Herb Farm Friends

On April 10, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

This is a beautiful puzzle, but the flowers were such a PAIN! I knew they would be going in, and at times had to do a little internal cheerleading to keep myself going. When it was all said and done it’s a pretty image that was both entertaining and highly frustrating. 😉

This Cardinal puzzle actually had some whimsies, but they were awful to work with on my white board – they kept sliding around and making me crazy. My fabric covered board was occupied with another puzzle, perhaps I should have waited to assemble this one on the fabric board. Hmm.

Herb Farm Friends whimsies

I appreciate that extra work that goes in to making whimsies in a cardboard jigsaw puzzle, but these whimsy pieces added to the frustration if I’m being honest. The pieces that surrounded them almost never connected until you got 2 layers out, and there was much accidental touching of the pieces that made everything come apart. I’ve worked some cardboard puzzles with whimsy pieces that connect around the figural piece to keep things together, it would have been nice if these had been designed that way as well.

I’d love to tell you this was a fun puzzle, but although I enjoyed parts of it, the majority of my time was spent being frustrated with both the image and the whimsies. 😐

Trolls (1)

On February 8, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

This was a fun little puzzle with beautiful colors, and it’s a bit more difficult than it looks. The quality was very nice, and the fit was excellent – not bad for a dollar store puzzle!

Mom was going to the dollar store to look for something specific, and I asked her to look at the puzzles to see if there might be a small puzzle or two there that I might be able to use for a mash-up. She bought some kids puzzles to try out, but none of them really worked for that purpose, so I just puzzled them. My brain is far too muddled these days for combining two puzzles into one anyway. 😉

Such funny and interesting creatures! I love the glitter guy on the far left, I haven’t seen the movie so I have no idea what his name is; but they are all very cute in my opinion.

There was no name on the puzzle at all, so I’ve named this one Trolls (1) because she bought two of these puzzles and the other one is unnamed as well. This was the prettier of the two, so this one gets top billing.

This was the first puzzle we’ve gotten at the dollar store, and I was impressed with it. I’m sure others aren’t as good quality, but if we take a chance on missing pieces at the thrift store, then I guess we might (if we love the picture) take a chance on a cheap puzzle. 🙂

*probably not very often, I truly can be quite the puzzle snob sometimes*

Summer Flowers

On April 1, 2018April 1, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles1 Comment

This gorgeous puzzle was much more difficult than I assumed it would be, but luckily I was able to share the load with mom and my daughter – that always makes it more fun.

The pieces had a great feel to them, were a good thickness, and as you can see the image reproduction is stunning; it even came with a poster of the puzzle because the box was an upright square tube and you couldn’t see the entire image. The fit was quite loose though, and a bit of a pain to work with. When we finally got this one finished we swore off flower puzzles for a while, it was a struggle!

I can’t always tell from the picture how difficult a puzzle will be, I’m usually surprised in some way even though I assemble puzzles a lot. I love trying out new companies or even different types of puzzles from the same company and finding out what’s good and what needs work. Sometimes I’m enthralled by the image and go into it knowing it’ll be a bit difficult, sometimes I think it’ll be a breeze and it turns into a windstorm. Other times I think it’s going to be very challenging and it turns out to be the perfect amount of challenge and it’s incredibly fun and entertaining.

I’m usually not correct in my assumptions about the difficulty level of a puzzle, but it sure is fun to keep trying and to keep being surprised. 😎

Rainbow Beach Huts

On February 6, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

IMG_E4193 — Rainbow Beach Huts by Peter Adderley – Cardinal – 500 pieces

This puzzle with it’s bright blocks of color was a fun assembly, and three generations of women in my family completed it together. If you’re a daily reader of this blog you have already seen part of this puzzle, I took a picture of our 3 hands putting in the last pieces of this puzzle for my National Puzzle Day post. 😉

The pieces were a bit thin, the finish was very shiny, and the fit was such that if you accidentally bumped the puzzle you’d upset many pieces. Not the best quality, but not the worst I’ve had either. On the positive side, the image reproduction was very nice and there were a good variety of piece shapes to work with. Cardinal puzzles seem to be a bit hit or miss with their quality in my opinion. I’ve worked some very nice quality Cardinal puzzles, and had some that are not good at all. Brands like this we only buy from thrift stores; when the quality is an unknown we prefer not to pay retail, even if we really like the image.

I’ve mostly been working with smaller piece counts since I’ve been recuperating; it’s been difficult for me to sit and puzzle for any length of time. Mom and I have mostly been doing puzzles between 200 and 500 pieces when I’m visiting at her house. It goes much faster with more than one person, and it’s helping me get back into the swing of things.

We only got halfway through this puzzle the first day (we completed 2 others first), and so we finished it the next day with the help of my daughter before we went on a field trip to buy puzzles (I bought 6 😇). I enjoy images with bright colors that are easy to sort, and this one was an excellent image to puzzle – good fun was had by all!

Dance, Hug, Sing

On December 30, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Another cute kid’s puzzle from the thrift store, but we didn’t even know we had this one! It was bagged separately in the box of another puzzle purchased. Freebie! Free is my favorite price. 😉

Excellent quality kids puzzle from Cardinal, and it was fun putting this together without the picture. Nice, thick pieces that fit together well with bright, fun colors – basically everything you’d want in a kids puzzle. It’s very well made and should last through many, many assemblies.

This was much nicer than the Troll hair puzzle. Ick! This puzzle has since been donated to a school, I’m sure they’re having a great time with it. It’s always fun to assemble kid’s puzzles for me, makes me feel like an expert puzzler! 😎