Shimmer and Shine

Shimmer and Shine – Cardinal – 24 pieces

*Here’s another completed puzzle from 2024, although there wasn’t much in the draft for this one, so this is going to be a pretty bare bones kinda post. In fact, what I wrote was – “meh, warped pieces”. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this puzzle wasn’t overly impressive. LOL*


Even though I’ve put together some extremely large and difficult jigsaw puzzles, I still enjoy puzzles of all sizes – even those made for children. This one however didn’t seem too impressive back when it was assembled. “Meh” isn’t a word that I use regularly, so this one must have been pretty run of the mill and not particularly well made.

Sorry Cardinal, I calls ’em like I sees ’em. 😎

Kitt-TNT

Kitt-TNT – Cardinal – 300 pieces

When I saw this at the thrift store I thought this image was funny and looked like it might be fun to assemble. I was right. It went together really quickly, but I enjoyed it very much.

The quality of this puzzle was good/fair. The pieces were on the thin side and sometimes the fit was a bit wonky, but it’s a pre-loved puzzle so I can’t say for certain how it was newly purchased. The finish was shiny, which made the darker areas more challenging; but overall the quality was good.

Have you heard of Exploding Kittens? I hadn’t. Apparently it’s a card game, I’d never heard of it before. This puzzle comes with a bonus card to augment your deck, shown below…

I looked it up, and the website says it’s a “kitty powered version of Russian Roulette”. Whatever that means. The box they showed says this is “A card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats.” It sounds funny, but I’m not sure it’s for me.

I’m an old fuddy-duddy, and prefer card games like euchre, gin, sevens, canasta, pinochle, etc. But, hey, to each their own, right?

Whether or not I’d enjoy playing the card game doesn’t matter at all, what matters was whether or not I enjoyed this puzzle; and I absolutely did. 💣🐱💣

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Cardinal – 48 pieces

My youngest son decided it was time for me to put together one of my kids puzzles that have been hanging out at the bottom of my puzzle shelves way in the back – and of course he chose TMNT. He tells me this is from the 2012 version of the show, in case anyone was wondering. 🐢

*In case you were wondering if I was wondering – I wasn’t. But he loves to talk about the things he’s interested in, and I’m his mother, so I listen.*

In addition to providing all the information I learned about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he even helped out with the assembly right from the beginning! I’m sure the fact that it was only 48 pieces was a consideration, but he was genuinely excited about this puzzle and I was happy to have his assistance.

I was quite impressed with the quality of this puzzle, it came in a 6 pack of kids puzzles of varying piece counts (all from Nickelodeon shows) that I paid $1.49 for. I was expecting much lesser quality, but was happily surprised that the pieces were thick and fit together well, and the image reproduction was very good.

It was a bargain at even twice the price. Cowabunga dudes!

Crazy Cuisine Cart*

Crazy Cuisine Cart* by Iralu – Cardinal – 150 pieces

So disappointing. Not only was the quality pretty bottom of the barrel, but this little guy was missing seven pieces! It absolutely wasn’t my fault, I opened the bag directly onto the table and there’s no way that many pieces got up and walked away. Oh well, as one of the Puzzle Posse told me; If I put all the pieces available together I have completed the puzzle – even if it wasn’t complete.

This was one of the puzzles from the Cardinal multipack that I knew wouldn’t be great quality, but wanted to assemble the images because they are so different and interesting. Still love the artwork!

In Progress…

I’m working on another one of those from the multipack of twelve puzzles (by Cardinal) with images by Iralu. The quality is pretty terrible, but it’s the artwork that made me buy them in the first place, I knew they wouldn’t be great to work with, but I couldn’t pass up such interesting and different looking puzzles. 💙

There wasn’t much completed yesterday, just the border and a little bit of one of the four balconies. But it seems as though it’ll be an entertaining assembly despite the quality. I find his artwork fascinatingly different, almost childlike. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before on any jigsaw puzzles, and I love it!

Hope you all have a great week – happy puzzling my friends. 🧩