Rating all the puzzles I did while being burned out from making puzzle videos

Rating all the puzzles I did while being burned out from making puzzle videos

Rating all the puzzles I did while being burned out from making puzzle videos.

Hi guys, so I have been doing a lot of puzzles lately and I have just been so busy and exhausted that I did the puzzles and then I just never really told anyone about them. I would take all of these photos and videos while working on these puzzles and then I would just never get around to posting them on instagram or anywhere else.

 

So today I figured, I would just run through all of them and give you a bunch of quick puzzle, reviews of a bunch of brands that I have never talked about on my channel before and then I can finally put all these puzzles away and get all Of my foam boards back because i’m kind of running out, but first before I get into it, I want to talk about something: that’s not exactly a puzzle, but it is sort of puzzle adjacent. It is my new hobby that I think all of you are going to love as well. Today’s video is sponsored by the diamond art club, so take it away from me.

 

So let me tell you about the diamond painting kits from diamond art club, i’m going to talk about this more at the end of the video, but lately I have been so burnt out and so tired that I have just needed to give my brain a break And usually that’s when I would do a jigsaw puzzle just for fun, which is what i’m talking about through this whole video, but sometimes even I want to take a break from jigsaw. Puzzles and diamond painting has honestly been the perfect new project for that. So if you don’t know what diamond painting is, it’s basically sparkly paint by numbers, so everything that you need to do this project is included in the box. So here is a look at all of the supplies, so you just pick which design you want and then they send you this poster and when you peel back the plastic, the poster is actually sticky. So if you look closely, you can see all of these different symbols.

 

So, let’s just pick a symbol like uh, this pink e, then you come over here to the key and you match that up to the rhinestone color code, this project comes with all of the different colored rhinestones that you need, so you just match up which color You’Re looking for, then you take the applicator pen and you stick it into the included wax and that allows you to pick up the rhinestones one by one. So then, you just pick up the rhinestones and put them in place and you watch your design come to life just like doing a jigsaw puzzle. It keeps your hands busy and it is so meditative to place the rhinestones on the little squares and slowly fill in the picture, and then, when you’re done it is so sparkly. So they did send me. This finished one to be able to show you for the video, but this is the one that I’m genuinely working on for myself and take a look at how far I’ve gotten. It’s looking really good.

So if you want to try this for yourself, they have all kinds of different designs you can head over to their website at the link which is down in the description and you can use my code puzzles 10 for 10 off your first order, all right. So, let’s get into the puzzle reviews so the first company I want to talk about is playbuzz. This is a fairly new company and I have been so impressed with them. I’M so happy to feature them here on the channel, so I’ve done two puzzles with them. Already a thousand piece puzzle called sweet tooth and then a 500 piece puzzle called oops and here’s what I love about these puzzles.

 

Every single inch of them is so thoughtfully designed. Obviously, the pictures are really fun and interesting, and then the box is just so unique and, unlike anything else, that’s currently out there in the puzzle space. I love how they have these, like cereal box games, on the back of each of their puzzle boxes. I think that is such a nice touch and when you open it up, the entire inside is designed to match their branding. They even have this yellow bag that the pieces come in and the back of their pieces is this kind of pastel pink, which is just like so pretty, and it just elevates it above a regular cardboard.

 

You know the only thing to keep in mind with these puzzles is that everything about them is big. The boxes are big, so you’re gonna have to have space to store them. I actually didn’t mind that um you’re gonna see in some of the photos coming up that I would grab these puzzle boxes to hold the pieces for other puzzles that came in smaller boxes, but also this thousand piece puzzle. I was working on it in bed and eventually I had to grab a second piece of foam board because it was just way too big to fit on one single piece like this is only a thousand piece puzzle and it measures 23 well, just under 24 inches, Which is 60 centimeters by about 30 inches, which is uh 67 centimeters. I also wanted to mention that the puzzle cut is random, so it’s actually really similar to all of the vintage spring boxes that I have featured here on the channel.

 

So if you like the look of those random cut pieces, um, this is a new modern company that is doing something very similar in terms of the piece quality. They feel really thick. They feel high quality, but I do have to admit that they don’t lock together. Like nearly as well as the old springbok puzzles that I was just talking about, I can lift a corner like that. Ah, but I definitely would not be able to lift the entire thing and then just bring up the 500 piece puzzle. This one is a little smaller, so it does fit on a single piece of foam board, and this image was definitely easier than the candy one um.

