Candy Shelf Puzzle

My (advancing) Newbie difficulty rating: Advanced

What was I thinking?! Puzzles can be challenging. Personally, I don’t think they have to be to enjoy a puzzling experience, but I don’t mind taking on a challenge that I think I will also enjoy. Because, the experience should also be fun.

I cannot imagine how I decided to own this puzzle when I chose it only a couple months into my new hobby! To this day, when I see an illustration I like, my first criteria is being able to sort it in a way that comfortably benefits the fun part — putting it together. Did I really think I could sort the candy jar by jar? Apparently so.  Did I notice that every jar top looked almost the same? Apparently not.

So, how did I sort this? Find the edge pieces and sort by color? Not exactly. What I did sort separately the first go round were the decorative shelf edges, the glass tops, the jar closures, the background patterns, and the darkest shadows. (See end note)

Construction: I built the frame, ran the shelf edges across, filled in the wallpaper background. Now I had some jar bottoms and part of some jar tops in place, some other sorted pieces and SIX sort trays of mixed up candy, mostly in one layer. Yikes — well, let’s get started.

To be honest I didn’t have the energy to try to sort gum balls from jelly beans, but I did pick out most of the mixed candy in jar #4 in the bottom row. Well, keep going, you can do this! Jars got filled and lastly, topped off and sealed tight. I did sort those last pieces by shape, color tone and whether or not there was metal on them. Thing is the build was arduous and required a lot of time and patience while fun factor was definitely missing. Sad.

Okay, I felt accomplished when it was complete, and happy that I persevered. It was just not my kind of puzzle to do. Now, if not back a few months ago, I would call this puzzle “busy”. I shy away from that. I prefer to ponder over large areas of similar color, even declare that chore fun, where others say they hate it. And no, I have no interest in doing a solid color puzzle with no illustration to enjoy when the task is done.

To each their own, for sure. And I can recommend this and other Cobble Hill puzzles whole heartedly. They are random cut rather than ribbon cut - another thing for personal taste, and, oh gosh, I like them both.

Quality: The oversized box includes a sealed bag of pieces and a poster. Color match was excellent on box top and enclosure pics. No puzzle dust. Pieces have a slight sheen. They are sturdy, none were together uncut, none were damaged in any way, and none were missing. Now becoming a common complaint across brands — loose piece fit. Pieced sections, even just a few pieces, fell apart.

Final thoughts: I know I’m not fond of puzzles like this, but If you are new to puzzling, I still think advanced is a fair rating. Any puzzle, with time and patience, could be completed. Don’t start with this one, but do try to choose different types that appeal to you. Consider the puzzling mantra “Find the edge pieces and sort by color” when deciding.

My ratings: Quality A-, Fun Factor (for me) C+

Note: My usual sort order is a bit more traditional. I do find edge pieces and sort by color. Then I build the frame and do sub sorts for areas of color and objects in the puzzle. Finding all the edge pieces is more likely to happen when not concentrating on such details. Trust me on that!

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