Ah, the last pokemon puzzle for my husband! I’ve had a lot of fun assembling them, and the fact that they’ve all been Buffalo brand has only made the experience even more enjoyable!
The pieces always fit perfectly, and are cut incredibly crisply! Combine that with a nice finish and crisp printing, and they’re a joy to assemble. Watching this cute Pikachu emerge was fun too.
I mean, look at him! His little rosey cheeks and cute little :3 smile!
‘Detective Pikachu’ 1000 piece Buffalo
All around a really fun puzzle to put together, I’d definitely recommend if you’re into pokemon, or just think it’s cute!
One of three puzzles I got from a Puzzle Warehouse sale. I was completely convinced it was a photograph until I was literally sorting the pieces. I didn’t even know it was a painting as I was pulling the plastic wrap off the box. Talk about a surprise! Very fun to assemble, classic Ravensburger quality- thick cardboard, clean cut, and great finish. love it!
After that I tackled a Cobble Hill, which I think may be my favorite brand. I really dig their funky piece shapes, makes challenging images far more approachable!
Cobble Hill… just fantastic quality as always! Very excited to pick up more of them!
“Waterfall Dragons” 1000 piece by Cobble Hill
And a few closeups- love those goofy piece shapes!
I gave this Cardinal brand rooster puzzle a shot… but the pieces were TERRIBLE! They don’t lock at all, just slide apart at the slightest movement. I still want to do it someday, but I bundled it up for another day. Wasn’t in the mood for that frustration!
“Dino Glow” 100 piece Ceaco
I’ll finish up this overdue update with this little 100 piece Ceaco. I’m a sucker for dinosaur puzzles, and man, the art on this is tops!
Turns out the glow in the dark stuff on it works surprisingly well! :O
I have come to conclusion I am not a very good blogger! I must work harder to make sure I update. I guess perhaps I’m too busy puzzling? Hah, I wish! Alas, mostly just housework, working on art, and trying hard not to spend funds! Life’s got a way of coming at you, doesn’t it?
This adorable 1000 piece Ceaco was my next project after my last post, one that’s been sitting on my to do shelf since last year! It’s part of a three puzzle set by the artist Lonely Dog, but this is the only one I’ve acquired. I wasn’t expecting the slightly depressing story on the back though!
Normally I puzzle alone, as my husband doesn’t enjoy it at all. This doesn’t bother me, being a bit of a loner by heart- I throw on some podcasts and have a great time! I did however, get to spend a day chatting with my friend while we worked on putting this one together, finishing up all of the sky, and a getting a good start on the car. It was great fun! I wouldn’t want to do it all the time, but it was definitely interesting working together.
It finished up very cutely, though while working the colors are quite bland. It was a fun one to assemble, and the pieces fit well enough, but it isn’t one I’ll be keeping long term and is now in my trade pile.
One of my cats, Taco, decided to invade my desk puzzling space while working on this 500 piece Ceaco brand ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ puzzle. Naughty girl! This puzzle is one of the Disney Thomas Kinkade’s that Ceaco puts out in multipacks. The pieces are quite thin compared to their single puzzles, and they’re generally pretty low quality compared to other brands, but for the price it’s workable.
It was fun to put together, though I really should have waited until the morning and snapped a better photo… It’s currently sitting on my coffee table, waiting to be glued!
This one was a quickie I put together after finished the little Carnival Dogs. I wanted something that was bright and colorful after the rather drab colors of the last, and this Animal Crossing Summer puzzle by USAopoly really fit the bill. It was only 300, so it went together super fast, only a few hours. Bright, fun colors, nice crisp printing, and very thick pieces- it was a very nice one!
I have another of these, Winter. I’d put it together and glued it last winter. On New Years Day actually, while watching the yearly Twilight Zone marathon! There’s actually one for every season, Spring and Fall have eluded me, as they’re apparently fairly rare, and were produced for and sold by Gamestop exclusively. After finishing Summer though, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to glue it or not!
I settled for reboxing it, carefully split apart into large chunks instead. I have plenty of time to decide it’s fate!
And that’s it for tonight’s update! There’s still more, because it’s been so long, but this has been plenty enough I think! Thanks for visiting my blog!
I’ve been slow to puzzle recently, and even slower to update! I’ve always got puzzles going, but have been too busy to sit down and get my blog posts written up. Whoops!
“Balloons Over Cottage Cove” 2000 Piece MB Puzzle
I finished this one up back on the 7th of July; my first ‘real’ 2000 piece, and it was a total blast. Really fun to assemble, and the perfect balance between challenge, and making solid progress at every sitting.
The artist is Nicky Boehme; her art makes such bright and colorful puzzles. I’m always keen to snatch one up when I see it in the store.
My husband was slightly horrified when he came in and discovered me reboxing it. He said for how long it took me to do (and it was on my board for about two months, I really worked it at a leisurely pace!) that he was certain I would glue it! Nope! This one’s going in the trade pile!
