INSIDE THE WORKSHOP
From Beechwood Block to Bedroom Shelf: How a Stellavan & Papa Puzzle Is Made
Before Kirra or Donny ever reach a child's hands, they start as raw sawn beechwood on a workshop bench. Here's what that process actually looks like.
Most toy listings show you the finished product and stop there. We think the more interesting story is what happens before that: the cutting, the shaping, the hours of hand-finishing that turn a stack of timber into a puzzle piece that also stands up as a toy and a keepsake. So we asked our workshop for a look behind the scenes.
Step One: The Raw Cut
FSC-certified European beechwood arrives at the workshop as timber, not toys. It's milled into blanks and stacked by size, ready to be assigned to a design. At this stage there's no colour, no character, no sanding, just the density and grain that make beech the right timber for something a child will handle daily for years.
Step Two: Shaping the Character
Each piece is cut to interlock two ways at once: as a flat puzzle and as a freestanding block. That double function is the hardest part of the process to get right. A curve that looks correct lying flat can throw the whole piece off balance once it's stood upright, so every animal goes through several shaping passes before the outline is approved. You can see it below: Kirra the Koala, still in raw beechwood, next to the same design once it's finished.
Step Three: Fitting and Finishing
Before anything is sanded or oiled, every piece is dry-fitted back into its frame by hand to check the tolerances. Wood moves slightly as it's worked, so this step catches anything that needs a fraction more shaping before it goes on to finishing. It's slower than machine-only production, but it's the reason the pieces still sit flush together after a year of daily play. Natural grain is left to show through wherever the design allows, rather than being sanded flat and painted over, so no two finished pieces are ever quite identical.
Before and After: Kirra the Koala, Start to Finish
This is the same design philosophy carried from bench to shelf. On the left, Kirra still in her raw, unfinished state on the workshop table. On the right, the finished character puzzle once it's been through sanding, colouring, and final assembly.
From raw beechwood outline to a finished, hand-painted character puzzle ready for a shelf or a playroom floor.
100%
Every blank on this bench is cut from FSC-certified beechwood, meaning the timber is traceable back to a responsibly managed forest at every stage, not just labelled that way on the box.
What you end up with isn't just a puzzle. It's a piece that's been shaped, checked, and finished by hand from timber we can trace back to its source: built to be played with, stood up as a block tower, and eventually left out as décor long after the puzzle stage has passed.
Every character in the Stellavan & Papa family goes through this same process, from Kirra the Koala to the newest addition on the bench. Same timber, same hands, same standard.