 it doesn't hurt to try it out anyways and see if it comes out better than you expected. Hey guys! So in today's video, I wanted to do something that we actually haven't done in quite a while. So I figured I think it's about time to kind of get back into trying out some of my budget puzzles. And when I say budget, I mean like serious budget puzzles. So the puzzle that we are going to be working on today is from the company Crazy Art. And this is from the series or the collection called Art Box. The name of this set is called I Love New York. And it is 500 pieces and it is 18.25 inches by 11 inches when it's completed. Now the packaging of this set is very simple. The box itself is very thin cardboard and it has a piece of scotch tape holding it closed. Which is no surprise really because I actually bought this set from Dollar Tree. Yeah if I bought it in the past it would have just been a dollar. But you know they felt the need to increase it by 25 cents. So in the end it actually cost me a buck 25 which is kind of annoying. But again you know like I said in my Dollar Tree haul video, you're most likely going to be getting what you pay for. But that's the whole point of these review videos to see if that's true or not. I mean really for the most part it is true. But you know it doesn't hurt to try it out anyways and see if it comes out better than you expected. Now hit that like button if you tend to go on a shopping frenzy when you're in Dollar Tree. And not just for puzzles just for anything in general. Pretty much things that you don't even need. Anyways first impressions when I saw this image. Well for one for those of you who are new here and don't know this about me. I was born and raised in New York City. And of course when I looked at this image I was you know instantly transported to my life growing up in the city. There's so many things in this image that I obviously recognize. We pretty much got all the main hot spots of New York City. We got Radio City Music Hall. We got the Empire State Building of course. The Guggenheim. The Subway. The Taxis. The extremely loud fire trucks that would wake me up in the middle of the night because my bedroom window faced the avenue. I don't miss everything about New York City. We have the Brooklyn Bridge. We've got examples here of what a typical apartment building in the city looks like. Actually that one looks like my building. But I'm sure as you look at all these sites from New York City you must be wondering Mandy you must have visited all these places throughout your whole life in the city. And I can tell you right off the bat absolutely not. Half of these places I never even passed by. I mean no that's a little bit of exaggeration. Now that I look at this a little bit more I have walked past Radio City Music Hall million times. Never been inside it. I would say I went inside the Empire State Building only twice in my entire life. But I walked by it a million times. Statue of Liberty we were forced to go in high school. I mean looking at these images I have tons and tons of stories that I can tell you. But I mean that could make for a whole another video. I mean I already gave you a snippet about my thoughts on the fire trucks. And as for the yellow taxi cabs I mean they always just made me carsick. But other than that in terms of completion process with this set I almost feel like this might be a little bit challenging. And the reason why I say that is because of all the sporadic use of colors throughout this image. Yeah you have some detail within certain buildings that I think I can make out quite easily when I sort these pieces. But I don't know something about this makes me feel like this may take me a while even though it's only a 500 piece puzzle. And now when I look at the side of the box it does give you the actual puzzle piece size. And it's not that small compared to the last budget puzzle that I did. And if you haven't seen that video I'm going to leave a link down below so you can check that one out. But I don't know the completed puzzle is not going to be very big. So I don't know maybe it will be easy maybe it will be hard I can't tell you. But what I can tell you is that it's going to bring back lots of memories. Now in terms of quality I'm not expecting a whole lot because again it was only a dollar 25. But I mean who knows we shall see I might I might be surprised I don't know. I'm curious how these pieces are going to fit together. Am I going to be missing anything how thin they are. Is it going to even hold together. I don't know. So you know what let's open this up and let's see what we're getting ourselves into with this one. All right let's open this up and let's see how good or bad this is. Probably going to be bad but you know we'll see. It's flimsy. All right I'm actually not seeing any puzzle dust to be honest which is surprising considering that this is a cheap puzzle. But you know that's a good start. All right let's open this one up. All right so what I'm seeing here so far is that these are very thin pieces. These two are together. Oh and also some of these from what I'm seeing right here hasn't been cut all the way through. So if you ever come across any of those kind of pieces be very gentle when you pull them apart. But yeah I mean again these are very thin very easily bendable if you put any kind of force on it. It's basically a thin piece of cardboard. In terms of glare yeah these are pretty shiny. Glare might be an issue here. But in regards to the print on the actual puzzle pieces this is actually not a bad looking print. The color is very vibrant. It doesn't look blurry. Obviously you're getting you know the look here from the nature of the image itself. But other than that the amount of detail within these pieces because of the