Vintage Bicycle Posters

February 26, 2019 PuzzledPickle2 Comments

2019-02-24 11.09.55 — ‘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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

What a fun puzzle!

Popcorn Oopsie!

February 17, 2019 PuzzledPickle1 Comment

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!)

Facebook Find!

February 15, 2019February 15, 2019 PuzzledPickle1 Comment

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!

Umbrella Street

February 14, 2019 PuzzledPickleLeave a comment

2019-02-14 20.57.56 — “Umbrella Street” 500 piece, by Sure-Lox

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!

Varied Puzzling!

February 9, 2019 PuzzledPickle2 Comments

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…

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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!

2019-02-03 16.53.02 — ‘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!

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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!

2019-02-03 17.13.44 — ‘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.

2019-02-08 01.41.30 — ‘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!

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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!

2019-02-09 14.57.10-1 — ‘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!

Boats and Sunset!

January 16, 2019 PuzzledPickleLeave a comment

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:

2019-01-15 10.28.03 — 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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Melody of the Night

January 11, 2019January 11, 2019 PuzzledPickle1 Comment

“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

January 8, 2019 PuzzledPickle3 Comments

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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!

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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.

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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!

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Before I knew it, I was down to the last bits! I couldn’t believe how quickly it had come together!

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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. @_@

Winter Wonderland!

January 3, 2019 PuzzledPickle3 Comments

We’re getting quite the little snowstorm today! Mostly freezing rain, sadly, but we did get a brief period of the biggest, fluffiest snowflakes I’ve seen in a long long while!

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One of our cats, Gidget, has likely never seen snow this big ever. She was quite amazed! But this isn’t the sort of wonderland I’m here to talk about!

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This picture hung in my bedroom as a girl since I was 8 years old, and now it hangs in my own house as well. It’s the framed box art of a jigsaw puzzle I received back in 1996 for Christmas most likely; I used to get them every year! I know we put the puzzle together, though I don’t remember actually doing it.

I’ve wanted for years to have the puzzle again, though it’d gotten sold in a garage sale I think, when I was still a little girl. I’ve googled high and low trying to find it, but never could. Then one day I was admiring the art again and happened the notice an artists name: Bill Bell! And that was all I needed to find it finally!

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This arrived in the mail today! I’d happened upon it on Ebay, now that I knew what to look for finally. “Wonderland” a 300 piece Great American Puzzle Factory, by Bill Bell, all the way from 1996. The artist has done a TON of puzzles actually, and his arts fantastic- I’ll have to look for others at some point!

I’m so excited to have this one in my possession again; I’ve waited a long time to get a hold of a copy! I can’t wait to assemble it, after waiting all these years!

Florabundance!

January 3, 2019 PuzzledPickleLeave a comment

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. @_@;