 

You can see with images like this, since you just have small things happening all over the puzzle. This one took me quite a while to finish, but the 500 piece. One is a little more straightforward and I just love how fun and playful all of their photography is. And I love how, like you just look at this puzzle and you know who this company is. Their branding is so strong and so unique like yes, maybe it’s not your personal aesthetic and that’s perfectly fine, but you cannot deny that you know exactly who this company is so in addition to these two, they also sent me two more puzzles that I have in My stack okay, I just pulled out these puzzles, so I could get a shot of the two that I still need to complete and i’m not gonna lie.

 

This one makes me a little uncomfortable with this extreme close-up of tomatoes and salad. Food is a little gross to me. I’M sorry buzz. I love all your other puzzles um, but this one, these stickers, one i’m very excited to do. It’S super colorful and continues with them sort of taking cues from vintage puzzles.

 

This follows a long line of similar sticker designs that have been done through the years, so I love that a modern company is doing something similar and like modernizing it a little and they just posted this photo on instagram and all of their puzzles. Just look so stylish next to each other, like how good does that look? I really want to keep collecting them so next I want to talk about this company called puzzle, love and again just killing it in the branding game. These boxes are so beautifully designed, and I was even impressed by the box that they came in. They even got these custom boxes printed, so it’s just a really beautiful experience, even just from opening up the box.

 

I also really like this type of box with the magnetic opener that then comes up like this. I’Ve seen this type of box used in others, maybe like beauty products, but never for a puzzle before, and I think it is so modern and really cool. So this one that I did a while ago called tessellate is definitely my favorite. This is honestly one of my favorite puzzles I’ve done all year. Lately, a lot of companies have been doing these kinds of graphic, modern kinds of blocky illustrations, and I love it.

 

I think these are perfect for jigsaw puzzles, so I actually did film a little bit when I did this puzzle so I’ll go ahead and play that now in case you haven’t seen it. Here’S where i’m at after an hour and a half aka the length of one, my favorite murder um. For some reason, I separated out all the edge pieces at the beginning – and I just haven’t – put them together. Yet I’ve just been working on all these inside textures. So I think the edge is the next thing I need to do, and here we are after another 45 minutes, so you can see that I got the edge done.

 

Everything is all connected. I love all of these different textures. Also, I’m doing this without looking at the picture and keeping all of the pieces on the board the whole time. So I definitely gave myself quite a few handicaps here and the very last piece there. Look at how beautiful this puzzle is.

 

I really loved this one, so this was the perfect image to do without looking at the box, the colors are beautiful. There are so many different textures, I’m sure I’m gonna return to this one over and over again and then uh. This one has been right in front of me and I haven’t even talked about it uh this one is called fluorescence when I did this one. I didn’t look at the box again and I did it color by color, which was really fun and so satisfying to see it all come together. And then I’m going to talk about the peace quality in just a sec.

 

But before I do that, let me actually grab the next puzzles that I want to talk about all right, so I wanted to grab these puzzles by tanya wicks, because I realized that they are made by the exact same manufacturer as I was working on, tanya’s puzzles. I was like, why does this feel so familiar, and then I realized it’s because I had just done the exact same shapes here in the uh puzzle. Love puzzles now, puzzle love has a glossy finish, while tania’s puzzles have a matte finish, so, unfortunately, they’re just different enough that you can’t actually swap the pieces between the two. But if you look at the piece cut, it’s clearly the exact same shape between the two, and this is not a dig on either company. I mean there are only so many puzzle manufacturers to go around.

 

So it’s really just to say, if you like one company or the other, you can check out the other company. If you want to get more of this type of puzzle – and I think this is a really solid manufacturer to go with the pieces – are really good. Quality, the piece shapes are super unique, so you can use the piece shapes as well as the picture, to find what piece you’re looking for next and this one feels solid enough that I might be able to do the pickup challenge. Let’S give it a try. Oh, my god, I hope this works.

 

Ah, yes, there we go okay, so all that to say um, no problems with the manufacturer or the piece quality at all. I think both companies are really high quality. So now let me talk about Tanya Wicks and before everyone gets on my case in the comments I am saying her name right. I asked her how to say it and she told me it was tanya. I know I get literally everyone’s name wrong, but um this one.

