Ocean Life

On December 27, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

This was one of those thrift store puzzles that almost breaks my heart. We love finding fantastic quality kids puzzles, assembling them, and then donating them. When we find one of such excellent quality that’s missing a piece it’s so much more of a disappointment than regular missing pieces to me.

This Mudpuppy puzzle was one of the best quality kids puzzles I’ve seen in quite some time. Extremely thick pieces, beautiful colors, excellent fit – and it even had a little extra something – a search and find aspect. All the pictures around the edges are also shown in the main image and they’re not all easy to find.

What a bummer that it’s missing a piece! It makes me sad, as a lover of puzzles, that they aren’t taken care of. (But I do remember childhood too, vaguely, so I also understand.) But for some strange reason these missing pieces makes me wish that I could go back to my childhood and take MUCH better care of all of my toys and things. If I had, not only would they be worth some big time cash right now, I’d still have some of the things I loved to play with as a child. How awfully sweet and uncharacteristically sentimental of me, right? I know!

Kittens in the Kitchen

On October 22, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles7 Comments

To be honest, I didn’t even notice there were cats in this puzzle until I started assembling it! I only saw the kitchen as a whole when I looked at the box, the kittens didn’t even register – of course I didn’t see the name of the puzzle either – Kittens in the Kitchen. I guess I don’t get the Captain Observation award for the day, huh?

I love the sign, I only wish I had a dining room to put it in. The view out the window is very pretty and was lots of fun to put together. 🙂 Unfortunately there were 2 missing pieces, but that didn’t make it any less fun to put together – at least not for me.

This was a thrift store puzzle, and seems to have been well loved before it was donated. Some of the pieces were bent and the finished puzzle didn’t lay completely flat. It’s difficult to say whether this is because it was pre-owned, or whether it’s a manufacturing defect; nevertheless it was an entertaining puzzle that made for a lovely afternoon.

Bookmarks

On October 12, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Even though this puzzle was missing a piece it, it was still great fun. Each bookmark was entertaining to put together, and it made for an excellent all around puzzle.

I didn’t use the image on the box to help me with the assembly – so only shape, color, and patterns were used to solve it. I sometimes enjoy challenging myself by putting the box away and solving the puzzle with no help from the image at all. I don’t always know which puzzle is going to lead me to attempt it without the image; usually it’s the more difficult ones, but sometimes it’s fun collages like this one.

Charlie Girard puts together some amazing images that make for wonderfully fun puzzles, that’s why he’s one of my favorite puzzle artists. His collages make me so happy! I’ve done many of his collages, but there are still many more I’d love to get my hands on. 🙂

These are some of my favorite bookmarks from this puzzle…

I wonder what my choice of these 3 bookmarks says about me. Thoughts? 😉

Jungle Friends

On September 19, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Even though this puzzle had 2 missing pieces it was still fun to assemble – I had a great time with it actually. 👍

Mom has quite the knack for finding awesome puzzles like this one at the thrift stores. I’m kinda missing all those awesome finds these days, she’s in the process of moving and doesn’t have time to go thrift shopping. (Besides, if she came home with more puzzles I think my dad’s head might explode – they still haven’t finished packing all the ones we already own!)

I enjoy kids puzzles very much, I’m a “grownup” but putting together a kids puzzle makes me just as happy as any adult puzzle ever could. Sometimes it’s not the puzzle, it’s the puzzling. ☺

Unknown Title

On September 12, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Here’s another puzzle from several years ago, and I specifically remember the time frame and what was going on when I was assembling it. I don’t always remember the specific time, but I do with this puzzle – it was June of 2016. It seems odd that I don’t have the title or even the brand of the puzzle, but unfortunately I don’t have that information (even though I searched the internet for info on it). I wish I did, because this was so much fun to assemble; I’d love to be able to recommend it by name. 🙂

Even though this thrift store puzzle had two missing pieces it was so much fun! It was so long ago, and missing pieces, but I do recall that mom wanted me to keep it so she could assemble it even though it wasn’t complete. It may be hiding in the piles and piles of puzzles at mom’s house, but she’s in the process of moving, so finding it isn’t an option at the moment.

The great colors and all the wording made this puzzle both entertaining and challenging; and part of the reason mom wanted to assemble this even with missing pieces is because I enjoyed it so much. I don’t recall much about the actual quality of the puzzle, but the image is what made it so much fun to put together.

If you can find a title, artist, or manufacturer please let me know (I’m not great at finding things online, obviously). 🙂