Words cannot express how much fun this was! It’s a difficult puzzle, with wonderfully designed pieces that made for a demanding assembly. It kept me completely focused on how the pieces fit together and completely out of my head – what more could you ask for in these trying times?

At only 138 pieces it took much longer than one would expect, the Artifact Puzzles website says it should take 4.5 hours to complete. It didn’t take me that long, but it’s hard to track how long it actually took. I have to work in fits and starts because I cannot sit for long periods of time; but the time I did spend was wonderful – I relished the challenge and enjoyed the placement of every single piece.

The pieces were incredible, and once you figured out how things fit together it was such a fun assembly! My youngest son, who never wants to help with puzzles, unbelievably spent many minutes searching for the right pieces, helped me find a few, and put some in himself. (A minor miracle!) When you look at them it seems ridiculous that they would all fit together to form a rectangular image, but it does – and spectacularly so.

There were only a few whimsies, all cats. There was one for each corner, and one that seemed to be stretching out and touching the sleeping cat’s ear to wake up or play with him/her. How freakin’ adorable is that?!

Ecru puzzles at Artifact is their more expensive line, characterized by a closer cut (for a better fit and less obvious piece shapes in the finished image) and a matte finish for less glare. I bought this one because as someone greatly affected by my P.A.D.S. symptoms – such a severe case, it’s sad really – I couldn’t keep myself from constantly checking puzzle websites to see if anyone was selling and shipping puzzles. To my great joy this puzzle was one of a few available on the Artifact site, and my joy seemed to blind me to anything other than “Can you please, please, PLEASE send me a puzzle?!?”.

They could. I clicked. They shipped. Puzzle bliss. Happy P.A.D.S. lady. 💃😁💃

I was surprised at how well the pieces fit together, and how beautiful the finished puzzle was. Compare the fit of this image to another Artifact puzzle I assembled and look at the difference in how obvious the piece shapes are…

Cat by Franz Marc – Artifact – 138 pieces

In Dreams by Geoffrey Gersten – Artifact Puzzles – 116 pieces

“Cat” looks more like a picture, or artwork; where “In Dreams” looks like a puzzle. The Ecru line at Artifact is more expensive, but if the finished image is what you’re all about (in addition to the assembly) then the added expensive seems worth it. I love both of these, because in general I love jigsaw puzzles. For me, if it “looks like” a puzzle because you can see the shapes, I’ve still enjoyed the assembly which is always my bottom line. If you go back and look through this blog you will see that with every puzzle that had obvious pieces shapes, I told you that obvious shapes in the finished image did not detract from my enjoyment of the assembly. Puzzles, for me, except for but a small few, are to be assembled and enjoyed and then sent on to others for the same.

I flipped the puzzle over to show you how all these interesting shapes fit together, it’s much more apparent from the back…

I enjoyed this puzzle much more than I expected to, it was so much fun! They have puzzle designers at Artifact who come up with some amazing piece shapes – I don’t think I’m imaginative enough to do that job, but I’m so unbelievably thankful for the people who are. This is definitely a puzzle that I’ll be assembling again, it was FANTASTIC!