Tea Time Terrors by Steve Crisp – Hua Cao Shu Mu – 300 pieces

This is a very cute image (especially if you’re a cat person), but unfortunately it was attached to a puzzle of pretty poor quality. This is another of my thrift store purchases, and I was excited to try a new brand – I’m sorry to say it wasn’t good at all.

Hua Cao Shu Mu is a new company to me, and I don’t know how long they’ve been in business. Perhaps they’re a company that popped up during the pandemic to take advantage of the run on jigsaw puzzles. The puzzles are made in China, and unfortunately the quality left a lot to be desired in my opinion. All the pieces were almost exactly the same shape and there were false fits everywhere – one of my pet peeves. The image reproduction was quite fuzzy in some places and the finish was extremely shiny. It comes with a poster that was exactly as big as the assembled puzzle – perhaps that would be good for older puzzlers with eyesight issues. The chipboard was thin, but sturdy, and had the “sharp” white backing that I am not fond of. In addition, the back was lettered from A to F, to assist in sorting and/or assembling the image.

I’ve done a puzzle before that had printing on the back to help with assembly – an image of Noah’s Ark by Eric Dowdle that was a “Jigsaw Puzzle for Dummies”. That one was more designed to help you put it together piece by piece, this puzzle seems to have the letters to assist in sorting more than actual assembly.

Wanting to get a sense of it I did sort out all the “A” pieces and then put them together. It’s fine if it helps you enjoy your puzzles, but it really isn’t for me. I put together the rest of the puzzle as I normally do without regard to the letters on the back. (It could be helpful though, especially with this brand and all the false fits that this puzzle has to offer.)

This came in a box with three separate cat/window puzzles, I think they may all be by Steve Crisp but haven’t done too much googling to be certain. There is no mention of the artist anywhere in or on the box or poster, I had to look it up myself – which makes me question whether or not this image was actually licensed to this company.

There’s been quite a bit of theft from artists in the past few years, and with the run on puzzles during the pandemic and new companies jumping into the market…well, you know what I’m saying. I have no proof that’s what went on here, but I’m skeptical about whether or not these images were actually sold to this company.

As usual when working with a new brand I was hoping for a great quality puzzle, but was quite disappointed in this one; it was nowhere near as good as I’d hoped for. At some point I’ll get to the other two puzzles in this box, but at the moment I’m just not feelin’ it. 😢