Puzzle: Metis International Garden Festival, Quebec, Canada


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 40.64cm x 40.64cm
Producer:  Hasbro, MB Puzzle, Big Ben series
Notes: The International Garden Festival is recognized as one of the most important events of its kind in North America and one of the leading annual garden festivals in the world. Since 2000, more than 900,000 visitors have explored 110 gardens created by over 220 designers from 15 countries.

The Festival is a unique forum for innovation …

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Puzzle: Rockefeller Center


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.26cm x 35.56cm
Producer: Sure-Lox, Land Marks series
Notes: Rockefeller Center or Rockefeller Plaza is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue.

Paul Manship’s highly recognizable bronze gilded statue of the Greek legend of the Titan Prometheus …

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Puzzle: View from the CN Tower


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.26cm x 35.56cm
Producer: Sure-Lox, City Scapes series
Notes: The CN Tower is a communications and observation tower in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Standing 553.33 metres tall, it was completed in 1976, becoming the world’s tallest free-standing structure and world’s tallest tower at the time. It held both records for 34 years until the completion of the Burj Khalifa and Canton Tower. It remains the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere, …

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Puzzle: Sweet Dreams by Kinuko Y. Craft


Size: 1500 pieces
Dimensions: 84cm x 60cm
Producer: Ravensburger, # 162611
Painting: photo
Artist: Kinuko Y. Craft – Kinuko Y. Craft is one of the most widely respected and well known fantasy artists in the United States today. She considers herself a story teller. Her past commissions have included paintings for the book covers of many well known fantasy authors, opera posters, fairy tale books and covers for many national …

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Puzzle: Gladiola


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 45.72cm x 35.56cm
Photographer: Dietrich Leis
Producer:  E&L Corporation, “Still Life” series
Notes: A lovely photo by the same photographer and in the same tones as the Spring Concerto puzzle.

Gladiolus (from Latin, the diminutive of gladius, a sword) is a genus of perennial bulbous flowering plants in the iris family (Iridaceae). Sometimes called the sword lily, the most widely used English common name for …

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Puzzle: Home Sweet Home by Robin Anderson


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.6cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox, #41693-2
Artist: Robin Anderson
Notes: “Home Sweet Home” is a song that has remained well-known for over 150 years. Adapted from American actor and dramatist John Howard Payne’s 1823 opera Clari, Maid of Milan, the song’s melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop with lyrics by Payne. The opening lines

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may …

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Puzzle: The Little Veterinary


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 35.2cm x 50.5cm
Artist: The MB Puzzle failed to indicate the artist
Producer: MB Puzzle, Elite series, #C4589-3
Notes: A veterinarian (American English) or a veterinary surgeon (British English), often shortened to vet, is a person who treats animals and a practitioner of veterinary medicine. The word comes from the Latin veterinae meaning “working animals”. “Veterinarian” was first used in print by Thomas Browne in 1646.

In many respects a …

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Puzzle: Moonlight Calm II by Anthony Casay


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 35cm x 48cm
Producer:  Canada Games, #40216-4
Artist: Anthony Casay [Bio at AEJV site]
Notes: The intensity of moonlight varies greatly depending on the lunar cycle but even the full moon typically provides only about 0.2 lux illumination, so the full moon is about 500,000 times fainter than the sun. When the moon is viewed at high altitude at tropical latitudes, the illuminance can reach 1 …

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Puzzle: Hotel Lobby by Joan Steiner’s


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 69cm x 51cm
Producer:  Ceaco, #3316-5
Notes: Can you find the coffee creamer, 5 dollar bill, coin purse, and 117 other common objects that fool the eye? [Puzzle box]

Once you’ve completed this jigsaw, there’s a whole new puzzle to solve. Using everything from acorns to zippers, artist Joan Steiner has created an alternative universe where nothing is as it appears. At first glance, we see a perfectly normal …

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Puzzle: Belvedere Castle


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 68cm x 48.1cm
Producer:  Mega Brands, Click series
Notes: Belvedere Castle is a building in Central Park in New York, New York, that contains exhibit rooms and an observation deck.

Built as a Victorian folly in 1869, the castle caps Vista Rock, the park’s second-highest natural elevation Constructed of Manhattan schist quarried in the park and dressed with gray granite, it tops the natural-looking woodlands of The Ramble, as …

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Puzzle: Boats on water by Paul Rezendes


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 40.64cm x 40.64cm
Producer:  Hasbro, MB Puzzle, Big Ben series
Artist: Paul Rezendes
“In order to capture the essence and beauty of nature, there must be an intimacy with it, not as an object, but as a process that is forever changing. The more you learn to see nature, to observe it with the quality of attention that is crucial to seeing, the more one is …

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Puzzle: Birds of the Season, 4 of 4, by Greg Giordano


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 40.64cm x 50.8cm
Producer: Karmin International, Birds of the Season series
Artist: Greg Giordano

Puzzle: One of the 4 puzzles in the box (first, second, third, fourth).

Notes: Birds (class Aves) are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic …

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Puzzle: Champagne Illusions


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48cm x 36cm
Notes: I do not have a record of the producer of the puzzle as I do not have the box anymore. A clarification is welcome – if you have any clue as to the details regarding this puzzle, I would much appreciate that information.

Champagne is a sparkling wine produced by inducing the in-bottle secondary fermentation of the wine to effect carbonation. It is produced exclusively within the Champagne …

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Puzzle: Palm Desert, California, U.S.A


Size: 500 pieces, 1 missing
Dimensions: 46cm x 36cm
Producer: GPC Puzzles
Location: Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately 18 km east of Palm Springs.

The area was first known as the Old MacDonald Ranch, but the name changed to Palm Village in the 1920s when date palms were planted. Local historians said the main residents of pre-1950 Palm Desert were Cahuilla Indian farmers of …

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Puzzle: Loire Valley, France


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 35cm x 48cm
Producer: Canada Games, Windsor
Location: The Loire Valley (French: Vallée de la Loire), spanning 280 kilometres, is located in the middle stretch of the Loire River in central France. It comprises an area of approximately 800 square kilometres. It is referred to as the Cradle of the French Language, and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards, artichoke, asparagus and cherry fields which …

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Puzzle: Sacré-Coeur Basilica, Paris, France


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: Big Ben, MB Puzzles
Notes: Once again the puzzle producer failed to be informative regarding the building depicted on the puzzle, titling it only as “Paris, France”. Thanks to my Parisian friend, the building was identified as the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in Monmartre.

Sacré-Cœur Basilica is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Paris, France. A …

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Puzzle: Hidden Arbor by Thomas Kinkade


Size: 300 pieces (oversized)
Dimensions: 46cm x 61cm
Producer:  Ceaco
Artist: Thomas Kinkade
Painting: “I often seek out a quiet place to meditate and pray; a special retreat like Hidden Arbor. This marvelous waterfall, with its myriad rivulets and streams; the climbing flowers on a romantic arbor is a little touch of heaven.” [Thomas Kinkade site]

A pergola, arbor or arbour is a garden feature  forming a shaded …

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