Washington

Approximately 200 pieces, 1 missing, unknown cutter. A nicely done vintage puzzle that maintained enough color to be workable. 

Awakening

DaVici, 450 pieces.  Nice colors that made for steady assembly. I liked the themed connectors on this one even better than the others!  Also some very nice multipiece bear whimsies, and a series of bears running along the bottom.  4/5

Two kinds of bears, two kinds of birds, squirrel, bunny

a palace

bears along the bottom

Tales of Pushkin

DaVici, 300 pieces.  Some of my favorite Artifacts are the ones with themed connectors, and this DaVici puzzle has some great themed, repeating connectors.  A colorful picture and some cat whimsies round it out for a very nice experience.  3/5

Visible: cat head connector, fish tail, turtle, goldfish

This is Life, Radi Nedelchev

Liberty, 487 pieces. Some nice multipiece whimsies here, including what I think might be a snowmobiler having a beer and an elaborate sleigh pulled by a multipiece horse. 3/5

looks like a beer drinker to me

horse and sleigh

Dmitry Alekseev, I Once Had a Dream

DaVici, 350 pieces.  Another nicely done, Artifact-like puzzle. Many of the whimsies echo images taken from the puzzle in cute ways--some closeups at the bottom of the post.  3/5

clothes on a clothesline

hanging bottles and hugging figures

cat friends

Earth, Sea and Sky (escher)

Puzzlemonk, 289 pieces.  Wonderful puzzle--I love the combination of the repeating image and the elaborate piece shapes.  8/10 Stave scale.

My child

300 pieces, DaVici. Double-sided puzzle with very bright colors, just enough different to allow assembly.  Weird thing: the printing seemed to be off on one side--you can see there's a section of the blue flowers that doesn't seem quite right. But on the other side, almost all of those pieces look like they're perfectly in place.  It's as if a section was messed up and was recut, but not quite aligned with the rest of the picture--something that laser cutting makes possible.  Still, a bunch of fun to do, with lots of mother and child whimsies.  3/5

mother cradling infant

mother and child in heart

mother and child holding hands

closeup on weird printed area

Tiger

Puzzlemonk, 245 pieces. The splattery style of the underlying image created some difficult areas! Another great, larger Puzzlemonk--tiger/cat whimsies are always welcome, but the real strength is the fantastic regular pieces with their curves and arrows that make unexpected connections.  7/10 Stave scale.

Lisa Graa Jensen, Jenny's Garden

Liberty, 468 pieces.  Nice color mix made for a good challenge. The whimsy couple sharing a table seemed more garden-themed than city-themed, this time, as if reading a newspaper and enjoying the weather.  Unfortunately, and unusually for a Liberty, this had three broken pieces straight from Liberty!  The good news is that the Liberty pieces are thick enough that wood glue usually does the trick, and I think it ended up looking fine. 3/5

Mystery Puzzle #5

Artifact (Ecru), 138 pieces.  Small piece count, large pieces with branching repeated shapes, pleasant to do--I like a good cat theme. The cat whimsies integrated into the edges were a particularly nice touch. One bit of sadness: the Ecru box is terribly constructed/glued; unlike other Artifact boxes, it fell apart at two separate seams, basically as soon as I touched it.  3/5

cat in corner

Another cat in corner

Another cat in corner