Robert Burns’ The Hunt from Liberty

Hoefnagel sent me an amazing pack, with this puzzle from Liberty, and “Happily Ever Aftering” from Elms. This puzzle features “Diana and Her Nymphs” by Robert Burns (the painter, 1869-1941, not the poet of the same name, 1759-1796). “Diana and Her Nymphs” is a circa 1926 mural painted at the Crawford’s tearoom in Edinburgh. Lots […]
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Louis Wain’s Fiddling Cat, from Artifact

I really loved Artifact‘s contribution to the Puzzle Parley 2024 — the speed puzzle, Louis Wain’s “Fiddling Cat“. So I picked it up, and Ash and I did it, speed-style (that is, with a timer) and I feel pretty good about our time! Which to be clear was more than double the time that the […]
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Wentworth minis

Ash and I did three Wentworth mini puzzles today — I would say, “Starry Night” was the easiest, with the Helix Nebula in the middle, and the “fractal geometry” was the hardest — with several identical pieces, eight each of a sort of triangular triskelion (maybe there is a better word for that) rotated counterclockwise, […]
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Barred Owl, Adolfo Valle, Lighthouse Puzzles

Enjoyed this Lighthouse Puzzles mini-puzzle, which was sent to me free in hopes I would review it. The artist, Adolfo Valle, is Michigan-based, as is Lighthouse. (While I love lighthouses, does Michigan … have them? I know there are lots of lakes including Lake Michigan, and yes, the Great Lakes are big enough for tides, […]
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Stack Attack, Rebel Puzzles

“Stack Attack” is the second puzzle Ash and I did from Rebel Puzzles, and we enjoyed this one, too! It was … definitely challenging, with its abstract and vaguely midcentury style graphics. But once we got into the swing of it, we were able to finish it off in a reasonable time! (Like, an hour […]
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Geode, Nervous Systems

A fun blue geode puzzle from NERVOUS Systems, via Hoefnagel. Another reviewer described this puzzle as easy, a review at which Ash and I looked askance, but, once we got going, it was — well, not “easy”, but very doable. (Much easier, at any rate, than the Wongo elephant it was paired with!) Bastet anointed […]
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Elephant, Wongo

I wanted to like this elephant by Wongo puzzles (courtesy of Hoefnagel) — I liked the image, all the fun patterns, and of course, ELEPHANT. But it was so fiddly — some of the pieces were really, super tiny. It took Ash and me several hours, together, and we had to drag in a third […]
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Pixel Peaks by Julie Amlin, Puzzle Lab

We did another fun Puzzle Lab puzzle today — “Pixel Peaks“, with art by Julie Amlin (the original artwork is called “Above the Blue”, but it was renamed for the puzzle ….). The whole family, plus Cass, worked on it. Puzzle Lab says: Sometimes, waters are turbulent. But there’s always a safe shoreline and a […]
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Rackham’s Forest Nymphs, FoxSmartBox

Arthur Rackham is one of my favorite Victorian children’s illustrators, so I was happy to pick up “Forest Nymphs” from FoxSmartBox. FoxSmartBox calls this image “Forest Nymphs”, but I’ve seen it more commonly labeled “Wood Nymphs” — for instance, at the NYPL digital collection, in an illustration of John Milton’s Comus (1634), published in 1921. […]
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3 Cat Max dragonfly, Vicky!

Vicky & Michele did a 3 Cat Max dragonfly. … finished the tail off a little later.
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Purple Pulse, Anthology

After the fun orange puzzle, I knocked off a purple mini-puzzle from Anthology — “Purple Pulse“, art by Lori Anne McKague.
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Tangerine Tapestry, Artistry

This image looks really cool & quite distinct — in a small size. But in the large size of the actual puzzle, there was a lot more muddiness & difficulty seeing things. It wasn’t pixellated, but it was a lot harder to see things — however, it all did come together ultimately. Also, I noted […]
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Moonlit Serenade, Fathom Puzzles

“Moonlit Serenade” — another amazing puzzle from Fathom Puzzles in Vermont — this one a complex, shaped wolf-themed puzzle, with cut-outs and some non-unique connections, requiring very careful attention to the grey-scale patterning — and a few times I flipped pieces over to verify a match based on the wood grain. I really loved the […]
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Poohsticks, by Iwona Lifsches, from Artifact

“Poohsticks” (image by Iwona Lifsches, cut design by Ashley Boyd, puzzle by Artifact) was the second in a Hoefnagel pack (with a BCB puzzle) that I knocked off while recovering from a bug. This one was interesting — the majority of the pieces had one of three standard interlocking shapes, a tulip, a fish fin, […]
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Harvest Island by Cinyee Chiu, Hellofish

Thanks, Hoefnagel! This HelloFish (Taiwanese laser cutter) puzzle, “Harvest Island“, by Cinyee Chiu, was a fast assembly. I particularly liked the tree whimsies — visible at the bottom of the puzzle. 200 pieces, 23cm x 23cm, “easy”. This about the artist: Cinyee Chiu, a Taiwanese illustrator living in the United States. She values the unique […]
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Rhode Island fishes, Hope Puzzles

I really enjoyed this fish-shaped puzzle from Hope Puzzles in Rhode Island — the “Fish of Rhode Island” puzzle. Fish shaped, fish images, fish whimsies … truly fishy. Thanks, Hoefnagel! It had one of my most favorite etched whimsies ever — the manta ray (or skate? hmm) with the spots. Etchings are not usually my […]
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Diego Rivera Detroit Industry, Nautilus

Hello to my friend Art Keene! Who lent me this beautiful wood puzzle version of Diego Rivera‘s “Detroit Industry” (actually, one of Rivera’s numerous Detroit Industry murals). Hard! And already the cats have tipped it over. Well, one cat — Bastet — and also, it was my fault for putting it in a tippable place. […]
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Forest Fables, Trippy Puzzles

“Trippy Puzzle Co.” is a laser cutter, listed on Etsy, that says “designed in the US, made in China.” The box is very similar to another puzzle I got recently — can’t remember which — and includes “display feet” like a CraftHub puzzle. So I take it there is a laser wood cutter in China […]
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Nadieh Bremer Coronium, Artifact

Enjoyable puzzle (“Coronium” by Nadieh Bremer) by Artifact, courtesy of Hoefnagel – even though I don’t ordinarily love digital art like this, I really liked the cut. This 172 piece wooden jigsaw puzzle by Dutch digital artist Nadieh Bremer is named for Coronium, a new atomic element hypothesized in 1887 to explain signals in the solar […]
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King Dasaratha, Inside Out

From Inside Adventure (via Etsy), this beautiful painting of King Dasaratha, from a scene in the Ramayana. Inside Adventure says: This puzzle contains dozens of hand-drawn whimsy pieces, intricately cut into the shapes of different characters, animals and plants. They are works of art within the puzzle. … Our whimsies are carefully crafted and designed […]
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