This last Tuesday I went thrifting for puzzles for the first time. It was a fun solo outing; my husband despises browsing stores in general, so thrift stores are definitely out of the question!
I was a bit short on time, and a lot short on funds, but I found some lovelies regardless!
‘The Flintstones’ 60 piece by MB Puzzle
I sat down that afternoon and assembled this fun Flintstones puzzle. It’s clearly been well loved over time; it’s from 1991, nearly as old as I am. I’m so sad about the missing pieces, though I knew the risk buying second hand!
I may try and make some replacement pieces for it, and see what I can do about flattening everything out a bit… Give this little slice of history some love!
After that I decided to give this MB photographic puzzle a try! Photos I’ve tended to avoid so far, as they seem particularly difficult to me. But this one’s been a blast so far. And it’s from 1985, three years older than I am!
Alas, I’ve not made it much farther than this as I’ve been taken down by the flu. It’s the first time I’ve ever had it. It really sucks! Haven’t been this sick in a long time.
If anybody needs me, you’ll find me clutching a cell phone in a heap of tissues, blankets, and cats, binging on Star Trek and whimpering.
‘Vintage Bicycle Posters’ 2000 Piece by MB Puzzles Big Ben
This lovely puzzle was two different firsts for me- My first 2000 piece, and also my first collage!
It was both easier and harder than I was expecting. I’ve actually avoided collages for the most part because I thought they’d be way easy, like, unenjoyably so. And while I wouldn’t say this was particularly hard, it was more that it was challenging in a different sort of way. The edges were particularly tough compared to everything else, all the colors and textures being all over the place!
It wasn’t exactly the best quality though. I think they just downscaled the size of their cut, and a lot of pieces ended up with nubblies with very thin necks, and some of the nubblies had fallen off completely. While sorting, I just took my time and separated out the few pieces that were in danger. I saved all the nubs that had escaped, and the puzzle was 100% complete; I was able to tuck the nubblies into their holes when the pieces around them were assembled. Not ideal, but no biggy either!
Never having done a collage, I decided for this one that the text would be a good starting point. Easy to find all the text pieces, and once assembled gave lots of goo starting points for branching out!
After that, I decided to pull out and assemble all the edges between the posters, which got most of the puzzle locked into place, and from there it was just down to building it all out!
It went surprisingly fast, but was an absolute blast! I wouldn’t say collages are my favorite; kind of like assembling a bunch of small puzzles that are mixed together. It would probably not have been so easy either were each of the posters in the image not so distinct from one another. All around though, for my first collage and 2000 piece, I’m really pleased! I can’t wait to tackle another, more difficult 2000 piece!
Just finished this one up! 1000 piece ‘Watching From the Wood’ by Linda Ravenscroft, MB Puzzle. Absolutely stunning, and wonderful quality as usual. A pleasure to assemble!
I have happily spent the afternoon and evening puzzling this beautiful fairy puzzle by Linda Ravenscroft. Making good progress so far I feel, it’s got a few areas that will be very challenging when I’m left with them.
This lovely lady has really started to come together. I took a wee break to pop a batch of popcorn in my popcorn machine! A delicious bowl of fresh, hot popcorn goes great with a puzzle!
Just don’t get so distracted with your puzzling that pick up a puzzle piece and absently toss it into your mouth. Like I just did. *facepalm*
Today I got a little treat! A few days back I saw a listing for three jigsaw puzzles for only five dollars on the Facebook Marketplace. Two 500 pieces and one 1500, all three lovely images.
I just had to snap them up! I’m most excited for the stormy lighthouse because the image is simply stunning, and the vertical panorama is unique. But all of them are great quality, very thick pieces, and they snap together tightly too!
I’m enjoying a nice cup of coffee on the couch and pulling the pieces apart! Very nice Friday so far!
Not a bad little puzzle! Very fun to put together and super colorful- I’ll be hanging this one over my desk for sure.
I very much enjoyed putting it together. The slightly smaller cut pieces than what you have with the lower piece count puzzles that came in the pack with it. I think being smaller, they popped apart easier than the larger pieces perhaps. In any case, quality aside, I’ve enjoyed all the puzzles I’ve done from this inexpensive pack. I also did a lovely little 200 piece that was all art supplies…. But I realized to my horror I hadn’t photographed it as I was about halfway through dismantling it to put into a bag. Whoops!
