Tag: Thrift Store Puzzle

Greetings From the Upside Down

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles5 Comments

Greetings From the Upside Down – Buffalo – 300 pieces

Loving both jigsaw puzzles and the series Stranger Things means that buying this puzzle was a no brainer when I found it at the thrift store on my last visit. The colors, the weirdness, it being basically only words – how could I not love this one?

Buffalo puzzles have such good quality, I never hesitate to get any puzzle if it’s one of theirs. Even secondhand this one was still in excellent condition even though it seems to have been assembled many times. Still an excellent fit, no splitting of the chipboard, etc. There was one small spot on the edge of one piece where it seemed slightly bent upwards, but it looks to me as if it may have happened when it was disassembled, perhaps a little too roughly.

Most of this was built at night, after everyone in the house was asleep. Sometimes it feels as though there is never any actual quiet around here unless I’m the only one awake. There’s always someone walking, talking, asking, breathing, eating – in general just making lots of noise so that I can’t fully relax and enjoy my puzzling. Perhaps that just the moody menopausal momma that I turn into sometimes, but today (and last night while putting this puzzle together) that’s exactly how I feel.

Taking pictures of puzzles this way started out as a joke between mom and myself; it’s a silly way to show how well a puzzle fits together. My mom and I could be our silliest, weirdest selves with each other and we loved making each other laugh. Pictures like this were one way to make her smile, so whenever possible I sent her standing up puzzle pictures over text. She loved them. Now every time I’m able, I take these pictures.

To make both of us smile. 😇😁

Office Space

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles8 Comments

Office Space – Cardinal – 500 pieces

This puzzle was unbelievably frustrating, to say the least! But I loved the movie and really wanted to get another thrift store puzzle done and out of here to help clear off my shelves. So even though I knew it would be tough, off we went!

Cardinal puzzles are on the lower end of the scale as far as quality goes, in my opinion. I’ve actually done some of their puzzles that have been really good, but most are just fair. There is a good variety of piece shapes, but the image reproduction can sometimes be fuzzy making it more difficult to build your image, and the fit is many times loose and floppy, making it a nightmare to move pieces around. This one was unfortunately on the low end of the scale, with an extremely loose fit and indistinct and blurry image.

Nevertheless I jumped right in, knowing it would be a rough assembly. I’m not sure if I wanted to challenge myself or if I just really wanted to do it and be done with it. Whichever reason spurred me on, I’m glad I did it – and my youngest once again helped me with it. Not only did he help, he came in to assist at the most difficult part – when all that was left were white pieces that I had to sort by shape in order to fill it in!

After completing everything with color there were approximately 140-150 pieces that were pure white and I sorted them by shape in order to finish without tearing out my very gray hair. Because the fit was so loose and floppy, it made finding the right pieces even more difficult. At times there could be many pieces that all seemed to fit in one spot. Unbelievably frustrating.

So I found an image online of a completed puzzle and used that to at least let me know what shape I was looking for. You may consider that “cheating”, but there actually is no such thing as cheating when jigsaw puzzling – unless you’re in a competition. Slogging through 150 pieces of solid white with a fit you can’t be sure of wasn’t my idea of a good time, so I used the image of the finished puzzle to find what piece shape I should be looking for and completed the puzzle that way. My son helped during this last stage, and together we got it done in pretty good time.

This is only the second time I’ve used this technique. The first time I used it was when one of the sections of the giant Disney puzzle fell when I was trying to get a good picture; 4,032 pieces fell everywhere and weeks of work went down the drain. Even thinking about it now makes me anxious and upset! Anyway, there were a couple of pictures taken before it fell, so I used them to help me re-assemble the section quickly. It wasn’t cheating then, and it isn’t cheating now, not in my mind at least.

So even though the white pieces weren’t much fun at all the puzzle wasn’t too terrible, and I’m happy that it’s done and on it’s way out of my house and back to the thrift store. 😁

Phineas and Ferb

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles5 Comments

Phineas and Ferb – Mega Puzzles (Multipack) – 150 pieces

This one was fun; the background was a little difficult, but once all the skateboards and characters were together it wasn’t too hard to fill it in. One missing piece on the border, but otherwise this one made me happy.

Like the rest of the puzzles in this multipack the pieces were extremely thin and the fit wasn’t great. But I enjoyed putting this one together regardless of the quality.

This was puzzle 7 out of 8 in the Mega Puzzles multipack that I found a couple of months ago at the thrift store for only $4.99. I’d say I definitely got my money’s worth out of them. Even if I didn’t love all the images it was still entertaining to assemble them, and it’s always good for me to have a few smaller piece count puzzles here to work on in between larger ones.

These were a good find. 🧩💚

Dressed to Shine

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

Dressed to Shine – Mega Puzzles (Multipack) – 150 pieces

I avoided this image in my thrift store box of eight Disney puzzles for the longest time; but today decided that I needed to finish all of the puzzles that were left in this multipack and get the whole box out of here and back to the thrift store so someone else can enjoy them.

The quality is the same as the previous ones in this Mega Puzzles multipack; thin chipboard, loose fit, etc. But I knew what the quality would be when it was purchased and I still wanted to assemble them. This image is the one I really didn’t care for out of all eight puzzles; that’s ok though, there was still enjoyment to be had in the assembly itself and I did my best.

To me, the Disney princess images that are available for things like puzzles are just ridiculous these days. The face of Cinderella shown here is NOT the same face she had in the movie. What’s wrong with Cinderella’s face the way it was? Why did it have to change? Did the imperfection of an artist-drawn image really need to be changed into a male’s airbrushed concept of femininity? It disgusts me that she’s been updated to be more beautiful and modern; and I really hate that all the princesses seem to have the waistline of a small, sickly pre-teen boy. Ick. What a ridiculous ideal for girls to try to live up to. Just…ick.

*It’s hard to find nice things to say when you’re “in a mood”, and as you can no doubt tell I am most definitely in a mood today. Sometimes it just spills over and comes poring out of my fingertips and you get a post like this where I rant about Disney movies, how things were better back in the day, leaving good things alone, and feminism. I’m not apologizing for it, just explaining it.*

Greetings…In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

Greetings From the Upside Down – Buffalo – 300 pieces

Don’t know about you, but I certainly wouldn’t want a postcard from The Upside Down! Yikes. Barb’s vacation there was extended permanently, so it isn’t a place you’d want loved ones to visit. Ever.

Well, that’s enough of that. Isn’t this a cute little image for a puzzle? You can’t see much, but it’s going to be very cute once it’s all put together, trust me. This one was from my latest jaunt to the thrift store in my area that has the best selection of jigsaw puzzles, I was happy to find something at least to make the drive worth it. Honestly I had to go drop off the many, many, many puzzles that were in the trunk of my car to be donated, but still it’s always fun to go inside and find more. I know, it’s a problem.

My favorite puzzles to find there are the 300 and 500 pieces, it’s nice to have plenty of options at home for working in between the larger piece counts. I’m happy to have found this Stranger Things puzzle because there’s just something about it that makes me smile.

The quality has been excellent so far, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be able to stand up on it’s own when complete – the fit is fantastic! I hope whatever you’re working on today is just as entertaining as this one.

Happy puzzling my friends!