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!
Will look lovely hanging in my hall!
Tag: 1000 Piece
Popcorn Oopsie!
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*
Whoops! (the piece is fine!)
Varied Puzzling!
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!
Melody of the Night
“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!
Peter Pan
Shortly after finishing ‘Florabundance’, I decided to break out this gorgeous 1000 piece by Master Pieces, ‘Peter Pan’ by Steve Crisp. I spent a smidge of time that Thursday evening sorting out the edge pieces and assembling them, before calling it a day for puzzling!
Look at all these NOT edge pieces…. and these were just some of them. I don’t mind irregular shaped pieces, but I can’t stand those that masquerade as edges! You can make irregular pieces without having those long flat sides, darnit!
Anyway, bright and early Friday morning, I set about sorting and assembling! And turns out, well… Peter Pan is a super easy puzzle.
In no time at all, I’d sorted out all the individual bits, and the Pan himself was together. You see, the image is stunning as a whole, but everything in it is very individual and distinct. Big chunks of the puzzle, and whole characters, came together in a flash!
Before I knew it, I was down to the last bits! I couldn’t believe how quickly it had come together!
It’s all around a lovely image, and it was a ton of fun to put together! This is one of those nice Master Pieces, with decently thick cardboard and lovely printing. Everything stays together quite well. And the puzzle dust was at a minimum as well! These fairy tale puzzles that come in the book shaped boxes are quite nice!
Though I still can’t believe I did an entire thousand piece puzzle in essentially a day. @_@
Florabundance!
First puzzle of 2019 complete! Although, I did start it last year, so maybe that’s cheating… 🤔
“Florabundance” by Linda Ravenscroft, a 1000 piece by MB Puzzles and Cardinal Games. Another nice quality puzzle, as I expected after the last ‘Premium Blue Board’ puzzle I did by this brand. Low dust, nice fitting pieces, smooth finish that’s not too glossy, and a good thickness board. Lovely.
This one was a bit tougher than I expected, but an absolute joy to put together. Such a sassy little pixie! A nice contrast too the wintery weather we’re having as well!
Next up is “Peter Pan”, 1000 pieces by MasterPieces–it came in a funky book shaped box, so I’ve du ped it into my last puzzles box for sorting. I’m excited to get this one put together–I’ll be hanging it over my husband’s night stand, and the “Jack and the Beanstalk” I completed last year will be going over mine! I’m only hoping that Peter is the same size as Jack… This one sure seems smaller to me. I’ll have to oull them out and compare!
Also, look at all these ‘not edge pieces’! D: And there were so many more in the box I had to painstakingly rule out. @_@;
Flower Delivery and a Beachy Retreat
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| Thomas Kinkade 500 Pieces |
It’s been a rough week. Last Wednesday, December 5th, my grandmother passed away. It had been a long time coming unfortunately. The night she passed, I and a few other family members had gathered at my grandfather’s house, and I had brought along a pack of four 500 piece Thomas Kinkade puzzles to pass the time. I had just finished sorting out the edges of this lovely beachy scene, and was starting to assemble them when she left us.
I’d packed the puzzle back away, but went ahead and decided to finish it. I’d been so looking forward to doing this one ever since I bought the pack months ago, and I know my grandmother wouldn’t have wanted me put off of it. I also had packed it up in one of my grandfather’s tupperware dishes, and he’ll probably want that back as well!
It’s been a difficult week since then, filled with grief. I’ve spent a good deal of my time working on this 1000 piece MB Puzzle/ Cardinal Games ‘Flower Delivery’ to keep myself occupied. My grandmother would have adored all the flowers in it, she just loved flowers. Not as big a fan of dogs…. Too slobbery for her!
There may also have been wine involved…
The flowers were the easy part, simple to pick out of the box of assorted ambiguous greens and blues! They went together in a pinch!
Even with all the trouble the greens were giving me, I was still having a blast, a little ray of fun to distract me from the sad.
My cats are also a great distraction. Here’s Taco, siting in the chair across from me, taking a bath! Little goofball!