 

I double checked, so she is a photographer from Australia and she has just been so kind and supportive on instagram and social media, and so when she wanted to send me some of her puzzles. I was happy to accept and try them out. So, as you can see, all of her images are basically close-up flat lays of different items. So I did the macarons puzzle first and it was actually surprisingly difficult. A lot of the colors between the different macarons are very similar to each other, and you have objects on a diagonal which always makes things harder.

 

Also, I was doing it on this bright garish, yellow background, because I was saving all of my puzzles for this video and I was running out of foam boards, so that also probably made it a little more difficult and then the second one I did is the Oranges, one and again it was surprisingly difficult. You can see that this is the point that I got to after the first night of working on it, and this was a couple hours of work. Of course, the next night it all came together much more quickly and then I was able to quickly just finish it off from there. So I think these images are a great difficulty level where you get a lot of puzzling time for your money. But it’s not overly difficult or overly frustrating.

 

Okay, I’m filming all of these close-ups and I realized my only main critique is that nowhere on the box do you have the full image like it’s not on the back of the box um. She does include this poster, which has the full image which definitely works, but you just have to remember that you’re not working off of the front of the box that you have to work off of the poster. So I think she has five puzzles out right now. Um she does ship internationally, but if you’re in Australia, then this is a great business. That’S already right there for you to support, so the next puzzles are actually the only ones that were not gifted to me in this video.

 

These are from rifle paper co and I got them because they were on sale, where I managed to get two puzzles for less than the price of one, not on sale puzzle. So the thing with companies like rifle paper co is that they make so many different products from pillows to rugs to shoes to clothing, to office supplies that you can never really be sure that each individual item is going to be high quality. But I am happy to report that I love their puzzles. Definitely Karen puzzles approved. So I did the map puzzle first, which is called american road trip, and map puzzles are always fun because you get to challenge your knowledge of geography while doing a puzzle, and it’s really fun for this puzzle to see which one or two items that they picked To represent each state, so if you see your state, do you think they picked the right thing?

 

And then this was another puzzle where I did the edge last because, as you can see, all of the edge pieces kind of look the same and I loved this one. I just wish that it was available as a thousand piece puzzle and not just 500 and then the other one I did is this Alice in Wonderland puzzle, this one I did without looking at the picture. So, that’s why nothing is really in its place in these progress photos that I took, but again just super fun, really quick to put together and definitely high quality pieces. You can see yeah. I can literally pick up the entire thing with no problem, so i’m just really excited now that i’ve talked about them in the video that I can finally put these boxes away and have my nice stack of rifle paper co puzzle boxes, they are so pretty.

 

So next I want to tell you about this piecework puzzle that I did, and I know that I post a lot about piecework on my instagram story. Um, let me tell you what happened and why I wanted to feature them again. So if you didn’t know all of these rainbow boxes, these are from the company piecework. They originally got in touch with me in like fall of 2019, and they had just launched their first four puzzles. So here’s one from the original line, so when these first came out, I made a review video all about them, but then, as they kept releasing more puzzles, they changed manufacturers, and so my review video was entirely wrong and outdated and, like all of my critiques had Already been fixed so a while back, I set that video to unlisted, just because I didn’t want people stumbling across it and then having inaccurate information, but I think i’m actually gonna put that unlisted link over on patreon.

 

So that’s where you can go. If you do want to see it, but anyway i’m the one that I just did is called flower feast. You can see it is this beautiful image with all of these disco balls and a dessert table and flowers. It was kind of difficult because there aren’t that many different colors throughout the whole thing, but there are plenty of different textures, so you know eventually I got there, but it was definitely on the higher difficulty side. So one of my original critiques back when I made that old video is that all of the peace shapes were the standard two in two out pieces, and there was not a lot of variation well with their new manufacturer um.

 

That has definitely changed. You know. Maybe I shouldn’t say new manufacturer, I don’t know it might still be the same company that they’re using, but they changed a lot of the details of how they print their puzzles, the main one being now they have all of the different types of piece shapes represented And you can see how the cut of the pieces is a little more, maybe like angular rather than super round like they’re old pieces. The puzzle is completely matte which photographs so beautifully, and I also think they changed the boxes a little bit. The design is still basically the same, but the old one is a little bit shinier, whereas the new one is completely matte and more of a velvety type of finish.

