Spaghetti Tree Puzzles and Games

Spaghetti Tree Puzzles and Games takes its name from a family story in which the owners' grandfather convinced their mom that spaghetti grows on trees. She believed it, they say, until a middle school home economics class taught her how pasta is made. The siblings who run the Utah puzzle company think their grandfather got the idea from a 1957 BBC April Fools' broadcast that showed an Italian family harvesting spaghetti from trees.

Ty Pilcher is a graphic designer, and his sister Loni is a professional illustrator with 15 years in art licensing. They say they dreamed about a company like this for years, and between them they cover every job a small business has. The art on the boxes is drawn by hand by one of the owners.

The 1,000-piece puzzles are random cut on 2mm grey board and finish at 20 by 27 inches. The most popular design, the company says, is its Arches National Park puzzle built around Delicate Arch, sold under the name Delicate Work of Arch. Another design fits all five of Utah's national parks into one box, along with seagulls and elk.

Mini puzzles of 150 pieces sell for $9. A holiday advent set puts 12 different mini puzzles in separate tubes, one for each of the 12 days. When a box gets dented, the company sells the unopened puzzle at a discount.

The owners say they want puzzles to spend less time cooped up in a closet and more time passed between friends. It is a puzzle company named for a hoax, which suits a product that arrives in a thousand pieces and asks you to trust the picture on the box.