Puzzles & Puzzle Boards - Our New Favorite Mama/Son Hobby

I received this puzzle board from my mom for my birthday this year and I am LOVING it!! A puzzle board has been on my wishlist forever and I am unashamedly obsessed. =)  Mine is the Bits and Pieces brand. I've never had one before so I'm not super familiar with kinds etc but this one is literally perfect. I cannot recommend it enough! If you are a puzzler you will LOVE this! My initial wish for one came from wanting to have a puzzle out in our main living area where I could work on it while talking with John or just hanging out, but not having it on the kitchen table all the time. We have a den/music room downstairs but we don't use the downstairs area for ourselves much (we mostly use it for guest space) and I knew I'd prefer having a puzzle more accessible if I was working on it. I loved the idea of having a board that I could pull out and put on the table while working on the puzzle, but then slide away and set on my desk or bed when we needed the kitchen table, etc. 

But since actually using the puzzle board, I have not only loved it for those reasons, but also for how awesome the drawers are for organizing pieces! It is seriously a dream! Those drawers are so handy for sorting out colors and shapes!

I currently store it underneath our couch and that has worked out perfectly. 

If you are looking for a puzzle board, I highly recommend this Bits and Pieces brand plateau board! 

I'm including pictures in this post of most of the puzzles we did from January-April. I'll link the ones I can find, also!

This was the first puzzle Axton and I did together and boy, it was fun! I wanted to start him out on a smaller one, so I went on Amazon and started browsing. When I saw this one, accurately titled "Yum Yum", I knew I had hit on a winner. Isn't this just a feast for the eyes?! All of our favorite foods in one puzzle, haha! At just $10, it is quite affordable as well. I don't know how the pieces or quality will hold up long term, but the fun we had doing it together was definitely worth it, and I've already packed it to take to our B family vacation next week. 

Oh. I'd say Axton definitely has the "puzzle gene." I timed us as this was his first big puzzle to do with me, and we put this puzzle together in 70 minutes start to finish! If you want a fun little puzzle to add to your collection, or even to get you started on puzzles, go get yours here! (note: I've done dozens and dozens of puzzles of various skill levels in my life, and this one is a great starter puzzle! Fun, doable, and almost tasty! =))

John's uncle and aunt gave us a stack of hand me down puzzles when we were visiting them in February, and this super fun "cat sleeping in the library" scene puzzle was called "Frederick the Literate". It was definitely a tricky one; some of the book jackets were duplicate colors and the titles were in similar fonts, but we both LOVED the challenge! It was also Axton's biggest one yet at 750 pieces. 

Here we have the recipe for a cozy afternoon in---an empty board, ready for a new puzzle, accompanied by Starbucks drinks and pastries!   

Since getting the puzzle board and doing puzzles more regularly, I've been discovering friends who are also avid puzzlers. =) It has been fun to merge a friend afternoon/hangout with a fun project for the hands!

Loved doing this "potting shed scene" with our pastors wife!

John's grandma also loves puzzles so we planned a puzzle date one afternoon and Axton and I went over and did this one with her.

She also loaned Axton a stack of her puzzles for us to do later at home, and he was thrilled.

I was given this double sided one as a birthday gift from a friend and I had SO much fun doing both sides! Axton helped me some as well. The colors were just gorgeous. 

This side was definitely the hardest!

Elliot even got in on the action on this smaller 100 piece ocean life puzzle, borrowed from Gigi.

All in all, it has been so fun to rediscover this old hobby of mine, and see it become a new favorite for Axton as well! We've taken a little break for the summer (we still have a puzzle partway done under the couch-we just aren't working on it as regularly these days, with all the time we spend outdoors) but I'm sure we will be back into it before long.

I'd love to hear in the comments if any of you readers are into puzzles? Do you have a puzzle board? Any favorite puzzle links you want to share with us? I think we are going to try to find some new 1000 piece ones to do this fall/winter! 

Happy Puzzling!

 -Chels

Note: all of the items linked in this post, unless otherwise noted, are items that I own and love. Amazon links are affiliate links. Please read my affiliate disclosure here)