 

So if you’re not familiar with piecework they’re one of my top favorite puzzle companies, their photography is just so rich and beautiful, and interesting and modern and the boxes basically look like coffee table books like I just think they hit every single thing that i’m looking for In a jigsaw puzzle that it’s both fun to put together as a puzzle and it’s just a really beautiful object and then just like piecework um, I also do a lot of cloud varies puzzles because they are just so generous in sending me so many puzzles. So I’m not going to go into the nuances of each puzzle. I just wanted to give you a quick update of which ones I’ve been working on, so they recently just sent me their new one. Zodiac and I loved this image and I particularly loved doing the outlines of all of the circles. First, like just look at how perfect these photos are.

 

I absolutely loved this illustration. I think it was just so perfect for a jigsaw puzzle. I also did this one called green, which actually it usually sits right here behind me when I redesigned my background earlier this year, I put all of my cloudberries puzzles back there for set decoration, but then I was looking at it and I realized I hadn’t actually Done a couple of them yet so I grabbed this one and it turned out to be pretty difficult at first. I tried to do it without looking at the picture, and then I realized, like just how impossible that was going to be. Everything is spread out with just plain white in between them.

 

Everything is basically the same color, but you know I got there in the end and then finally, this is one that i’ve had for ages and I have been saving it for a special occasion because I just loved the picture so much. This one is called chromatic and I actually put it together on the day that I published my last video, which was the one where I solved all of the same puzzles from the spain competition that whole series of videos. Where I talked about that competition and about speed puzzling was so much work and really led to me feeling really burned out which i’m gonna talk about in just a minute. But once I got that last video out I was like I need to celebrate. I’M gonna do this puzzle that i’ve been hanging on to for probably over a year now, and I was right, it was so much fun to do.

 

I love all of the different textures and the bright colors. This is one of the most perfect puzzles. I’Ve ever done so again, just like cloudberries and piecework. I feel like. I am just constantly doing – ebu puzzles because they are so generous and send me so many puzzles.

 

So this first one is called dogs of the world. It is this round design with all these different color blocks and typography, and I love doing puzzles like this. Without looking at the box, I think they are so fun. The problem with this puzzle is that my square board was already occupied with another ebu puzzle, so I had to do it on a rectangle board and, as you can see, I had to do it in two sections so that the entire thing would fit. So i’m gonna move it just onto the table and then i’ll finally be able to see the whole thing all put together for the first time and then the other puzzle that I did recently is magical amsterdam, and I just think this is so beautiful.

 

With these stars and fireworks and the ice skaters, I actually recorded some vlogs of me solving this one for my instagram story. So I’ll go ahead and play those now so here’s where I’m at after an hour and a half and I think it is time to take a break for lunch. So it’s been another hour and a half, and since I’m not looking at the picture, I still have a lot of big sections just floating around, although I literally just noticed that this section right here, these pink windows that actually connect right there. So let me grab the other one there we go! Ah, okay, so that’s looking really good an hour later and I’m almost done with just a little bit left down here and then these two pieces, which I swear, are not in this box.

 

I feel like. I need to be checking the floor and everything. I mean they’re probably there, but I’m just not seeing them yet. I had a piece fully in the wrong spot so that one goes there and then this one goes there and then this one goes there, so prices avert and there we go. So that was a really fun one. Thank you so much to ebu for sending it to me.

 

So if you are not following me on instagram, that’s what you’re missing all right, so those were all of the puzzles that I have done lately that I wanted to talk about now. Let me give you a little statistics update from the spreadsheet that i’m keeping of all of the puzzles that i’m doing this year, so it is the very end of august when i’m filming and so far I have done 72 puzzles this year. Totaling 63 198 puzzle pieces and, in my spreadsheet I’m giving every puzzle a rating out of 5 stars, but so far I have only given six puzzles the full five stars. Should I tell you what they are or should I hang on to that info until I Do my full stats breakdown uh? No, you know what i’m just gonna tell i’m just gonna tell you: okay, i’m not gonna gatekeeper that information. So far, my top puzzles of the year have been playing with the past apostrophe puzzles flat banana by springbok h.

