In mid-2013, I was given an opportunity by Artifact Puzzles to receive a free puzzle in exchange for reviewing it and saying something about my experience on the blog.  I was very skeptical at first having never experienced a company who wanted to send me something for free and not have some sort of ulterior motive for getting me to purchase the puzzle later.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that this is becoming a more and more popular marketing trend with the rapid growth of social media.  This new strategy benefits both the manufacturer of the product and the blogger who gets free samples of items they would be likely to purchase on their own anyway.  So, once I learned that this was not some sort of a scam, I was elated to try my first “product review” and my first wooden puzzle.  You can click here to read about my review of The Messenger.

It was such a fun experience, and I loved the puzzle they sent.  Superb quality, and so much fun. Their customer service was excellent as well when I thought I had a missing piece after finishing the puzzle.  They immediately replaced the single piece at no cost, even after having sent me the initial puzzle for free too, and they were very nice about it.  Check out where the “missing” piece was finally found here!  🙂

I didn’t really give another thought to doing more of these types of reviews just figuring that it was a “right place at the right time” type of thing until about a week ago.  It was then that I was contacted by two more puzzling companies offering to send me one of their puzzles in exchange for a review on my blog.  I am shocked and honored to be popular enough in Google searches to be found and approached to do these reviews.  Stay tuned for more information on both of these puzzle reviews coming soon.

Wow!  Who knew being a puzzle momma could be so beneficial!  🙂