Butterflies in the Sweet Peas | Galison Puzzle Review

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I am such a sucker for puzzles with florals on them. Stick a flower on a puzzle, and I’m 70% more likely to look at it.* So, it’s no surprise that I was absolutely enthralled with Butterflies in the Sweet Peas from the moment I saw it. This puzzle is by Galison, featuring artwork by Troy Litten. If you follow my YouTube channel, you’ll know that I’ve done two other Galison/Litten collaboration puzzles: Bees in the Poppies and Vintage Train Tickets. Both were fun to put together and solidified my adoration for Troy Litten’s work. Litten kindly gifted me this puzzle upon its release a couple of weeks ago.

*Ok, this is a purely made-up statistic, but you get what I’m saying.

Troy has worked with Galison for a while and has created 16 puzzles in collaboration with them. Butterflies in the Sweet Peas is his most recent puzzle, featuring a variety of beautiful butterflies among a gorgeous array of sweet peas. Sweet peas are one of my favorite flowers, so I was thrilled that this design features 37 varieties! One of the things I love most about this puzzle is the lovely shades of color the flowers provide. Soft whites and creams, delicate blues, periwinkle to deep purple, soft pink to classic red—it’s a beautiful combination that made the puzzling experience even better.

The puzzle comes packaged in a sturdy box and sealed in a non-reusable plastic bag. The box design is gorgeous, with a full image of the puzzle on the front and the back. The back also includes a nice description of the history of sweet peas and a quick artist bio about Troy. My favorite part is the list of the different species of sweet peas, along with numbered labels on the image to help you identify which flower is which species. The sides of the box are beautifully designed with a multi-color title and small images of the puzzle. The color pairings on the packaging are really well done, and the design matches the packaging for his previous puzzle, Bees in the Poppies, so they look lovely together on my shelf.

This puzzle clocks in at 27 x 20″ and is made from a 90% recycled paper. Packaging contains 70% recycled paper and is made responsibly from FSC-certified material. It is printed with nontoxic inks. The pieces are a nice size, not too big and not too small.

When it comes to affordable puzzle brands, Galison is one of my favorites. I feel like the company does an excellent job selecting beautifully designed puzzles that are fun to put together. If you’re buying a standard puzzle from their line, you’ll likely find the pieces on the thin size (not overly thin though) and a paper backing. I’ve found the pieces generally easy to pick up, and my favorite part is that the fit is typically quite decent. You can move around small sections with no issue, as long as it’s not too many pieces in the section. Once the section gets a certain size, it’s usually best to split it into smaller parts to move. If I could suggest one update to Galison, it would be to offer a more varied puzzle cut. As it stands, the main puzzle cut is a ribbon cut with two shapes, both of which have two inner prongs and two outer prongs. This means fewer visual identifiers for piece placement.

This puzzle is certainly on the spicier side and isn’t one I’d recommend to someone just starting with puzzles. While it is more challenging, it is absolutely doable, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants their puzzling experience to last a little while or who enjoy a puzzle that challenges them a little.

I think it was a good indicator of how far I’ve come as a puzzler, even just over the past few months. When I worked on Bees in the Poppies earlier in the year, it took me four long days to complete. In contrast, Butterflies in the Sweet Peas took me only about two afternoons. Having worked on so many puzzles for my channel, I’ve been working to improve my efficiency, and I was able to utilize some of my newfound skills with this puzzle, namely shape sorting, color sorting, and a more detailed sort from the beginning. Even though this puzzle only had two shapes (a longer horizontal piece shape and a taller vertical piece shape), sorting between the two shapes was immensely helpful. At times, I utilized a sub-sort by sorting not only by shape but also by color. This is a trick I tried when working on the Underwater Library puzzle I finished last week, and it was so successful that I tried it again.

What I think worked best with this puzzle was starting with the butterflies. There are so many different butterfly species, and they all had varying colors and patterns, making them very satisfying to build. Once all the butterfly sections were mostly complete, it was just a matter of filling in the different sweet pea sections. Thankfully, though there are repeating colors among the flowers, the vast majority were different enough to effectively sort each color into groups. I simply chose a specific color to work on, sorted all those pieces out, and methodically worked until that color was complete. Over time, the puzzle slowly came together in a most satisfying way.

This puzzle may not be for everyone, but I do think even the average puzzler could complete it and would enjoy themselves while doing so. My biggest tip would be to start with the butterflies and then sort, sort, and sort again. This is a stunning puzzle to add to my shelves, and I’m very grateful to Troy for gifting it to me. If you have some time, I’d recommend giving him a follow on Instagram, checking out the other puzzles he’s done or watching my other videos of his puzzles.