 

56 bg by lasers, marching spring by soonness tessellate by puzzle, love and chromatic by cloudberries. So I’m going to keep documenting all of the puzzles that I’m doing this year and stay tuned, because in January, once the entire year is finished, I will have a complete statistics breakdown for you. It’S gonna be really nerdy, just like everything else here on this channel. Now I don’t know if you guys know this, but youtube is a trap when your channel isn’t doing well. You’Re, like okay, I’ve got to work even harder to get those views to make my income and then, when your channel is doing well, it’s like alright gotta work even harder to ride this momentum and see how far I can take it.

 

And did you notice um? Nowhere in there is an okay time to take a break. I have been pushing myself so hard lately that I keep running into this wall, where my body is just like yeah. No, we truly cannot do any more work today. So what I do is I listen to my body and I take a little time off and I do a puzzle like what I just showed you, but the entire time, i’m just feeling so guilty about not being productive and not doing the things that I had Meant to be doing, but I feel like a car where you put in just enough gas to get to the next gas station and then you’re running on empty.

 

And then you put in just enough gas to get to the next gas station. And you just keep on going like that, but you never fully fill up the gas tank and get back up to a hundred percent and it is so hard because there’s so much that I want to do and so much that I want to make. I have all of those giant puzzles that are just sitting there waiting for me to do. I have the scroll saw that I got from Alex Trebek’s estate sale and I wanted to start cutting my own wooden puzzles. I have literally dozens of vintage puzzles that I want to feature and share their story with all of you and then at the same time, I’m also always getting people asking me to review modern puzzle brands like what I just did.

 

Even if I didn’t buy a single new puzzle, I think I would have at least a year’s worth of video content just in this room right now. So it’s so hard to take time off. When I have this huge list of things that I really want to make, but at the same time I look at that list and I just get so overwhelmed because everything is such a huge project and I just like have not had any of the energy to Even like to begin tackling them properly and just to be clear, um, i’m not asking for solutions here like I feel like it’s really condescending. When I talk about stuff like this, and then people are like. Oh we’ll just make easier like simpler videos and then you’ll be fine and then like.

 

No, I want to make content that I’m proud of, but as that content gets more and more complex, I just can’t stick to the weekly schedule that I’ve set for myself and that you guys have come to expect like the stuff that I most want to make. Just takes more than a week to make it properly. So all this is to say that I will be taking some actual time off in september, i’m traveling home to see my family and i’m not planning on filming anything while i’m there, I will be practicing puzzles with katie for the san diego competition, so maybe i’ll Just do some quick like shorts or something but uh don’t be expecting like a full video about that, and I also just want to take that time to really sit down and look at my schedule and prioritize which videos and which projects I think I can realistically Do before the end of the year and at the beginning of next year, and then also take the time to brainstorm some longer term projects, rather than just the video week to week, because I just haven’t had any time to think about anything. Besides these videos that i’ve been posting, like I remember literally at the beginning of july, I met up with my friend tom to work on the new puzzled pint and while we were there, we were talking about how I was feeling so exhausted and so burnt out That was the beginning of july and now it’s september and I still haven’t taken any real substantial breaks, so i’m definitely looking forward to taking a little time off and getting that gas tank back up to a hundred percent and not feeling guilty about it. I’M gonna try my best to not feel guilty about it, although before I head out east, I do think I am gonna film a quick haul video which i’ll probably schedule to go up in mid-september, because I have been buying and collecting a lot of Really interesting puzzles lately I just haven’t uh told anyone about them and then I will be back full force in october and there is so much exciting stuff happening in october and november.

 

Like just wait. Just hang tight, it’s gonna be really exciting. So thank you again to the diamond art club for sponsoring this video and giving me my new hobby. They didn’t ask me to film another clip here at the end, but I have been working on the diamond painting the whole time that I’ve been making this video. So here’s a little update of where I’m at now, like a week after I filmed that first clip.

 

So I guess uh. Let me know in the comments which of the puzzles I showed. Would you most like to do all of the links to everything I showed? Will be down in the description if you want to get any of those puzzles and if you are missing me in september, remember that you can sign up for my patreon and I have a huge back catalog on there of exclusive bonus videos and you automatically get Access to all of them, as soon as you sign up so your code word for, if you watched all the way to the end, will be vacation. Thank you for watching and thank you in advance for being supportive, and I will see you in the next one.

 

 

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