size is really not bad. Well we have another bit here that's kind of stuck together. So again very carefully pull that apart because you might just end up tearing the piece or the image print on it. But yeah I still can't really say how hard or easy this puzzle is going to be. There's a lot of colors going on here. I'm probably gonna have to study the image a bit more just to kind of familiarize myself with where certain things go. And probably that will help me with the completion process. So you know what enough chat. Let's get this one sorted and let's get it started. Well at least I thought I was gonna sort the way I usually do with my trays. But the more I looked at the pieces the more I realized that there was really no way I was gonna really make out anything specific within these pieces. It was just gonna drive me crazy and probably take me more time. So I kind of just pulled little handfuls at a time and separated the edge pieces. And then went about making little random piles around my table with similar colors. Well pretty much colors that jumped out at me. Patterns, words, and anything that had the slightest bit of clear detail. I kind of feel like this was really the best I could have done for my own sanity considering the type of image I was working with. And I did start building along the way a few little areas as I sorted through the pieces. So after that was I guess sorted through. I then put the edge pieces together like always and then moved the little sections that I had completed during the supposed sort. Now as I mentioned before in terms of quality the pieces are basically a very thin cardboard. So of course you're not gonna get any satisfying snap sound when you pop these pieces in together. Overall it's a pretty loose fit. If you breathe on it too hard it's probably gonna just flutter away. And if you just so happen to do this puzzle outside just you know be careful that it's not a windy day because it's most likely gonna blow away into the distance. And for little areas that I had completed whenever I would try to move it it was pretty much impossible because they come apart very easily. You're for sure gonna need your puzzle scoop nearby because that was the only thing that made it possible to move anything. And when you do put it together they tend to lift off the table or whatever surface you're working on. But no big deal just pat those suckers down that'll do the job. Because let's be honest here guys you certainly get what you pay for so none of this information should be surprising. But I actually mean that more in terms of quality. Now I personally found this puzzle pretty tricky and there were many times during this completion process that I realized I had quite a mess of pieces all over my table which I know wasn't helping me. So I think as I got midway through the completion process I finally decided to organize my table and resort all my pieces by shape. And that was very easy because really there's only two different shapes in this set. So once I finally separated the two shapes I lined them up and pretty much flew through the rest of it till the end. Honestly I really should have done this much sooner. I know that if I did I could have completed this puzzle a lot faster. Now yes there are quite a number of negatives in regards to the quality. But obviously these are not meant to be amazing in terms of quality. Really I feel like these exist to satisfy that urge to buy a new puzzle. Especially when you just don't have the spare cash to spend. And it's a really cute set and it's a nice collection that you can build up for yourself if you need to save money or space because the boxes really take up no space at all. And this is even great if you want to start a small collection for a kid that's just getting into puzzling. But of course make sure the kid is not too young now because these would instantly be destroyed if they are mishandled. I also think these little sets are fantastic to take with you when you're traveling. Because really if you lose anything it's really no big deal because it's not like you paid too much for it. And I know I mentioned this in my Dollar Tree haul video but I think these make excellent party favors. I know that's pretty darn random but I feel like for the price you get a lot more out of this compared to let's say like a little horn or spinning top or something like that you know the things random things you put in goodie bags. This is pretty substantial. I want a puzzle in my party goodie bag. Overall the image print itself is great and it really does satisfy that itch to puzzle. This puzzle took me about three and a half hours to complete and I think really it took me that long because I had a mess on my table. But I'll know for next time. Yeah overall aside from the great print on the image the quality sucks but really I think this puzzle did its job. Well now I can sit back and reminisce about old times. This was fun and it really was a good challenge. For a dollar 25 I think I got some good stuff out of this. I got my quick puzzle fixed. It was inexpensive and most importantly it brought back some good memories and a few bad ones but that's okay. We should always make the best out of any puzzling experience good or bad. Now let me know down below what your puzzle experience has been with any of these sets from crazy art or any puzzle that you picked up from the Dollar Tree. Pretty soon I want to take you guys along with me to the Dollar Tree so we can check out what other images this brand has or see if they come up with any other new brands in the store. So if you happen to be new here be sure to subscribe so we can check them out together. Anyways guys thank you for watching. As always I hope you're doing well and I will see you in the next one.