY channel
I love mountains!!! I would happily just do mountain puzzles
Omg I remember half of them.. Yes that why I left puzzles for years..
Having done only a few jigsaw puzzles in my lifetime, I am so amazed to see all the success that you have created for yourself based on your passion for puzzles! I am only just getting back into the jigsaw puzzle hobby because I took a trip to Wal-Mart and picked up a puzzle. That section, in my local Walmart, where all the jigsaw puzzles are is just so satisfying. They’re assorted so beautifully and there are so many colors. I enjoy hearing you talk about everything that you love and hate about jigsaw puzzles. I am happy that I have subscribed to your channel, you are truly amazing:)))
I tried a 3d puzzle for the first time and it's getting me out my nerves already. I get so anxious when the pieces dont perfectly fit and you need to apply so much strengh for them to do it. My hands hurt. I hate when you need to lie to someone that gifts you with a horrible or too difficult puzzle.
I prefer flat puzzles
I love that mountain puzzle
*lol* thinking of all the times i tried to declutter, filling up boxes for donation, flea market etc., putting them in some dark corner, life happening, then years later i find those boxes again, rummage through them, pull things out and go: 'hm, whatever posessed me to want to give *this* away ? that thing is sooo staying in my life !!'
although i'm from a different corner - puzzlewise i'm the one who actually did those babies-as-butterflies-photo puzzles, glued them, framed them *and* hung them on the wall ! (had babies IRL then, sans wings, tho, so i guess it was kind of a life theme ..). and i'm all into Switzerland puzzles (mountains !!) and i'm obsessed with New York puzzles (i've done the Brooklyn Bridge as daylight, nighttime, panorama and glow-in-the-effin-dark puzzles ..) - i so much love your puzzle videos !
8:00 3 years later: Doing the Dole Banana Puzzle
You are not the “KAREN” that the world despises. Keep up the good work!👍👍👍
Girl I’m so with you on all of this. I’m so glad we live in the times we do. Landscape photography was so boring for puzzles.
I like the difficulty that comes with nature and other real world photos as puzzles, but to each their own.
Omg I love that lighthouse, I've been there, yes it's boring puzzle, but I like the lighthouse
I love puzzles with color to there just so much more exiting and I love how you like almost everyone's comment it's so nice and I love your channel so much.
I also don't love photography puzzles, but if i do do one, its more likely landscape over like buildings or people and such. I LOVE thomas kinkaide puzzles! That was a bit surprising but everyone has different tastes :) Now I'm in the mood to do a puzzle this weekend!
Do it!
i love your enthusiasm!
I work on jigsaw puzzles with my grandmother. When I scout out new puzzles, I always have to look for ones that have bright colors. If I get a photo, it has to have enough distinct 'sections' to keep us from getting stumped or just outright bored.
So many jigsaw puzzles are like 60% sky, or 40% sky but then 60% grass and trees. She likes the 10-in-1 multipacks because they save on storage space, and one of them had a 1,000-piece white tiger in a snowy forest. It took us over a month of beating our heads against it before we finally polished it off. We both declared it was the first and only time we would complete it, so we shipped it off to relatives who also enjoy puzzles.
One thing you learn by doing a lot of puzzles is that what looks good whole might not be so nice in pieces. Cabins at night are visually nice, but that ends up being a lot of dark colors that blend together if the lighting isn't amazing.
Also, I'm in your corner on Kinkade puzzles, but my grandmother LOVES them, so I try to get her at least one multipack a year. There are just so many times you can do a pastel orange/pink/baby blue sky, and that's what most of his jigsaw puzzles have. At the piece level, it's a lot of colors blending together. Can really make it hard to tell what you're even looking at.
Hi do u keep the puzzles together when u finish them or pull them apart again . I started getting into puzzles about 4 or so years ago and i love it. Its the only hobby i have started and continued i have people now wanting to buy them because i glue them onto wood and i then make my own frame and paint the frame and cover it with a gloss finish with hanging kit on back and people buy it to put on their walls as art pieces. At the moment i have over 20 completed ones from 1000 pieces to 1500. I normally do 1 every 2 wks.
I always take mine apart when I'm finished so I can do them again!
I love stuff with one color. It's an exercise in shape recognition and getting faster at recognizing different nuances of the shapes of the pieces. It's exactly what i enjoy doing, smt that drives me insane and is insanely similar. I love that!
I actually like the one with the cabin and mountains, looks beautiful and peaceful. I love nature and hiking though. To me the puzzles with just colors and no design like the all red one are awful! Also I love cats, just did a cat puzzle!
I like the Jan Van Haasteren puzzles the most (especially 'at the beach') even when i made the puzzle i can look hours and hours at and i still see something that i haven't seen before.
I hate them the objects are 1 piece big and that times 1500 or 3000 or 1000
That's fine. Wich ones do you like the most?
I completely agree with you on these particular puzzles. They are quite boring. I personally love puzzles themed around astrology, zodics, fantasy and owls. That 9000 piece astrology puzzle you did is incredible and I've added it to my list of dream puzzles. It'll be a long time before I can afford it if it comes available again but I hope one day I can do it.
Same but instead of owls, its wolves and tigers for me
I enjoyed this video. You did a great job of putting into words my exact feelings about puzzles that I don’t like. I got into puzzles this summer. I have done 12 so far. There was only 1 puzzle (not included in the 12) that I started to do and did not finish. It was a photograph of a waterfall, greenery and sky, but it was all dark and it was so hard to see where pieces would belong. When I realised that the puzzle wasn’t going to be fun because it was so frustrating and boring, I packed it away. I agree that puzzles should be fun and I would rather spend a little more to get a puzzle that I like.
These are pretty vintage-y. I went over most of Amazon's collection and couldn't find anything similar to those. Don't get me wrong, they're bad, but also outdated.
Speaking of Amazon, it seems like the Jigsaw puzzle collection there is fairly limited, to my surprise.
Do you have some favorite brands or sites go recommend me, please? :)
Bits and Pieces has tons of puzzles on their site, and for my favorite brands, just watch my puzzle collection videos to see which ones I talk about the most!
Amazon used to have a ton of high quality puzzles from great manufacturers. I loaded up with many Ravensburger, Schmidt, Gibson's and Educa when they went on sale for surprisingly low prices a few years ago. Now on Amazon they're pretty much gone. JigsawJungle seems to have a good selection of quality puzzles.
Lang has a website too
Your channel is so fun to watch, and your tips are the bomb!
I prefer illustrated over photo puzzles too. But I love illustrated landscapes. I don't do puzzles I am not excited about because I have to pay for them all.
Recently found your channel and now I’m binge watching! I totally agree with you on Thomas Kincaid and photo puzzles!