Zen Cat Wooden Puzzle
A ginger cat, eyes closed and chin up, on a bank of violet cloud – 250 pieces
Specifications
| Material | Wood |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 28 × 28 cm |
| Thickness | 4 mm |
| Pieces | 250 |
| Recommended age | 14+ |
| Made in | Poland |
Shipping
Every order ships from our fulfilment centre in France – never dropshipping. Orders are dispatched within 24 hours on working days; order before 10:30 and it leaves the same day. You’ll receive your tracking number by email at dispatch.
France: 2–4 working days – free home delivery from €40.
Rest of Europe: 2–10 working days, depending on destination.
Returns
You have 14 days from delivery to change your mind – no reason needed. Write to us first at info@creatifwood.com, then send the product back unused, in its original packaging.
Return shipping is at your charge; we refund the full order amount within 14 days, to your original payment method.
Received a damaged or wrong item? Contact us within 14 days with photos – we’ll make it right.
About this product
A cat with its eyes shut and its chin up
A long-haired ginger cat, head tilted back and eyes closed, sitting on a bank of violet cloud that spills over the bottom of the disc. The pose is the whole design: nothing else in our round range shows an animal with its eyes closed, and it changes what the finished piece does on a wall.
The fur is drawn as long flowing strokes rather than as pattern, cream and white through the chest and throat, deepening to marmalade and amber across the shoulders and ears. Behind, the ground burns from magenta and coral at the sides into deep violet at the top, with small white starbursts scattered through it.
Not the same cat as our other one
Our Gentle Cat is a paisley silhouette: flat ornament, hard-edged motifs, a whole body cut out against nothing. This one is a painted portrait, cropped close, with the animal filling almost the entire disc. There is no background scene to speak of, only colour behind the fur.
The practical difference is where the difficulty sits. On the paisley cat the challenge is telling one small repeated motif from another. Here the fur has no motifs at all, only direction.
What people do with it
Builders find the face immediately and then stall. The closed eyes, the pink nose and the white muzzle come together quickly and cover a tenth of the board; everything after that is fur, and fur pieces cannot be sorted by colour because the same cream-to-amber gradient runs across the whole animal.
What works instead is sorting by the direction of the strokes. Pieces where the strands run vertically belong to the chest, diagonal ones to the shoulder, curled ones to the tail and the cloud. Most people arrive at that sort by accident after failing to sort by colour first.
The cloud is the easy part
The violet cloud along the bottom is the one area with closed shapes and hard outlines, and it also forms the base of the silhouette, so it can be built as a strip and set aside.
Afterwards
The raised chin points the composition upward and out of the frame, so the finished piece reads as looking past you rather than at you. Hung low, at seated eye level, that works. Hung high it points at the ceiling.
The disc is broken along the bottom by the cloud, so the outline is not a clean circle: it stands on a shelf edge better than the fully round designs.
Our craftsmanship
Made by our family, piece by piece
Every creatifwood puzzle starts as a sheet of birch plywood in our family workshop. We laser-cut every piece into its own shape – no two are alike – check each set by hand, and pack it in a gift-ready box. No production lines, no shortcuts – just a small family that loves working with wood, and takes it personally that your puzzle brings people together around the table.
Meet the family behind your puzzleFrequently asked questions
Is a round puzzle easier than an animal-shaped one?
The outer edge is a clean circle – on some designs with a decorative fringe around it, like the Dragon's flames – so unlike our silhouette designs you do have a border to build first. The difficulty moves elsewhere: the artwork is painted rather than patterned, with soft gradients and deep backgrounds instead of flat ornament, so there are fewer hard lines to sort by.
What are the animal-shaped pieces for?
They are called whimsy pieces, a tradition that goes back to Victorian puzzle cutters who added recognisable shapes on a whim while working. Parker Brothers made it a standard in 1908. They do not interlock the way ordinary pieces do, so the pieces around them hold them in place.
Is this harder than a cardboard puzzle of the same size?
Usually yes. The piece shapes are irregular rather than a uniform grid, several pieces are cut as figures, and the painted backgrounds shade gradually rather than breaking into distinct colour blocks.
How long will it take?
Honestly: longer than you expect. The border helps you start, but the painted artwork shades gradually instead of breaking into blocks, and the irregular pieces keep you guessing. We think that is part of the pleasure – it is made to be savoured, not raced.
Can I glue it and hang it on the wall?
Yes. Use a glue made for puzzles rather than a general craft adhesive: it runs into the joints and dries as a thin clear film that protects the face. We stock the Cléo'Puzzle glue-varnish, rated for cardboard, wood and MDF, with a precision nozzle for boards that have no straight edges. Work in thin coats and let each one dry. Gluing is permanent – if you would rather rebuild the puzzle one day, or keep the front matt, dry adhesive film on the back is the alternative. Once sealed, the board can be framed or hung as it is.
Why does it smell of wood when I open the box?
Laser cutting leaves a light trace of scorching on the edges. We clean the pieces before packing, but a faint smell of cut wood in the first days is normal and fades.
Which age is it suitable for?
It is shown on each product page under Specifications. The designs in this range are marked 14+.
What if a piece is missing or broken?
Write to us with a photo and we will send a replacement. Details are on our Missing Pieces page.