Dachshund – Crafthub – 75 pieces

This was the best quality puzzle of the three that I purchased, and I’m glad that it was the last one I did. I think if I’d started with this one the disappointment would have been greater when I started working with the other two.

The pieces were bigger, more the size of your average wooden puzzle and much easier to handle. The fit was still loose, but somehow that seemed more manageable with the larger pieces. There were no pieces still connected together, and the colors on the puzzle matched those on the poster. Finally!

I was hoping for more dog whimsies, but at least there are a couple. They’re all cute and only a few of them seemed like they might experience some breakage if the pieces were mishandled or banged around in the box. (The chubby little unicorn is my favorite.😁🦄)

Finally, the colors on the puzzle match the poster! Bang on! Well done, whoever you are.

I started this puzzle immediately after finishing the heart because it was my intention to glue this as well. But the quality was better, and even with the loose fit I wouldn’t feel bad donating this to a thrift store or senior center; I wouldn’t feel as though I were “inflicting” this puzzle on someone. So this puppy got taken apart and brought home, no gluing necessary.

My refrain remains the same though, don’t spend your money here. If you’re taking a chance that only one out of three puzzles is good quality, you’d be better off with a company that you know has quality wooden puzzles – no betting required.

Don’t gamble with your puzzle budget, it’s a precious resource!

Blooming Heart – Crafthub – 73 pieces

This is the second of the Crafthub puzzles with the less than optimal quality. It was slightly better in that there was just one piece that was still attached to another (rather than the four sets of still attached pieces in The Bee puzzle), and there weren’t any pieces that needed to be bent back into shape. The cut was still extremely loose, and again the colors don’t match the poster – this time was even worse with the colors.

Cute whimsies, and I like the word Love spelled out in the heart. That’s everything nice I have to say about these. The pieces are so small, and some of the shapes they chose to make create such thin connections that I don’t think they will all last several assemblies, things will start breaking off.

The color differences were worse this time; the two large roses are an orange color in the poster and pink in the puzzle itself. The greens are not the same, things don’t match up.

There is no piece count on the box, so I had to count these by hand. Not a big deal if you remember to do it before you start assembling – but I did not. So, I got a pen and started marking them as I counted, those are the little dots you see on each piece. I missed one on the first count, but once it was glued and I was really looking it over I saw my mistake. 73 pieces is correct.

The gluing went really well! I just used Mod Podge and glued it like I would a cardboard puzzle – but very carefully so as not to dislodge any of the pieces. Once the first coat was on the back I was able to be a little more forceful and make sure the glue was really in there between every piece. There were two coats on the back when I took this picture, and I added a coat on the front afterward.

This puzzle was slightly better in quality than the first, but in my opinion the pieces were still too small, and the fit was still too loose. Perhaps their laser is set to a thicker width so that it creates a larger gap between pieces that causes such a loose fit? That’s my guess anyway.

I’ll say it again, please spend your puzzle budget elsewhere. There are several companies that make wooden jigsaw puzzles with excellent quality and relatively reasonable prices you can try. Don’t get your first impression of what a wooden jigsaw puzzle can be from this company – they ain’t even worth their discounted prices.

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.