Tag: Dollar Store Puzzle

Family Trees and Thrift Store Sprees!

PuzzledPickle1 Comment

 

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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!

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“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…

Puzzling Updates!

PuzzledPickle1 Comment

2019-04-14 22.15.55

I’ve been hard at work on this beautiful Cobble Hill puzzle- it’s my first time working this brand, and I’m very, very pleased with the quality! Nice board, lovely clear and crisp printing, and the cut is perfect and clean. Very little dust too!

It’s a toughie though! All the ‘easy’ parts (which was really only the owls) are done, and now all that’s left is the slow work of assembling all the foliage. It’s been fun, but slow and challenging. I’ve worked on it a lot in the mornings, with a cup of iced coffee, and my two cats meandering around me and the table.

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“Loire Valley Castle, France” 300 piece Puzzlebug
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“Colorful Catamarans” 300 piece Puzzlebug
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“Brightly Colored Tropical Fish” 500 Piece Puzzlebug

Of course, that’s not all I’ve been doing! We had to cancel our cable plan this last week, so I’d spent some time puzzling a few PuzzleBugs in the livingroom, and watching through the last of my DVR’ed shows before they disappeared. Such fun! The fish will be glued and hung above my aquariums.

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 “Tobacco Barn, San Luis Obispo, CA” 500 piece MB Croxley, 1997

I also finished up my current ‘desk puzzle’, a very nice vintage Croxley. I like the image, and had a lot of fun assembling it, but this was the first one I was actually disappointed in the quality. The pieces fit VERY loosely, and the whole thing had an unpleasant shimmy and shake because of it. Almost as if the cutting blade was much wide than it should have been maybe? It’s the only one of the four Croxley’s I’ve done so far that has had be craftsmanship though, so hopefully it will only be an occasional one-off problem! It was bought second had too, so who knows how many times it’s been assembled in the last 20+ years! That could have something to do with it.

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Hopefully this week I’ll make some more progress on this bad boy though! I can’t wait to see it done! I think I may frame this one!

Swarm of Puzzlebugs!

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2019-04-08 18.21.20

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…

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‘Colorful Garden Boot Planters’ 500 piece by Puzzlebug
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‘Colorful Boats, Nepal’ 500 piece by Puzzlebug
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‘Traditional Boats in the Mediterranean Fishing Village of  Marsaxlokk, Malta’ 500 piece by Puzzlebug
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‘Colorful Beach Huts, Bahamas’ 500 piece by Puzzlebug
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‘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!

Thanks for puzzling with me today!

Boats and Sunset!

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2019-01-15 10.23.15

“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!

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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:

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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!

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