Puzzle Hobby Magazine by Puzzle Hobby Magazine

INTRO Welcome to the wonderful world of jigsaw puzzles.

You will come to realize there is more to jigsaw puzzles than pieces as your eyes browse through this entertaining magazine.

Y BB O H E L Z Z U P W A S G I J

We hope you enjoy the content as we strive to provide a variety of this hobby's finest topics, stories and of course assembled jigsaw puzzles.

Puzzle Hobby Magazine

EDITOR Linda Richard ASSOCIATE EDITOR Judithlynn Krusky CONTRIBUTORS Cobble Hill Puzzle Company Shelley Davies Keetha Broyles Sherri Demos Mari Navarro Jolanda Schnieder

Contact: info.puzzlehobby@gmail.com www.puzzlehobby.com

Table of contents About

Cobble Hill Puzzle Company

Cobble Hill Puzzle Company shares some very interesting insights about the selective process for their choice of images. They also tell us how some of their 'in-house' projects are created.

New York City Window

14 months, 32000 pieces to complete the New York City Window by Ravensburger. See more details and fantastic photos inside.

Sweet Dreams Retirement

The '65+ are the new retirement with plenty of energy and lots of free time to fill. This Puzzler planned her retirement dream to come true.

About Puzzle Hobby In Seven Years Puzzle Hobby has been reviewing jigsaw puzzles for over seven years. Also, during that time, there have been many events created, many new friendships developed and many activities attended. It was only a matter of time that a magazine would emerge. It's time to share all of these worldwide mentions in one source. The PuzzleHobby magazine has years of content to present in an organized manner for entertainment. Jigsaw Puzzlers tend to be very generous people who thrive on paying it forward. That said, there are many resources and members who contributed to the production of this magazine so we'd like to give a special thanks for their continued support.

Linda Richard Editor

Lest We Forget

November is a very special month for many people around the world. On the 11th month of the 11th day, on the 11th hour, we will remember our Veterans and their families. We thought by sharing this puzzle created by Linda Richard would be a great way to give our fallen ones recognition. Below is a beautifully designed Remembrance Day puzzle. The poem, a well recognized poem throughout the world, was written on the battlefield by one of our home boys Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. His home is a museum in Guelph, ON Canada.

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What A Puzzling Idea! Photo Provided by Mari Navarro

Meet Mari Navarro and her daughter Eva. Both love puzzles and were running out of storage space. Eva suggested that they start selling the used puzzles to free up more space for new puzzles. They have created a Facebook page that allows them to Buy-Sell-Swap puzzles and its called Marieva. So it works like this, Mari is in charge of researching and buying the puzzles. She assembles the puzzle and then lists it on their Marieva face page. Eva is responsible for shipping and taking the puzzle orders. She sends the customer an invoice with every packaged puzzle. Marieva Facebook page was started in May, 2019 and it has been very successful. The puzzles are sold for 50% of the retail price they paid. By the end of 2020 Marieva sold approximately 600 puzzles! And, as at this printing time they have already sold 500 puzzles! Mari does her homework when she is searching for new puzzles. She sources out different puzzle companies online and also buys from overseas puzzle companies. One last thing we asked Mari was what advice would she give someone that is interested in starting an online Facebook sales page. Here was her response.

dd a little bit of body text

Mari Navarro & her daughter Eva

"First, take the time to be super extra organized for every step of the process and keep good records. This will keep your customers happy and keep you stress-free. Second, for every puzzle listed include everything interested buyers will need to know, state all the puzzle info so they don’t need to ask: brand, title, number of pieces, price, condition of box, condition of puzzle, etc. Third, know that you don’t always need to use the post office to ship puzzles, in fact that’s usually the most expensive way. Compare prices between Facebook Marketplace, Pirate Ship, and UPS with the discount codes they offer from time to time". Very impressive for creating a business that involves the love and passion of jigsaw puzzling.

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There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle. Deepak Chopra

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FOR THE LOVE OF CATS AND JIGSAW PUZZLES Jolanda Schnieder has been a member of the Jigsaw Puzzle Connections Facebook Group since February 2015. Since I am attracted to cats and puzzles, I noticed that all her jigsaw puzzles were always cats. I was intrigued by that AND that she has shown there are 1000's of cat puzzle images out there - she's proof of that! Jolanda lives in Switzerland in a small town called Baden, not far from Zurich. After 37 years as a librarian Jolanda retired in 2013. She has been with her partner Benno for 42 years and has no children. In 2014 they bought their second home on the island Maderia, out in the Atlantic Ocean. Jolanda started puzzling in her teens. She resumed puzzling in the late 1990's and could afford to buy every puzzle she wanted. Jolanda soon realized that there were so many puzzles to choose from so she narrowed her puzzling down to Cat motifs, and her collection is 95% cat puzzles. She has approximately 3800, 200 of them not put together. Jolanda does about 100,000 pieces per year. On average 500-700 pieces per puzzle. Her average time for a 1000 piece is 6.5 hours. But as Jolanda says it's a "wide range" of time to complete a puzzle. 8

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Photos Provided By Jolanda Schnieder

Jolanda at her second home in Maderia, out in the Atlantic Ocean

Cat Tigerin in my home in Switzerland (she was our dearest cat of all our cats, lived 1992-2010)

Cat Taxi in the sun pavillon near the pool on the island

Cat Missy in my puzzling room in Switzerland PUZZLE HOBBY MAGAZINE |

Puzzling With Mom One Woman's Story of combining a passion for puzzling and bonding with her Mom Photos provided by Sherri Demos

Sherri

was

invited

Admin

Jigsaw

Puzzle

Connection

Facebook Group in February 2017. Since then, she has remained an active member and very entertaining with her jigsaw puzzle posts.

