One of my favorite things about doing a gift guide is discovering new companies/products.  And I especially enjoy discovering companies like this one.  Artifact Puzzles creates puzzles based on gorgeous real art (including some fun new pieces), made of beautiful, quality materials, and created right here in the US.

This picture above is just one example of the amazing classic art that’s used in many of Artifact’s puzzles.  There are some fun newer paintings, though, that have a child-like quality about them.  (I don’t mean the art looks like a child did it.  I mean they are bright and fun and would appeal to children.)

The pieces are cut from 1/4″ thick wood.  Yes, wood, not cardboard.  Because of the thickness and absence of the flexibility that cardboard has, it takes assembling a few pieces to get used to these.  Rather than “snapping” them into place, you sort of “drop” them, one onto the other.  They’re quite sturdy, though.  I imagine you could break some of them, if you abused the pieces, but they don’t break with normal handling.  I dropped a bunch of them, from about chest height, and didn’t have any trouble with any of them.

The sizes – and prices – here offer ahugerange, from the tiny 4×6″ $15 puzzles (which can still be fairly challenging, depending on the difficulty of the cut of the pieces), suitable for stocking stuffers, to some truly amazing puzzles with intricate paintings and 500+ pieces, at $120.

To add yet another touch of artistry to these, each puzzle has a selection of “whimsy” pieces.  (At least, this is true of most of them.)  These are pieces that are part of the puzzle but shaped like elements that correspond to the puzzle.  For instance, here is an example of a couple of the whimsy pieces from our Degas Dance Class puzzle shown above:

And here are a couple whimsy pieces from a Monet-based puzzle:

The packaging itself is beautiful, too.  This puzzle came in a lovely sheer organza bag, with a card containing the illustration, the title, etc.  Other, larger puzzles come in wooden boxes or similar packaging.  Regardless, it’s all beautiful and high quality.

The picture from the package was a little small for reference when assembling the puzzle.  Fortunately, this is not mucho f an issue since most of these are famous paintings and illustrations are readily available online or in art books if you need a larger image to look at.

I would definitely recommend Artifact Puzzles most highly.

$15-$120

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Disclosure: I received the Degas Dance Class puzzle pictured above, to facilitate my review.  As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.