feature: etchings and etched pieces
Lovely Cat Ravensburger wooden
Ash and I knocked off another small Ravensburger wooden (laser-cut) puzzle, cat themed! The whimsies are actually quite nice.
Eyes Full of Stars by Marie-Claude Fournier, cut design by Mark Cappitella
578 pieces, 440x352x7mm (17.5″ x 14″). Canadian artist Marie-Claude Fournier. Victory puzzles, in their “Artisan series”. Puzzle cut design by Mark Cappitella. Loving everything about this — the art, which is gorgeous; the puzzle cut, which is tricky and delightful; the feel of the pieces — thick, solid, curvy. They have the sharpness of laser-cut […]
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 […]
Hotel Melrose Lobby by Perkins Harnly
I really enjoyed this 250-piece puzzle from Puzzly (via Hoefnagel). It was a fast solve, with a mix of traditional puzzle pieces and whimsies, like the two Wentworth puzzles I just did — but I enjoyed the puzzling experience more. I think the wood was a bit thicker than in those two Wentworths (they have […]
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.
Owlets in the Moonlight, Rosalind Solomon
A Wentworth 250-piece puzzle by Rosalind Solomon, by way of Hoefnagel. Although it was owl-themed, I wasn’t in love with the art — I’m not a fan of works where a large picture has the center hollowed out to have a different scene, or a collage. I did enjoy the multitudinous owl whimsies, though. … […]
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 […]
Sunrise in a Winter Forest, Zen Puzzles
“Sunrise in a Winter Forest” is one of several Zen Puzzles that Ash and I are working our way through. This is a peaceful winter scene, but I do wonder at some of the shadows — why such large blobs that are not apparent on the trees themselves? Are these shadows like the shadows in […]
Street Art, Zen Puzzles
Ash and I really enjoyed this small-ish puzzle from Zen Puzzles, “Street Art“, in the 125-piece size. I’m actually not sure what animal it is — a dog? with the tongue — a lion? — but it’s so colorful and cool that it was a pleasure to look at it. Two of the whimsies seem […]
English Balloon by Ryan Snarr (Boardwalk)
Hoefnagel sent me a pack including an 83-piece puzzle by Boardwalk Puzzles, “English Balloon” by Ryan Snarr, which I knocked off in short order. The puzzle description: ENGLISH VINTAGE BALLOON Join an air-born treasure hunt across the English countryside in search of Staffordshire gold. Mr. Green, Jane Air, Coxwell the bird, and Henry the dog navigate […]
Butlin’s Clacton-on-Sea, Victory
A 250-piece puzzle from Victory in England, a vintage puzzle of swimmers / divers from a train company’s travel poster, “Butlin’s Clacton-on-Sea“. (Which, according to Wikipedia, was a holiday camp operating from 1938-1983.) This is probably a public domain image; it is available here and listed as from 1938 — the Clacton-on-Sea resort’s opening year. […]
Octo-Love, Are You Game?
I enjoyed this 331-piece (15″ x 11.25″ landscape rectangular) laser-cut wooden puzzle, from AreYouGame — “Octo-Love”, art by Karrie Evenson. (Apropos of nothing, Evenson’s photo in the “about the artist” insert reminds me of Ann Miller in “Kiss Me, Kate”.) The cut was quite tentacular.
Frosted Fir Tree, Wentworth
I got a few new puzzles from Wentworth, and in need of a relatively short solve, I pulled out the 240-piece “Frosted Fir Tree”, with artwork credited to “Alexandru Davidenco”. When I went to see more about this artist, I figured out this is actually AI-generated art. See the licensing shop, where this user has […]
Vibrant Village, CraftHub
I ordered a bunch of puzzles from “PuzzlesUp”, which was closing, and it turned out they were all labeled “CraftHub”. Hmm. Anyway, I liked the image. The pieces were pretty interlocking. This puzzle is called “Vibrant Village”.
Ravensburger wooden, “Mysterious Owl” wooden owl
Ash and I did a little wooden puzzle from Ravensburger — “Mysterious Owl” — 150 pieces, “Have a hoot of a good time piecing together our 150-piece “Owl” Shaped Wooden puzzle and watch the hours fly by!” – 6.3″ x 8.7″ x 1.8″ I loved that it came in a paper bag. The whimsies were […]
Sprung by Coral Bourgeois, from AreYouGame
“Sprung” was one of two puzzles in a pack from AreYouGame — both by Coral Bourgeois. I really liked this image!