It’s that time of year! The time when I start replenishing my puzzle hoard as the weather cools down. We are bona fide puzzle fans and like to keep a wide variety on hand to choose from during the winter months, which is prime puzzling season around here. But we also do puzzles (albeit more sporadically) year-round; there’s something so satisfying about watching a puzzle come together whether you work on it in one go or over the course of days or weeks.
They also make great gifts: we keep unopened puzzles on hand so we’re ready should a need arise. If you’re looking for a little something extra to accompany the gift of a puzzle, consider a puzzle mat. A mat or other large flat surface—my family uses a plain bulletin board—makes it easy to move puzzles-in-progress from a prominent surface like a coffee table to somewhere out of the way. It also helps prevent curious pets from finding a trail of pieces on the floor to steal or chew on. Not that Daisy would ever dream of doing such a thing (ahem) but if she did she would munch them straight off the coffee table, theoretically speaking, of course.
This roundup of puzzles is a great way to treat yourself or someone you love. I hope you enjoy perusing them as much as I did!
All puzzles featured here were chosen because we love them. If you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. More info here.
Holiday puzzles
Galison Michael Storrings Christmas in The City 1000 Piece Puzzle. This Michael Storrings series features Christmas in several different big cities: New York, London, New Orleans, Charleston. I want them all but bought NYC. (We’re about two-thirds of the way done and having fun with it!)
Cobble Hill Hanukkah Cookies 1000 Piece Puzzle. Yum.
Wentworth Christmas Stories 25-1000 Piece Wooden Puzzle. What a jolly bookshelf.
Puzzles of Color Comfort & Joy by Paul Kellam 500 Piece Puzzle. A beautiful, festive family scene.
Liberty Puzzles City Christmas Tree. Gorgeous.
Galison Michael Storrings 12 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar Puzzle. Puzzle advent calendars are a great invention. We’re working this series of 80-piece puzzles right now and really enjoying it!
Bookish puzzles
Ravensburger Dream Library 500 Piece Puzzle. Yes please.
eeBoo Piece and Love Jane Austen’s Book Club 1000 Piece Puzzle. Jane Austen with other notable novelists Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf, Zora Neale Hurston, and George Eliot.
Cavallini Library Books 1000 Piece Puzzle. Cavallini & Co puzzles come in the best packaging.
New York Puzzle Company – New Yorker The Bookstore 1000 Piece Puzzle. There are so many great options but of course I had to go with the one that has a bookstore on the cover.
Wentworth The Word Defiant! Blickling, Norfolk Wooden Puzzle, 250-1000 Piece Wooden Puzzle. WOW. According to the description, Blickling Hall has one of the greatest private libraries in the British and Irish Isles. This scene of cascading books is courtesy of the temporary art installation created by Les Enfants Terribles and designed by Lydia Denno.
Plants, flowers, and the outdoors puzzles
Laurence King Around The World in 50 Plants 1000 Piece Puzzle. I learn so much when I work on a Laurence King puzzle.
Flow All Good Things Are Wild and Free 1,000-Piece Puzzle. This camping scene was inspired by the Henry David Thoreau quote “All good things are wild and free.”
Cobble Hill Butterfly Garden 1000 Piece Puzzle. Butterfly gardens are the best. This is such a happy puzzle.
Ravensburger Tropical Waters 500 Piece Puzzle. Look at those sea turtles!
eeBoo Piece and Love Still Life with Flowers 500 Piece Round Puzzle. Such an elegant bouquet.
Destinations puzzles
EuroGraphics Rocky Mountain National Park 1000 Piece Puzzle. The next best thing to hiking the Rockies. We had a great family trip there in 2022: I think Will might need this for Christmas.
Pomegranate Joan Metcalf: The Cascades 1000 Piece Puzzle. This one made me gasp. I love the colors!
White Mountain Sunset in New Orleans 1000 Piece Puzzle. Now I need a beignet.
Apostrophe Bengal Blue 1000 Piece Puzzle. This looks like a great challenge.
Metropuzzle Seattle 1000 Piece Puzzle. This series offers a great way to re-experience a city you love or want to visit.
Miscellaneous puzzles
Murder Mystery Jigsaw 500 Piece Puzzle. Team member Brigid brought this fun concept to my attention! Solve a murder piece by puzzle piece.
EuroGraphics The Potting Shed 1000 Piece Puzzle. Since I don’t have my own potting shed, this is the next best thing.
Laurence King The World of The Harlem Renaissance 1000 Piece Puzzle. I wish I’d known about this puzzle when MMD Book Club covered the Harlem Renaissance!