My puzzling has been very varied the last week or so since my last post! I made some small amount of progress on my custom birthday puzzle, which is unfortunately, kind of a nightmare…
I love it, but man, is it ever hard. Like, really hard. Like, barely make any progress hard. Disappointing for sure! So I’ve been taking a break for some smaller, more enjoyable puzzles!
‘Canned Veggies’ 500 piece Springbok
I started and finished this lovely Springbok. I’ve done it once before and had it for years; I’d intended to glue it the first time I completed it to hang in my kitchen at the apartment, which I never got around too. I eventually broke it back up and reboxed it.
It was just as much fun the second time around! I’m really, really starting to love Springboks. At first the random cut was a major turnoff for me, but the more I do them, the more I find it to be a lot of fun! Also helps that Springbok’s are fantastic quality, nice and thick, not much puzzle dust, and the images are always bright and clear.
And this time, I got it glued and hung in my kitchen! Even better, since its now in my very own house, and not in that crummy apartment! I also hung up the two Cardinal puzzles I completed for the kitchen, though I did give up trying to find another copy of the corn puzzle for the missing piece, and opted to glue it as is. I decided I kind of actually like that little missing piece- gives it character!
After gluing all those, I noticed something neat- the ghost of the Springbok puzzle, left behind on the wax paper after gluing! I thought it was sort of cute, so I snapped a picture!
‘Watching From the Wood’ 1000 piece MB Blue Board,art by Linda Ravenscroft
I started this lovely Fairy puzzle after finishing the canned veggies. I just adore these blue board puzzles, wonderful quality, and the images on them are great. Plus, I can find them inexpensively at Tuesday Morning! This one will be hung in the hallway with another Ravenscroft fairy image once it’ completed and glued.
‘Art Supplies’ 1000 piece Cardinal
I’ve really been enjoying doing these small dollar store puzzles on the end of my desk. This one is going to be hung over said desk; I’m a digital artist, so I don’t often use traditional tools, but it’ll still look great!
I couldn’t resist this puzzle pack I saw at Walgreens when I went in for chapstick and prescriptions! Mostly because of those umbrellas, they are so cute! But also, it was very cheap. I expected pretty lousy quality from this random brand, but I wasn’t concerned of the low price. Worth it for those adorable umbrellas!
The quality was both worse than and better than I expected. The 6 puzzles are all bagged individually, and barely fit in the box. A lot of the bags are folded over, and I guess this piece got caught in the bend! Surprisingly though, these Sure-Lox puzzles sure do lock together! That’s a darn tight fit for a cheapo puzzle!
‘Seaside Fishing Boats’ 200 piece Sure-Lox
This one was super quick and fun to put together. Great little image! I’m looking forward to assembling the rest of the pack, weird bent pieces included!
Howdy howdy! It’s been a while since I’ve posted any puzzling news, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been puzzling! I’ve been working on a veritable flock of Cardinal puzzles, among others!
‘Boats’ 500 Piece, by Cardinal‘Boats and Sea’ 500 Piece, by Cardinal
Joining my last puzzle ‘Boats and Sunset’, are these two other lovely boat puzzles. My intention is to frame the three of them and hang them in our master bathroom! I felt like the nautical theme will go great in a room with so much water involved!
‘Colorful River Stones’ 500 Piece, by Cardinal
After that was this lovely, which I intend to hang over my desk. I love these sorts of paintings, such bright colors really bring out the vibrancy of nature.
‘Fresh Vegetables’ 500 Piece, by Cardinal‘Colorful Corn’ 500 Piece, by Cardinal
And lastly these two food related puzzles, which I intend to hang in the kitchen. Unfortunately, of all the puzzles I’ve done so far, the corn one is the very first I’ve encountered that’s missing a piece. Alas, I cannot seem to find a contact to request a replacement- Cardinal Games seems to be a bit all over the place on the internet, and half their stuff links to other another sub company (or something) called ‘Spin Master’. Their support only seems to be for the their board games division. Oh well, the puzzle itself was only a dollar, I’ll go this weekend and see if I can find another copy of it to filch a piece from! Such a shame their puzzle division seems almost an afterthought- bit more effort o their part, and a bit thicker cardstock, and they could really be fantastic!
In other puzzling news, I started and gave up on my FNAF puzzle…
I knew it would be a challenge, but I’m a HUGE Five Nights and Freddy’s fangirl, and this is the only FNAF puzzle I’ve managed to come across. I saw another person post a picture, and they’d mentioned it was an absolute nightmare to work; and they were right!
