My Puzzle Blog July 2009
My Puzzle BlogWelcome to my puzzle blog. Hear you can read about the latest puzzles I have made, new promotions, and more. I would love to hear what you think so please feel free to leave comments in the form field at the bottom of the page.
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July 7, 2009 My Mom is going to a friends retirement party and she asked me to make two custom puzzles for her. One is a photo puzzle with her co-workers as the picture. But the switch is the puzzle will be in a tray frame. I think it will turn out very nice. The other puzzle is really neat. It is a custom wooden boxed puzzle. It's shaped like a wavy rectangle. On the lid the words "What is Retirement?" is wood burned with a cute little border around the edges. When you open the lid there is the puzzle nestled in a 1" deep tray. The puzzle has words that are related to retirement scattered across the puzzle and then surrounded by really unique puzzle pieces that swirl and zigzag and other great shapes. I think its going to turn out great! I'll post pictures when I'm done. So keep an eye out for them.On another note I have finished my display shelves for when I go to shows. Last night I finished all of the puzzle stands as well. Now all I have left to do is finish up are the new signs for my booth and I'll be ready to do a show the following week. I figure the farmers market by my local mall will be the perfect testing grounds for my new set up. I'll take pictures at the show so that you can see my new digs. Well that's all that's new with me. Catch ya next time! July 9,2009 This has been a busy week for me. I finished my new custom wooden puzzles. The first one is titled " What is Retirement" it is a one of a kind design and features cut out word puzzle pieces related to retirement surrounded by unique design puzzle pieces. The puzzle is hand painted using vibrant non toxic, water based paints. The puzzle is a boxed puzzle so it sits in a 1" deep tray and comes with matching lid. The lid has been wood burned with a cute border and the words " What is Retirement?" I think it turned out great but would love to hear your opinion.
The second photo is of a personalized wooden photo puzzle. But what is unique about this puzzle is that it comes with a 1" deep wooden tray to frame the puzzle pieces. This is a new option I will be offering with my custom photo puzzles. It only costs $10.00 to add the tray. The tray is made from poplar hardwood. For more information about my personalized wooden photo puzzles Click this link -> Personalized Wooden Photo Puzzles
On another note, I recieved a call a couple of days ago from a gentelman who works for Pizza Hut. He was looking for an award that he could give his employees that was related to autism awareness as well as Pizza Hut. Well the symbol for Autism Awareness is a puzzle piece. So What I did was create an award that has the pizza hut logo (a red hat) as the base with a puzzle star on top. The hat has the perfect amount of room to hold a little metal plaque with whatever he wanted to write on it. I think it turned out nice. If he likes it he will order a whole bunch in a bulk order so that's pretty cool. Here's a picture of how it turned out.
I also entered the july design challenge on Etsy Kids. I created an apple alphabet wooden 3D jigsaw puzzle. Here's a pic with the info.
Description Regular Price $20.00 Sale Price $15.00 Help youngsters learn their ABC's with this adorable alphabet puzzle. School teachers are always looking for stimulating, fun, and educational toys for their students, and they always appreciate a homemade gift. This puzzle is the perfect end of the year present for your favorite teacher. The back of each piece can be personalized with a student's name. Use the stem for the teacher's name and the leaves for the school name and the date. Or since the pieces are nice and big, the puzzle will make a great gift for youngsters getting ready to start school! This wooden puzzle measures 9" x 7" x 1" and contains 29 pieces. It has been handcrafted from a a solid piece of poplar hardwood by puzzle maker Jeannette Aragon. This educational toy has been hand painted with non toxic, water based paints and then sealed with Krylon's triple thick glaze. Other than that I have been getting ready for my next arts and crafts fair. I've been making stands and wooden signs, organizing my puzzles, and finishing off projects that were left unfinished. I'm hoping to enter the farmers market in the next week or two. July 17,2009 Well, I finally had a chance to put my new display shelves to the test at the local Farmers Market on Wednesday. It was a LOT of work and way too hot, But I had fun and my puzzles got a lot of exposure. Overall I had a pretty good response. I made my entrance fee back but that was it. We'll see if I do better next week. My sister and nieces and nephew are in town this week. So they were able to come to the fair, see my booth and go to the petting zoo. They had a lot of fun. I got a couple of custom orders which is always good. I thought these new shelves were going to be faster to set up but there not. But I think they look a lot better than the old PVC pipe shelves that I had had. Plus they are sturdier so wind is not a problem any more. The only negative that I can see with these shelves is that I can't fit all my puzzles. I seem to have made quite a collection of puzzles over the past year and there are just too many puzzles to display. But it's okay I just choose the ones I felt that would sell and saved the rest for some other day. Here are pictures of my booth. There a little fuzzy but you can get the general idea.
Tags: etsy, fair, farmers, kids, market, puzzled, puzzledone, puzzles, saw, scroll July 20,2009I belong to a business Team called Etsy Kids. All of the team members sell handcrafted things for children on Etsy . They are opening a new online magazine called Modern Handmade Child in August. It should be a really great resource if you have children so I thought I would share it with you. below you will find a little preview flash thingy to tell you more. Open publication - Free publishing - More kids Other than that I've spent the weekend getting ready for the next farmer's market on Wednesday and playing with my nieces and nephew so there's not much to report. I'll catch up with you in a couple of days or at least after the market to tell you how it went. July 25,2009 Well the Farmers Market went terrific this week. It was really slow to start and most of the people were just browsing. Then all of a sudden around 8:30 I started getting customer after customer. I practically sold out of my children's 3D puzzles. Four of the customers were returning customers from last week and they all bought. I ended up making a small profit in addition to being able to pay for next weeks show. In addition to the show I also got another on line order and a bulk custom order of puzzle awards. This weekend I am going to be VERY busy making puzzles. Between filling the two orders and trying to replace the stock I sold at the farmers market, I'm going to be one busy girl. Well I better get back to work. Talk to ya next time. |
