maker: puzzle companies

Cavallini National Parks posters
Another fun Cavallini vintage themed poster – vintage posters & graphics for national parks.

Vintage Bibliotheque
Trickier than I would have expected, because there were many, many Larousse’s in the picture. Cavallini, 1000, “Vintage Puzzle: “Library””

Eames Design Spectrum
A nice follow-up to the Eames Design Classics puzzle. Again, I enjoyed the varying patterns and colors. The Ravensburger puzzle pieces are regular and non-challenging, so this was a relaxation kind of puzzle. The chair on the inside — pointilist style — was the last section for me.

Valentin Rekunenko “Swordfight”
This one was reasonably challenging — took a bit to get one’s eyes used to the contrasts between the puzzle pieces and the different frames, some parallel and some at angles with each other. The basic puzzle shape was a variation of the standard puzzle piece design, but with little tweaks — rounder and squarer […]

Eames Design Classics
Pretty easy 1000-piece puzzle, with lots of discrete elements, differentiable wood patterns and colors and types of line drawings. Lots of fun, though. Ravensburger 1000 pieces.

Cocktail Time
This puzzle was super-fun — even when one of my cats stood on my precariously balanced puzzle board and knocked it over. The puzzle wasn’t hard — biggish pieces, bright colors & chunks of background, lots of words … but really enjoyable. I enjoy some vintage nostalgia (but note that people of color existed back […]

Terrarium Cat
Cobble Hill 1000-piece, “Terrarium Cat” I wanted to finish the cat first, as is befitting, but sure enough, I ended up doing all the more distinctive pieces first and getting the dark body of the Siamese last …. Cobble Hill notes: Piece Count: 1000 PieceItem Code: 40142Box Size: 8.25″ x 11.25″ x 2.0″Assembled Size: 26.625″ […]

Tartans of Scotland
“Oh, Scottish tartans! That’s great — I can learn famous tartans while I puzzle.” Educational puzzling! In retrospect, I am left with the question — Why did I even want to learn famous tartans? (I mean, I know: An over-abundance of fiction glorifying the Highlands and what-not ….) This 1000-piece Cobble Hill puzzle was truly […]

Peggy Collins “Worship of Trees”
For a 500-piece puzzle (Goodway Puzzles), this was surprisingly difficult — the stained gloss blockings have many similar colors, and all the black outlines combined with similar colors made color-matching challenging! Satisfyingly challenging.

Rex Ray “Mylopronesta”
Rex Ray, “Mylopronesta” – 1000 pieces, Pomegranate Finished March 9, 2023. Gorgeous, and a real pleasure to look at closely while assembling it. Fairly easy, with the distinct colors — similar colors and shapes had to be sorted out, but there were so many unique colors and shape combinations that it wasn’t hard. The chains […]

Tomasz Pietrzyk “Clocks”
Jan. 21, 2023 So pretty! Hard to choose which side to work on because they’re both really lovely to look at. Luckily, you don’t have to — you can work on a chunk, and then flip it if necessary. Ash and I did this one together, in about 90 minutes or less. Not very difficult, […]

Encanto
Ash finished a beautiful (1000-piece) Encanto puzzle, xmas gift from grandparents. Video of the final insertions!

Sandra Boynton Cows
Xmas gift for Ash 2022, for the cow-theme! (There are not as many cow-themed puzzles as one might imagine.) 1000-piece puzzle from Workman Puzzles, Sandra Boynton’s art. Ash did it fairly quickly …

Spongebob 3000
Ash finally finished the 3,000 piece Spongebob puzzle …. and then did it again several times!

Diego Mazzeo “Mechanical Griffin”
Ash and moms did this in Spring/Summer 2022. Really fun, with a fun extra-whimsical whimsy.207-pieces, Artifact Puzzles. Artifact: “This is a cool 207 piece wooden jigsaw puzzle of Argentinian artist Diego Mazzeo’s steampunk digital artwork. Our puzzle pieces are themed to the artwork with steampunk whimsy pieces and an irregular gear-shaped edge (which cuts out […]

Dragon Moon
This description is absolutely correct — the baying-wolf cut pieces are crazy! But it was fun and intricate. Completed some time in late spring, early summer 2022. Artifact 258-piece puzzle: 11″x15″ “This is a 258 wooden jigsaw puzzle of “Dragon Moon” by Methane Studios. The stark beauty of the art is paired with a puzzle […]

Bruce Riley, Stem Cell
Another June 5 puzzle that A and I did together. Artifact Puzzles, “Stem Cell” by Bruce Riley. Pretty image! Artifact description: This is a 191 piece wooden jigsaw puzzle of Bruce Riley’s painting “Stem Cell”. Designed by Tara Flannery, the themed whimsies and miniature hexagonal connectors coupled with psychedelic colors and abstract shapes make for […]

Alfredo Arreguín “Jaguars”
This puzzle was … so hard. As it turns out, it was hard (in part) because it was a diptych — two sides of a puzzle — but they had printed the left side twice. So, one of the tricks of the puzzle is that the right-side puzzle mirrors the left-side puzzle in piece shape. […]

Awa Tsireh “Animal Designs”
Fun, easy, quick to do. Ash and I did it. Awa Tsireh, 1898-1955. His unpublished works should enter the public domain, soon! And here it is at the Smithsonian! “Awa Tsireh, Animal Designs, ca. 1917-1920, watercolor on paper, sheet: 20 x 26 1⁄8 in. (50.9 x 66.2 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Corbin-Henderson Collection, gift of Alice H. Rossin, 1979.144.35″ Artifact Puzzles: 6.75″ x […]