Mondrian, Composition with Grid 2 (1915), Artifact

This 153 piece Artifact puzzle is, unsurprisingly, a lot harder than the number of pieces would suggest. Mondrian‘s “Composition with Grid 2” is basically about 80 rectangles in various shades of blue-grey and brown-grey, over the eponymous blue grid … I really liked it. … The Artifact description calls this “calming blue”. If you look […]
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Birches in Bits, Leanne Poellinger

“Birches in Bits” by Leanne Poellinger, from Anthology Puzzles – 83 pieces, 4.5 x 5.7″.
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Mayan Calendar

Mayan Calendar from Adawoo Puzzle, via Etsy. I paid too much for this … it is the quite thin, direct-printed, shaped, laser-cut style that we see so much of for as low as $5 … That said, it was a fun challenge, solved mostly by shape but sometimes with color / pattern as a guide. […]
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Black-Eyed Susan

Wow, really large pieces! I was not expecting that. Kevin Quillen photograph, and Kevin Quillen cut, under name KitchenWood – at etsy at https://www.etsy.com/shop/KitchenWoodsLLC
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BCB, The Partnership by David Galchutt

The Partnership by David Galchutt, cut by BCB, via Hoefnagel …
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Moonlight Falcon by Oxana Zaika

Nautilus discontinued this puzzle, “Moonlight Falcon” by Oxana Zaika, and I was wondering why, because it’s such a fabulous image — licensing for the image? or, perhaps the figural of the horseback guy with the scimitar a little too orientalist and problematic? Regardless, the image is fabulous, and I was excited by all the fun […]
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Carnival in Venice, Dreamton

I got “Carnival in Venice” from Dreamton (available via etsy at https://www.etsy.com/shop/DREAMTON) and was excited to put it together. Very pretty cutting design, with lots of fleur-de-lis and similar sorts of formal, fluid symbols. An interesting trident interlock. And a really fun border. The pieces are a thin composite wood; I got the 200-piece (12″x8″) […]
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Fun at the Fair, Anthology Puzzles

Leap Day Puzzle: A ticket-shaped puzzle, with clever incisions for perforation. Anthology Puzzles: 160 pieces, 11×4.5″. “This design was created by the Anthology Puzzles team using vector artwork from YummyBuum and was our Shaped Subscription puzzle for March 2022. It features a range of fairground-themed pieces and is shaped like a ticket!” Thanks, Hoefnagel!
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Voyage Round the World, A. Schindeler

Liberty Puzzles, “Voyage Round the World“, graphic by A. Schindeler, poster for the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, c. 1896. 502 pieces, 12.75×17.75”, released April 2012.
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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, […]
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Madmar “The Cathedral”

An old puzzle, “Madmar Picture Puzzle Blue Ribbon Series”, 118 pieces, marked with 1.75 — presumably the price? Madmar Quality Co., Utica New York. I got it from ebay, which is new for me. (More about Madmar at Bob’s Old Puzzles.) Beautifully papered on the back — I was really charmed by this. Sort of […]
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Sarah Gentry, Mel’s Belles, Liberty

I really enjoyed “Mel’s Belles” (who’s Mel, I wonder?) by Sarah Gentry, a Liberty puzzle of a bouquet of flowers, which came in a Hoefnagel pack along with the Rex Ray “Alistair” puzzle. I requested the pack because of Rex Ray, but ended up enoying the Sarah Gentry puzzle even more! Maybe I was just […]
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Fry Family Shop 5×5

This puzzle is called “wooden fractal puzzle“, but I’m not sure why it’s fractal …? This was the 5×5, easy version … when I took it out, Ash thought it looked hard — I thought it was going to be easier than “Wriggle” and it was. Look for the odd piece corners that can only […]
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Butterfly on Sunflower (TurtleTeasers)

A very small and adorable coaster-sized (4″ diameter) puzzle, with 55 small pieces, beautifully cut by Ron Moore (TurtleTeasers). The image is “Butterfly on Sunflower” by Doris Payne. The radial cut was really lovely. The border was made trickier by the numerous pieces that had only a tiny (quarter of a centimeter tiny) bit of […]
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Abstract Fish by Artistry

I don’t think the fish is really abstract? More like a painted mosaic than abstract. The laser cut puzzler is “Artistry Puzzles” from Colorado, and the puzzle is called “Abstract Fish“. The description on the website says, “Santorini is a 487 piece wooden puzzle with unique puzzle pieces that relate to the image. Do not […]
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Big Ben by Eduardo Calzado, BCB

11.5″ x 14.5″, 400 pieces, handcut by Brookie Biglands (BCB Puzzles), via Hoefnagel. Yes, the swirly sky took a long time. Lovely feel to this puzzle.
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Fall Bloom by Chris Huang, Liberty

Fall Bloom by Chris Huang, from Liberty Puzzles. A relatively quick and easy solve. I liked the variety of patterns in the art, and the Liberty-style whimsies, both single-piece and multi-piece. I really liked how all the arachnid whimsies were in the soil …. On the art … are all these trees with their roots […]
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Smart Fox

A teaser-style puzzle, with a fitted jigsaw frame of a sleeping fox curled on a meadow (with a blue and red striped … muffler? I don’t get it) and 25 small fox figurals fitted into the fox’s curled body. I’m going to call this kind of piecing, “snuggle pieces”. “Smart Fox” by FoxSmartBox.
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Palmaris Enchanted Forest

Very pretty forest photography, with a large whole-puzzle piece-figure of a tree, and incredibly detailed etchings with yet more tree themes. Quite doable, with only 222 pieces, but required some attention and both shape- and color-matching were helpful. Palmaris description: Story Excerpt: It’s been said that trees can talk to each other. They can send […]
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Oh, My Love (A to G Music)

Hand-cutter from Etsy, AtoGMusic. It seems like they are mostly selling vintage sheet music, but they do some hand-cutting of wooden puzzles, too! They describe that these are actual sheet music covers, so first sale doctrine! It’s a thin plywood, and there was some sawdust from the cut. The cut felt very similar to a […]
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