About my ratings

Perhaps because of my day job, I'm a tough rater. Everything 3/5 and above I consider worth the time and money. If I purchase on Etsy or a similar platform and the puzzle is as expected, I will give a top rating on the platform because of how seller ratings work, but here "as expected" is probably a 3/5 in most cases.

Friday, January 29, 2021

Happy Christmas Day

 Hartmaze, 172 pieces. Standard Hartmaze random shapes and square puzzle--a perfectly fine entry into the Hartmaze line. 3/5




Bad Boy of the Forest

Images of Nature, 350 pieces. Tiger! Limited color range is the source of the modest difficulty. 3/5







Summer Scene

 Stave, 420 pieces. Nice Stave with picture-in-picture, Winnie the Pooh themed whimsies, and a rebus I actually figured out! 7/10





luncheon

picture in picture, Sunday on La Grande Jatte-ish

horse and rider

Pooh climbing tree

horse and rider?

some sort of cart

tiny vase and flower

horse and saddle

internal corners


Pooh, Tigger, Owl, Kanga, etc.


R+hen+W+oar = Renoir


Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Rogue Rhino

 Jigsawow, 210 pieces. This brand has been pretty consistent so far: small pieces, themed whimsies, irregular edges with some color contrast. 3/5



multi piece rhino



Life's a Bear

 Thomas D. Mangelson's Images of Nature, 350 pieces. Naive hand-cut puzzle with whimsies and relatively thin wood; fine. 3/5





The Pelican King and the Prince

 Stave, 255 pieces. The best thing about this RAR rental is that there's a piece cut so that it looks like an ice cream sundae, even though in the original picture that's not what it shows. 6/10






sun and moon

cherry on top

some pelicans


Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Paula Jewell, Look Beyond

 House of Jewell, 503 pieces. This Etsy seller features original art, including on puzzles. As it turns out, I recognized the cut: the puzzles are produced by createjigsawpuzzles.com using the Victorian cut. The result is large! The quality is fine but the cut repeats a bit so that certain pieces are almost indistinguishable in shape; here the image was generally enough to make them distinct. 3/5




Animal Castle

 Stave, 230 pieces. A nice Stave with cute animal details, if that's your kind of thing. RAR rental. 6/10




interacting stars

cat and telescope

multi piece elephant (on its side)

two shooting stars interact and so do two trees


Blue Painting, Wassily Kandinsky

 BCB Puzzles, 400 pieces. Another lovely BCB hand-cut puzzle; find them on Etsy! 4/5




Monday, January 25, 2021

How to Escape

 Side Piece, 425-ish pieces. Some clever cutting in this Etsy/own site seller's work, though I found the image a bit dark for my tastes. 3/5



multi-piece octopus



Chasing Butterflies 66 Mya, Lynon Aksavit

Liberty, 657 pieces. Truly wonderful puzzle with lots of difficulty and some 3-D dinosaurs hidden inside for assembly. 5/5 candidate for my favorite Liberty

now that's just rude for a dinosaur puzzle



dino skeleton in main dino

butterfly closeup

dino skeleton closeup

3D dino

another

non 3D but made of pieces that aren't connected in the puzzle itself