‘Mickey and Minnie in Paris’ by Thomas Kinkade, 500 piece Ceaco“Fresh Fruit and Veggie Basket” 500 Piece PuzzleBug
Two more small completes, a Disney image from Thomas Kinkade- I just love the rainy scene. One of my desk puzzles, and I poked at it off and on for a few days. It’s been a while since I’d done a Ceaco; now I realize why people complain about them… I don’t think they’re bad, but I do with they had a thicker, hardier cardboard. Especially since they’re the same price (or nearly so) of the much nicer Buffalo brand!
The fruits and veggies was one I did and glued to hang in my kitchen- it’s glued, though not yet hung… I only did it because I had a number of other small puzzles to glue, and those are now happily in their place over the fish tanks, finally!
And now for my latest complete, what filled my board after the veggies and the 200 piece:
“Earth Angel” 1000 piece Buffalo, art by Josephine Wall
Hard to resist a Josephine Wall- such beautiful colors and stunning artwork!
I chose to start with the wing, and honestly, I feel like it was the most challenging part. Very difficult to orient the pieces to each other when they’re just varying degrees of dark blue and black with small dots! Once that was done it was relatively smooth sailing!
I’m always tempted to glue her puzzles, because I’d love to have the art on the walls… but they’re also really fun, so I’v decided to keep them in my collection instead. So back into the box it went this afternoon, and on to more puzzles for me!
‘Honeysuckle’, 1000 piece by Buffalo, art by the ever amazing Josephine Wall. Very fun to assemble! Buffalo puzzles are a very nice quality at an excellent price, and it’s impossible to be disappointed with the bright, beautifully colorful images that Josephine Wall creates!
FINALLY FINISHED. This was a thrift shop find, and probably one that I was most excited about. I’ve seen this lovely puzzle at Barnes and Noble a few times, and while I really like the image, it was hard to pull the trigger at fifteen bucks. I was over the moon when I pulled it off a thrift shop shelf, and even better, for around a dollar!
I was stoked to start it, and it had clearly been assembled once before. All the pieces were sorted into baggies. Like, really sorted. Buildings in one, roofs in another, mountain, water, foliage, edges…. The person who’d assembled it before was clearly a hard core puzzler! I dumped it all back in together, because that’s how I roll, and got to work!
Right away I noticed it was dusty. Like, really dusty. Unusually so. Small tiny dust particles, as well as big fluffy bits. You can also see the edges of the pieces are ‘puffy’ and almost ragged, from what I can only assume was a dull cutting blade. Oooookay…. not the best first impression.
I got all the edge pieces out onto my board, but by then I’d had enough of this dust! I’d been blowing it out of the box, rubbing it off pieces, swiping it off my board; this stuff was everywhere! I finally said to heck with this- I’m solving this dust issue now. I took all the pieces, tossed them into a large plastic bowl with a lid and shook the dickens out of them for five minutes. Re-marks does use a nice, thick cardboard, so I was certain they’d stand up no problem to the abuse, and surely this would knock loose all the rest of this dust and I’ve have a cleaner set of pieces to work with. I dumped them into a strainer over the sink, one with big open holes to let all the dust fall through, and shook it there for another five minutes. “There-” I thought “Dust problem done!”
If only! After leaving a fairly large pile of dust in my sink, considering this was just a jigsaw puzzle we’re talking about, it was STILL unimaginably dusty! I’m not one to usually complain about dust, even when there’s a lot of it. It’s a cut paper product, so of course there’s going to be dust! But this was intense. Gratuitous. The most dust I’ve ever seen in a puzzle EVER. And keep in mind, this puzzle has been assembled once before! You’d think most of the dust would already have been knocked out, usually the experience I have with thrift store puzzles!
Despite the dust I persevered. The puzzle was still relatively fun, despite the weird puffy edges giving the pieces a really weird fit. They didn’t really want to nest in with each other because of it, making it difficult to tell if they were in the right spots at times. The buildings and roofs interspersed with foliage was a highlight here, an interesting challenge! Then I got to this point, nothing but blue mountain left, and it was like hitting a brick wall. This dust filled, ill fitting nightmare wasn’t fun anymore. Now it was just an annoying mess.
The finished result was still nice. The printing is crisp, and from what I’ve seen of their images, they pick really fantastic ones! But after this experience, I’d never buy one of these again, at the very least not for the new price. I’d have complained to Re-marks if it were a new purchase (something I don’t feel comfortable doing on a secondhand purchase), and this puzzle has definitely soured me to the company. I mean, this much dust is a quality control issue to me- something that should have been weeded out before being shipped off, it was that bad. I think I spent more time blowing, knocking, rubbing and sweeping dust off of and out of the pieces and off of my board than actually assembling them!
And after all that, this was all the dust left on my board after I took it apart. Seriously??
One last note… I wonder if this fellow knows he was immortalized in a puzzle in just his swim trunks? LOL!
After working on this beauty for nearly a month, I couldn’t be happier with the result! This puzzle is simply stunning, and Cobble Hill is definitely a new favorite puzzle brand! The finish is wonderful, I couldn’t stop running my hand over it to admire the ppieces. Everything fit together perfectly, the printing was great…. Ahhh, I just couldn’t be happier with it. Really looking forward to the two dragon puzzles I have by Cobble Hill awaiting me on my shelf!
