I’m finally getting around to briefly covering the puzzles I finished last year. My 2025 puzzle review will be rather quick. As you’ll see, I only finished 4 puzzles! It was a busy year travel-wise and work-wise, too.
Still, since I only turn to puzzles in my free time, it’s totally okay with me. I hope it’s okay with you as well. 🙂
I’ve decided to start counting how many puzzle pieces I complete in a year.
So…
In 2025, I did 6,000 pieces!
Not bad at all in my world. But it’s still the fewest puzzles I’ve completed in a year. I think the first puzzle is partly to blame, too. 😅 You’ll see.
By the way, I usually like to provide Amazon links for puzzles that are still available for purchase. But in this case, I couldn’t find any of them on Amazon.
Here are my puzzle reviews for 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020, when I got back into puzzling and started this humble little blog.
Okay, let’s take a closer look at last year’s puzzle projects:
January: Oceanic Wonders by Ravensburger
3,000 pieces
Okay, this beast of a puzzle may have hampered my motivation for puzzles for some time after…
I must say, higher piece counts are not for me. I don’t have space at home so I have to improvise and there’s then just too many boxes of pieces all over the place for way too long of a time.
This puzzle took me two months to finish! Again, I only puzzle if I have some free time, so there’s not much time for it at all.
With that said, this puzzle was beautiful and I felt like a diver exploring the deep underwater world.
The artist behind it, David Penfound, did a great job.
Made by Ravensburger, the pieces are beautifully sturdy and snap together nicely. The puzzle is free from glare and I enjoyed working on it during many winter evenings.
If you don’t mind a challenge and enjoy a nice underwater motif, look for this one in the stores!
May: New York Skyline by Clementoni
1,000 pieces
I had to get back to my favorite piece count – 1,000 pieces. And what a joy it was!
I was slightly afraid of this skyline image, as it’s not very colorful. It’s a puzzle I wouldn’t have picked out for myself, but I got it as a gift.
Surprisingly, there was enough detail in the image to make the puzzling feel enjoyable. I had so much fun with it.
I often compare Clementoni to Ravensburger, as I think the quality is on par. Again, perfectly cut pieces, each piece fits in only one place, and the glare is minimal.
I finished this puzzle surprisingly fast. And if I hadn’t gone on yet another trip, I would have started the next one right away!
July: Panoramic “No name” by Dino Toys
1,000 pieces
A friend of mine found this puzzle in her cellar, so it’s rather old.
This Czech brand produces good-quality puzzles at a great price point.
I really enjoyed the nice reddish savanna and all the giraffes!
There was a lot of red in many different shades, so it wasn’t exactly a ‘quickie’, but it was still enjoyable.
The pieces were cut well and, even though it was an older edition, the whole puzzling process was smooth. There was a slight glare but nothing too bad.
September: Monolith, Elbe Sandstone Mountains by Ravensburger
1,000 pieces
I swapped this puzzle with someone because I loved that it features one of the beautiful areas along the border between the Czech Republic and Germany. It’s actually on the German side, in Saxon Switzerland.
It features an interestingly shaped monolith. The natural landscape is beyond beautiful but a little tough to puzzle. With this one, I actually started with the sky, and then it took me a while to get through the other parts. The dark rocks especially tested my patience!
Still, the whole experience was lovely, as the pieces were nice and sturdy and snapped together perfectly. Again, no glare whatsoever. Ravensburger puzzles really deliver!
Well, that was it. I went on more trips and had some family things going on over Christmas, so my next puzzle wasn’t until February. More about that next time!
Happy puzzling!
Veronika