This is all just TEETH! OMG! Sorting it was awful, and even then, despite my best efforts the whole puzzle sorted into 3 large piles, and a smaller pile of just teeth. The entire puzzle in three piles. That doesn’t even feel like it’s sorted! I fiddled with it for a while, finally decided I was just not having fun, and gave up. I repackaged it all sorted, so I can break it out again in the future, but man… It’s a really tough one. I’m not sure I’ll ever do it.
I will admit, I did also have a reason for wanting to clear my puzzling board…
A birthday gift from my friend arrived! He took a piece of my own artwork, and put it on a puzzle! It’s an older piece, from 2012, but it’s still my favorite that I’ve done; though we did have to upscale it a bit to make it fit, which resulted in a bit of loss of clarity…
But it’s always been a dream of mine to produce artwork for puzzles, and now I’m even more determined. I already feel like I’ve learned so much for making good puzzle art (not that an upscaled piece of old art is a fair comparison!), like a way higher density of detail, and a larger variety of color changes and textures to aid with placing pieces. It’s been fantastic fun to work so far, even with the slight blurriness of the pieces; Ravensburger is always incredible quality, and their custom puzzles are no exception!
“Boats and Sunset” 500 piece Cardinal Games, unknown artist. Such a fun one! Don’t mind Miss Gidget! She’s just grumpy because she got shooed off my desk twice while I was working on this!
It makes me sad how the ‘dollar store puzzles’ are seemingly universally reviled! Someone in some of the puzzle groups on Facebook posted a picture of some of their puzzles, asking which they should do next (and even requesting no hate on their dollar store puzzles), and what pops up like, two comments down? How horrible the person thinks these puzzles are, followed by agreeing replies. How rude! D:
I’ve had a lot of ‘quality’ puzzle brands that don’t hold together nearly this well!
Well, excuse me, but these Cardinal puzzles aren’t that bad. Yes, the pieces are small, and the cardboard is thinner than most. But the cut is crisp and the pieces fit tight, the printing is fantastic, and there’s hardly any puzzle dust. Of course they’re not Ravensburger quality- but they’re also only a dollar! The quality is great for the cost!
Not all dollar store puzzles deserve this universal hatred, darnit!
Anyway, a combination of their post and needing to let my art program run a very time consuming backup inspired me to put this one together finally! Shame about that duplicate piece, someone will probably be missing that… After getting partway through, I had to take another snap of the remaining pieces in the box- the colors were so pretty!
“Melody of the Night” 1000 piece Aquarius, art by Leonid Afremov.
Fun fact: I’ve had this puzzle sitting on my to-do shelf for months… You see, back when I first started puzzling maybe 5 or 6 months back now, I ordered this puzzle, along with my PortaPuzzle board. I’ve always adored Leonid Afremov’s art, and what better way to finally get a piece of it to hang on the wall than to spend a few days having a blast putting it together?
The truth is, once it arrived, I balked at it. There’s so many colors! And it’s so indistinct! Surely, it’ll be way to hard to do! After completing that Peter Pan 1000 piece in a single day though… I was ready for a challenge!
Once I got into it though, it turned out not be nearly as hard as I’d worried it’d be! I certainly wouldn’t say it was an easy puzzle, but I think all the puzzles I’ve done so far got my puzzling chops ready to work something tougher! Following the colors along seemed to work well for me!
Aquarius seems to be a pretty fantastic brand as well! Hardly any puzzle dust, beautifully clear printing, and the cardboard is fantastically thick. The pieces fit well together, and I was able to slide a posterboard underneath it in one smooth go to move it off my board; usually I have to fight with the puzzles a bit to get in moved! I’m even more excited to work my 3000 piece Power Ranger puzzle now, as it is also by Aquarius. Hopefully the experience is the same!
Speaking of being excited for a puzzle though….
I’ve been hunting for these for two or three weeks now! Some people on the puzzle facebook groups had posted that they’d found these at Walmart. They aren’t even listed on Ceaco’s own website yet, or Walmart’s either. I finally hit paydirt last night- still missing the third new one, which is the second of the three I was most ecstatic to get (the Mickey Mouse one is a bit plain, but still awesome!). The Villain’s puzzle is now on my board! I’m a huge Villain’s fangirl, so I couldn’t resist doing it next!
Puzzled Pickle 