“Colorful Sea Treasures” 500 piece Puzzlebug
Another quick dollar store puzzle completion, and another to be glued and hung over the fish tanks! This one’s so bright and pretty, I love it!
So I’ve been having a blast thrifting for puzzles both last weekend, and this morning, and have had absolutely splendid luck! My first run netted me 14 single puzzles, with two multi-packs of 4 and 8 puzzles respectively! Just look at that little Cobble Hill!
I’ve since started the “Austria” puzzle by Re-marks that’s pictured in the photos and I’m… less than impressed. It’s getting close to completion, so I’ll fill you all in on why when I finish it up!
I was so excited with my finds from last weekend, that I took advantage of today’s wonderfully cold weather (It was around 35 degrees this morning, in MAY, whaaaat?) to go again, hitting a different assortment of shops. I love living in city, that’s sort of consumed several other nearby towns and areas, because there are loads of thrift shops all over!
I couldn’t believe my luck today though, a ton of the beautiful vintage landscape photo puzzles I’ve discovered I like so well, that gorgeous vintage food puzzle, and THREE Springboks! Omg!
Hopefully all these wondrous beauties will keep me occupied through much of the hot summer months, when it will be so miserable outside I won’t want to go anywhere for thrifting fun…
If you’ve seen my blog before, you probably know I love dollar store puzzles! They’re quick and fun, and usually have great little images on them you can’t find elsewhere. Sure, the quality of the pieces isn’t stellar, but they are more than workable for the price! And I can get a ton of them for the same price as a single puzzle of the fancier brands. It can be a win win if you want a little bitty puzzle snack!
And I’ve been snacking up a storm…
‘Colorful Garden Boot Planters’ 500 piece by Puzzlebug‘Colorful Boats, Nepal’ 500 piece by Puzzlebug‘Traditional Boats in the Mediterranean Fishing Village of Marsaxlokk, Malta’ 500 piece by Puzzlebug‘Colorful Beach Huts, Bahamas’ 500 piece by Puzzlebug‘Glade Creek Grist Mill, Babcock State Park, West Virginia’ 500 piece by Puzzlebug
These were all a blast to do, and quite quick too- a pleasant thing when you just wanna get something done! I’ve been spending my mornings relaxing with iced coffee and a puzzle. They’re such cute pops of color!
I think maybe I’ll work on a larger puzzle now though, and try a new brand out! I recently took advantage of Puzzle Warehouse’s sale on Cobble Hill, buy two and get one free!
I’ve been after these two dragon puzzles for months and months now, and those owls… well, I kind of fell in love with them! In fact, I intend to do them next! Hopefully I’ll have good things to report about Cobble Hill. I’ve heard nothing but good things from others, so I’b quite excited to finally have the opportunity to assemble one myself! I’ve peeked inside the box already, and was impressed by the look of the pieces, and the fact it seems to include a poster of the image to work with as well, which is always welcome!
“Fruit and Flowers’ 1000 piece MB Puzzle, by A. Basel
All done (A few days ago, in fact)! Very fun puzzle! I didn’t find the quality to be quite as nice on this one as I have the other ‘premium blue board’ MB’s. The pieces fit together nicely but were quite loose, which made moving smaller assembled sections a pain. I even had a few mishaps of moving a sorting tray or box and bumping the assembled pieces, leading to a frustrating bit of time ‘fixing’ the assembled bits.
In fact, I’d kicked around whether I wanted to glue this one or not…I’d finally decided that I would in fact glue it to hang in our living room, but trying to slide it onto the poster board for transfer from my puzzle board was a nightmare. Everything was so loose, the pieces were constantly catching on the edges of the poster board and coming apart, something I hadn’t experienced with the other MB’s I’d done at all. I finally decided that maybe I didn’t want to glue it after all, and reboxed it instead. Probably for the better, it was a fun puzzle to assemble, and I think my mum would enjoy doing it anyway!
All around, still very happy with this one, and very glad to have gotten it and had fun putting it together! It was a nice challenge!
Started this lovely 1000 piece by MB puzzle just after reboxing my last. It’s one I started at the end of last year, got partway through the border, and decided better of. It just wasn’t time then! I’ve been having a lot of fun with it now, and it’s pleasingly challenging after the last few that have been fairly quick. I’ve been working this one for a little while now.
At first I thought it was going to be easy, all the fruits stood out so much, but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. I think at such a large scale, figuring out where pieces went was a lot more difficult than I expected- I pulled out all the blueberries to try first, made very little progress, and had to move onto something different instead!
I woke up early (for me at least) today, and with hubby still snoozing, decided to fix myself a jalapeno cheddar bagel, a glass of iced coffee and sit and work some more! I watched my spook shows while I worked (what I call all the paranormal shows I like to DVR to watch while puzzling) and made some good, solid progress!
Puzzled Pickle 