Flower Bee – Crafthub – 146 pieces

If you’re a long-time reader you would probably think that this image is absolutely my pile of pieces – and it is. The problem here lies in the puzzle that it was attached to – the worst quality wooden puzzle I have ever come across.

There was/is a “going out of business sale” on Crafthub’s website, and I wanted to try them out so I bought 3 small puzzles (to make shipping worthwhile). Suffice it to say I was not looking forward to the other two after completing this one.

So let me tell you about the quality of this puzzle…

• The pieces are way too small – they are hard to pick up, hold, and fit into the puzzle. With a detailed image like this one the small pieces make it extremely difficult to see if the patterns or colors match properly when trying to find the right piece.
• The fit is too loose, and some pieces don’t even attach at all. Most wooden puzzles have a loose fit, but this was unbelievably, over the top loose; the slightest touch would move every piece already “attached”.
• The wood has no heft to it, the pieces are light as a feather; when I was blowing on the sheet of paper on my tray to get rid of some dust all the pieces went flying because they were so light. I’ve never worked with a wooden puzzle that was so “delicate”.
• Because the pieces are so small, the whimsy pieces are as well, and there are several shapes with the thinnest cuts I’ve ever seen. Some of those pieces had to be bent back into shape to fit into the puzzle correctly, and if it were assembled more than once they will most likely break off.
• There were several pieces that weren’t cut all the way through, to separate them would have meant damaging them. If there was adequate quality control this should have been caught.
• There was no name on the plastic box it came in and no piece count either, I had to count all the pieces myself to give you an accurate number. In addition, the size I chose said that there would be 70-80 pieces in the puzzle – there were 146 – either I got the wrong size or the website was just wrong.

The whimsies and the pieces that fit around them; uh…not great. Just because you can cut interesting shapes with a laser it doesn’t mean you should, especially when the pieces are so small. Several of the pieces that fit around these whimsies (mostly the ones that go underneath the animals) were bent almost to the point of breaking because they are so thin. These aren’t all the whimsy pieces, but once the puzzle was assembled I was so over working with it that I didn’t bother to find the others and take better pictures.

On the right is a piece from one of my MicroPuzzles and on the left is a piece of this puzzle; as you can see the pieces of this puzzle are smaller – too small for a wooden puzzle if you ask me. They’re hard to pick up, hard to place correctly, and in general just annoying to work with.

It also came with a poster bigger than the actual puzzle, and with colors much brighter than the puzzle itself. Because the colors were so different I found it easier to put the poster away and just work with the puzzle; when I was using the poster I ended up looking for brighter colors that weren’t anywhere on the puzzle I had. Frustrating and annoying.

I’ve done wooden puzzles whose pieces didn’t excite my imagination, puzzles that have had a bit of image break off at the edges, and puzzles with image alignment problems. I’ve worked with many brands from Artifact to Zen; but until now I’ve NEVER come across a wooden puzzle of poor all around quality – this was my first. I honestly have nothing good to say about this brand, this puzzle; and if you know me or have been a long-time reader you know that is something I rarely say. Even when there are problems with quality I normally find something positive; but that is not going to happen here. Crafthub has great images to choose from, but if they are attached to puzzles of such poor quality it is most definitely not worth the low, low prices on their website.

Please spend your puzzle budget elsewhere, Crafthub puzzles aren’t worth it – and we all deserve so much better.