And finished! All around, I was really impressed with the quality of this one. The Cardinal Games puzzles I got from the Dollar Tree are about what one would expect for only a dollar, very thin cardboard, if otherwise good. But these, made in conjunction with MB using the ‘Premium Quality Blue Board’ are spectacular!
The cardboard is a good thickness, and very, very rigid with very little bend, so none of the pieces I encountered were bent or damaged in any way. The cutting was crisp and precise, and the printing and finish on the front was lovely. It also came with an extra resealable bag to keep the pieces in when finished, if that’s your thing, and a little fold out ‘box easel’, which you can fit the box lid into and will hold it up for you to look at while you work. I didn’t use it but I’ll definitely keep it around for the future in case I ever need something like it. What a clever idea! I’m really happy to have purchased several more puzzles by this company.
All around, it’s been a long, difficult week. I’m so glad I have such a nice, calming hobby to help get me through it!
Readers Paradise Complete!
“Readers Paradise” 1000 Piece by White Mountain. I had a lot of fun with this one, and it helped me through a difficult time.
I was pretty pleased with the quality of White Mountian’s pieces. Nicely cut, and they snapped together fairly well. As someone else suggested, I took a rolling pin to it when it was finished, and I’ve never had a puzzle be SO FLAT before- I’ll definitely be doing that with ALL my puzzles from now on!
This “Readers Paradise” was absolutely jam packed with little details too. Cats sleeping on the stairs, a mouse hiding among the shelves, titles and cover art on a lot of the books. The printing was crisp and clear too, which makes the art all the better!
I’d definitely recommend this one! I’ll happily pick up another White Mountain puzzle the next time one of their images strikes my fancy.
Decided to start this one next: “Flower Delivery” 1000 pieces by Milton Bradley. Really impressed with it’s quality as well, and overall production value. The box is really nice, covered inside as well as out, and it was with a resealable bag to put the pieces back into when complete (not that I do that myself) and a cardboard contraption called a ‘box easel’. It holds the box upright for you at a good viewing angle to see the image. I don’t know if I’ll use it or not, but what a neat idea!
This week’s been tough for me, and puzzles have really helped get me through, and will continue to help I’m sure. I’m very thankful to have such a pleasant hobby to turn too when I need it.
Hello, and Welcome!
Howdy howdy! I’m Puzzled Pickle, a jigsaw puzzle enthusiast! I’ve decided to move my jigsaw blog to Blogger today. I’ve been posting to Tumblr for a few months, but they’ve recently decided to purge all adult content from their systems. Obviously, that shouldn’t affect my very not adult blog in the slightest, but whatever algorithm auto scans all their images decided to flag a bunch of my jigsaw pictures as adult and hide them! That’s super not cool, and I don’t have time for that sort of nonsense!
I’ve transferred all my old posts (by hand, oiy) over to here, hence the slew of ‘new posts’ listed as being from today. They actually span over the last few months. Anyway, I’ll be continuing here from now on! Maybe I can even find more jigsaw puzzle peeps here too!
I woke up bright and unusually early Saturday morning; what better time than to enjoy the peace and quiet of a sleeping house, a nice cup of hot coffee, and a jigsaw puzzle accompanied by podcasts? I’ve really been looking forward to starting this one, “Readers Paradise” a 1000 piece by White Mountain. I’ve yet to do a White Mountain puzzle, but I’ve heard good things from the jigsaw groups on Facebook, so I’m excited!
So far White Mountain reminds me a lot of Ravensburger. The cardboard is nice and thick, and has that nice blue backing. My particular copy of this one has a few pieces that weren’t cut through all the way, but only a very small number, so I’m not displeased at all. Everything’s been snapping together nicely for the most part, and it’s been very enjoyable!
I’ve also had this lovely little boats puzzle by Cardinal kicking around on my desk for the last few days, though I haven’t worked on it much yet- just been too busy! I’ll get to it though. The tiny little pieces are hilarious and fun to work with, and I can’t wait to have it completed to hang up somewhere. The art is just stunning!
Speaking of hanging puzzle sup, I recently redecorated the walls around my office space!
I’m so pleased with how it’s come out so far. The bright, perky colors definitely put you in a good mood when you sit down to work!
Puzzled Pickle 