feature: cat whimsies
A Christmas Eve Visitor, by George Hinke (Victory)
I really loved this puzzle from Victory, cut design by Mark Cappitella. George Hinke (1883 – 1953) was a mid-20th century illustrator, born in Germany, who did a lot of these Christmas / jolly St. Nick-style illustrations. He doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry (yet), hmm. (-: This puzzle by Victory is thick — 7mm — […]
Lovely Cat Ravensburger wooden
Ash and I knocked off another small Ravensburger wooden (laser-cut) puzzle, cat themed! The whimsies are actually quite nice.
Freddie Mercury by Lee Topp, Puzzly 527
Just finished an amazing laser-cut puzzle by Puzzly, 527 pieces and really fabulous whimsies — including a super large multi-piece whimsy. All themed! The artist is “Lee Topp”, who is described on Puzzly’s Freddie Mercury puzzle page as: Lee Topp is a south coast based mixed media artist taking inspiration from Music and Legends. Influenced […]
Apro Vision, “Moon Castle”
Via Hoefnagel, I got this laser-cut 152-piece (“A4 size”) puzzle from “Apro Vision”, which appears to be one of the randomly generated names that Chinese laser cutters create to sell on Amazon. It’s a pretty cool and tricky image — many little doors in various sizes, plus some gears, and trees in various teacups (surrealist […]
Purr-fect Night by Mary Stubberfield
Wentworth Puzzles, 240 pieces, “Purr-fect Night” by Mary Stubberfield, via Hoefnagel. Another thin, MDF wood, mix of traditional pieces with etched whimsies. I liked this art better than the owl puzzle that was also in the Hoefnagel pack, but the puzzling experience otherwise was very similar.
Sky Village by Heather Gauthier, Artifact Ecru 409
“Sky Village” by Heather Gauthier, Ecru, 409 pieces. This is the second of a batch of three puzzles I borrowed from Yael. It was a steady, not difficult, solve, with lots of different areas of variously colored fruits, various textures on the animals, beads & ribbons, all on a damask-style background. (Looking at Gauthier’s website, […]
Winter Reading Nook by Aimee Stewart, Zen teaser
I think it’s fair to say that the decline in democracy in this country has made it difficult for me to do jigsaw puzzles. But Ash and I still manage to knock out a small one periodically. The small puzzles from Zen are very doable even in a highly distracted mindframe. “Winter Reading Nook” is […]
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Stave, Purrsian Rug
Beautiful cat and Persian rug puzzle from Stave, via Hoefnagel — “Purrsian Rug” (art by Candy Thun), 100-piece trick puzzle. Not the typical puzzle — you can’t solve from the image, because there are multiple identical connectors, and if you assemble to make a continuous image, you can’t assemble the pieces into a single continuous […]
Shroom Town, Kristian Adam (Artifact)
When I saw this puzzle, “Shroom Town” (art by Kristian Adam), it reminded me so much of Ash’s little sculptural mushroom villages, that I had to get it. We had fun assembling it today — I was more challenging than one would expect from a 211-piece puzzle. The irregular edge really added to the challenge! […]
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Samuel Hayward “Cat in Garden”, Artifact
We three did this nicely cat-whimsy-filled “Cat in Garden” puzzle from Artifact today, with art from Samuel Hayward. Please note that Zeniba is in a very similar pose and attitude as the titular “Cat in Garden”. Artifact’s description:
Karla Gerard Night Song, from Artifact
A beautiful puzzle loaned to us by my neighbor Yael; Ash and I did some of it, then I finished it off. I really enjoyed this puzzle — kind of a riff on “traditional” style pieces, with quite a few fun and interacting whimsies. Looking at the back, the almost radial symmetry was well done, […]
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 […]
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, […]
Whiskered Woods, Rebel Puzzles
I tried out two puzzles from Rebel Puzzles, a laser cutter, and the first (“Whiskered Woods“) was great fun! A tesselation of cat pieces — two main styles with minor differences among some of the pieces. Required close attention to color, pattern, and the minor detailed differences. Ash is going to love this one, I […]
Piecezz Cat Party
A mini-puzzle from Piecezz, a laser cutter that Michele found. This one (“Cat Party“) was cat-themed, 40 pieces.
DaVici mini puzzle assortment
Via Hoefnagel, a double pack of multiple mini puzzles. There were 6 DaVici mini puzzles: two shaped blue cats, and three “scenes” (there’s a second copy of one of them, for a total of four). Two little shaped cats (blue) plus three unique square puzzles — one a rotund cat laying on a flowerbed, a […]
Puzzlapy, Cats in Paris
“Cats in Paris“, the 120-piece version, by Puzzlapy aka Isabelle Rouillard. The artist is Isy Ochoa. – and browsing her website, I learned that she did a picture book about Rosa Bonheur! I loved this puzzle, and the cuts! Some beautiful color line cutting of the cats, and the little bird, and the Tour Eiffel. […]
Cat Doodle, Anthology Puzzles
Cat Doodle by Anthology Puzzles …
Liberty, Dry Martini by Yulia Drobova
A fun Liberty graphic art puzzle, “Dry Martini“, via Hoefnagel. I thought it might be a little difficult, with large areas of dark color, but the background actually has dark red blobs, on black, so the large swath is broken up quite a bit. I still ended up with a pile of dark colored pieces, […]
