A spirited journey through the world of collectible artisan puzzles
Pairing craft cocktails with crafty puzzles
Berkeley Lighthouse
“Lighthouses are endlessly suggestive signifiers of both human isolation and our ultimate connectedness to each other” - Virginia Woolf
Cannon Puzzles
“The cannon will not suffer any other sound to be heard for miles and for years around it.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Castle Money Box
Treen Castle is not a castle, it’s a jagged rocky promontory of cliffs that sit on the edge of Cornwall, England in the town of Treen.
Barrel and Ball
Small wooden household and domestic objects were referred to as “treen” in the nineteenth century and earlier, a word derived literally from “of a tree”.
Donay Pear
We’re taking a sabbatical abroad this summer at Boxes and Booze to visit England and shine the spotlight on a very special wood turner named John Berkeley.
Clutch Box
There’s a fantastic origin story behind this award winning puzzle maker (it's appropriate that he has an origin story, given his almost supernatural abilities).
Feed the Monkey
“The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind.” – General Joseph Stilwell
Coffee Cup
“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Sphere Box (Stickman 18)
Last week I reached a milestone on the blog, five years of weekly boxes and booze pairings. It seemed like a good place to pause for a bit, maybe take a break and turn attentions elsewhere. So of course here I am, rolling right along anyway.
Milestone Book (Stickman 25)
To celebrate the occasion I’d like to present a rather auspicious creation from someone whose work I have featured here more than any other, my friend Robert Yarger.
Humpty Egg
Let’s start simply, by mentioning the fact that the talented Dr. Stephen Chin, diabolical dentist by day and wily woodturner by weekend, is rather fond of making puzzle eggs.
Ursa Major
“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
― Philip Pullman
Skunk Attack!
“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” - Henry David Thoreau
Zipp Chack
First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down. – George Burns
Escalating Box
In light of the escalating global pandemic I instead strongly advise everyone to stay home with this apropos puzzle box from the doctor of devious designs, the original Raleigh renegade, Eric Fuller.