White Mountain The 1990s 1000 Piece Puzzle. Talk about nostalgia.
Do you have any recent puzzles you recommend? I’d love to hear about your favorite puzzles in the comments.
P.S. 25 jigsaw puzzles to treat yourself or someone you love, 25 jigsaw puzzles so enticing you might not mind winter weather, 25 delightfully distracting jigsaw puzzles to occupy your mind and boost your mood, plus 20 favorite board games to beat the rainy day (or chilly day) blues.
22 comments
Last winter I enjoyed the “Shakespeare’s Britain” jigsaw puzzle.
That one looks like fun!
Last year we tried Unidragon puzzles and Loved the unique style!
https://unidragon.com/products/enchanting-owl
Liberty Puzzles!!! These wooden puzzles, made in Boulder, CO, are gorgeous, a bit pricey, but the company will replace any lost pieces free of charge.
https://libertypuzzles.com
We are big Liberty fans around here! I especially like how that while Daisy gobbles cardboard, she doesn’t find the wooden pieces tempting.
I like the challenge of doing Puzzletwist where the box picture isn’t quite how the puzzle goes together.
https://www.puzzletwist.com/products/holiday-cookies-from-minnesota?_pos=1&_sid=04ec26b1a&_ss=r
Check out the Rifle Paper Co puzzles.
Those are beautiful and we have some on hand for hostess gifts! They’re ready whenever we need them. 🙂
I’m a quilter, and my very thoughtful DIL gifted me a 500-piece Springbok Crazy Quilts Puzzle a couple yrs ago which I’m just about to finish. Have really enjoyed working on it, do wish I’d had a puzzle mat.
Puzzles with the folk art paintings of Will Moses are my favorites. Beautiful quality, detailed images and looking closely at a real piece of art art my reasons for choosing these 1000 piece challenging puzzles!
I just purchased “Christmas Songbirds” by Ravensburger and a “Plant Shelfie” by Gallison. Gallison has quite a few fun puzzles featuring houseplants.
Santa {me with my husband’s credit card!) got me the Ravensburger Library puzzle this year and my MMD gift exchange partner gave me the Murder Most Puzzling one.
PETER PAUPER PRESS All The Butterflies 500 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle https://a.co/d/emAwY5j
500 Piece Puzzles for Adults – Jigsaw Puzzles 500 Pieces – 500 Piece Puzzle – Park Avenue by Joy Laforme – Hard Jigsaw Puzzles for Adults, Teens and Families https://a.co/d/5BGVkr4
Gorgeous!
Ooooh! I love the Cobble Hill Butterfly garden puzzle! I have this Grand Library puzzle on my wish list:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09P1VJ7R7/?coliid=I3MROOCJ8KIE09&colid=27ZJUQWQI9BUK&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1
Happy Puzzling!
Hi!
My Sister-in-law, avid reader, has a puzzle company with beautifully cut wooden puzzles with “whimsies” or whimsical shapes cut into the puzzle. They are fun treasures.
Here are some of the book themed puzzles:
https://www.artifactpuzzles.com/blogs/main/puzzles-for-book-lovers
Hope you enjoy!
Thanks for the great content.
We just completed “Mayhem in the Library” and “Day at the Festival” puzzles from Big Potato Games. They are super fun to build but are comprised of riddles for book titles and band names, so you have the extra entertainment of solving the clues. The video game one is next for us but my kids might be better at solving that one! 😉
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09S6VM2G2/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B09S6VM2G2&ref_=sxts_sparkle_sbv&qid=1702614476&pd_rd_w=KJ7nu&content-id=amzn1.sym.4870a952-0dfa-4beb-9d2a-7a52537f019d%3Aamzn1.sym.4870a952-0dfa-4beb-9d2a-7a52537f019d&pf_rd_p=4870a952-0dfa-4beb-9d2a-7a52537f019d&pf_rd_r=9SZ2H311NR0AMR6WMPKV&pd_rd_wg=8k2kS&pd_rd_r=5d66eb03-7f62-45b0-b18f-0d8d0ef981bf&pd_rd_plhdr=t&th=1&psc=1
We have loved magic puzzles from The Magic Puzzle Company. The illustrations are great, the puzzles are “dust-free”, and the puzzle tells a story with a surprise ending! So much fun! https://magicpuzzlecompany.com/
The Magic Puzzle Company puzzles are my favorites. So much so that I pretty much only do them at this point – they’re 1000 pieces but really detailed and easy to put together.
Just finished a beautiful Galison puzzle “Winter Lights”, foil puzzle. The foil lights sparkle and create a beautiful holiday scene.