Sherri has been puzzling with her mom since she was 12 years old, about 54 years. She has 5 siblings and they enjoyed card playing growing up, while Sherri and her mom bonded over jigsaw puzzles. They mostly chose 500 piece puzzles that they could assemble in between meals. They could start and finish a puzzle in time to take it apart before needing the dining table for dinner. While growing up, Sherri

and

her

mom

would

often

puzzle

mostly

the

winter,

especially on sunny cold Sunday afternoons. Sherri says, "those were the times I would be able to admit to Mom that I was nervous about starting high school or excited about learning to drive."

Sherri continued to puzzle as an adult but mostly when she would go visit with her mom. Then they would puzzle like crazy. This casual puzzle time soon became more regular when Sherri's dad past in 2017. Being his executor, she would drive up north to his house once a month. Sherri would go by herself, but her mom often drove over from Minnesota to keep Sherri company. A lot more puzzling was done than going through Dad's closets. They developed an even stronger bond during those two years. In 2018 they did 25 puzzles together. Then in 2019 it was 38 but then only managed to do 14 in 2020 due to the pandemic . Sherri says that they have done 15 so far in 2021, and she hopes to squeeze in at least one more visit before the year end.

One thing that has changed, is that Sherri does not puzzle as often on her own , regularly doing 100-200 a year. But since the spring of 2021, Sherri says that she has "lost my puzzle mojo" unless she is with her mom. Not having the chance to be with her mom over the last year and a half has finally caught up with her. Although, Sherri still buys gorgeous puzzles in hopes she can get past the hurdle.

Both women have similar taste in puzzle choices but they have moved on passed doing just Springbok puzzles. Her mom has even done her very first gorgeous wooden Wentworth puzzle.

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There Is Nothing Quite Like The Connection Between A Mother & Daughter

I thought to end this very interesting story that I would let Sherri herself finish it, with her and how their 'mom and daughter' strategy of puzzling works. "Puzzling with someone has different rules than when you are puzzling alone. We always declare what we are going to start with when we are turning the pieces over, with Mom getting the first pick. She invariably chooses something that catches her eye, while I try to pick something in a different part of the puzzle. We don’t start with the border, but we spread all of the pieces in front of us, leaving a little bit of workspace for each of us. We work separately for the most part, working towards each other. I try my best to get Mom to “colour within the lines” while Mom does her best to get me to “go with the flow”. Together, we make it work.

We still have deep discussions when we puzzle, but we also do a lot of reminiscing, laughing, sharing stories that we heard, singing along to some of our favourite music, and just catching up on each other’s lives while our hands are busy bringing order to chaos. Puzzling with my mom has become an important part of my life, and I take a lot of photos, trying to preserve those precious memories. My Mom is my greatest treasure, and I am so blessed to still have her with me."

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e l b cob l l i h e l z puz any p m co

BUY ONLINE OR LOCALLY

Frog Business 1000 pieces

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cobble hill puzzle Company

Q&A eMail Interview

I have a very close connection to Cobble Hill Puzzles as I do many puzzle reviews for them. The following is taken from a Q&A email interview provided by Linda Maxwell and Allegra Vernon.

Q. How many warehouses does your company have? A: (Linda) For Cobble Hill puzzles, there is only one 70,000 square foot warehouse in Brampton, Ontario, Canada

Q. What can we look forward to seeing in the future? A. (Linda) Allegra hinted at this in her comments. We can't really say, but she's working on something massive. Something I can say is we have planned to release new images several times per year rather than one really large release in November. So, this means that puzzlers can look forward to new images more than once per year! You're one of the first people who I had mentioned this to! We will be telling our retailers in a few weeks.

Q. What made you choose your Head Office company's location? A. (Linda) Victoria, BC is where the owner lived and started his game company, Outset Media back in 1996. In 2005, Outset introduced the puzzle company, Cobble Hill. We get asked all the time if we're located in Cobble Hill because it's just a couple hours north of our headquarters on Vancouver Island, but the owner just liked the name! It had nothing to do with the actual city.

Q. What is one inside tid-bit at work you can share with us? A. (Linda) Our company is very dog friendly! Ironically, the owner was always a cat person and didn't care much for dogs. Now he has a Duck Toller, Kona, who was in one of our puzzles with her Duck Toller friend, Schooner. (right image). Sometimes we'll have up to seven dogs roaming our building!!

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Q. When you assisted with Puzzle, The Movie, do you have a blurb about the actors that you observed? A. (Linda) We didn't get to meet the actors from the movie as we simply shipped puzzles to their New York location. Our team usually works with the Set Decorators to get all the puzzles shipped to their filming location. We do a surprising amount of work with various productions from Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, Netflix's Riverdale (see right side image) and Scaredy Cats to Hallmark movies.

Q. How do you decide what images to produce? A. (Allegra) We look at our sales numbers. We look at who our retailers are. We look at consumer feedback. We look at what’s trending in the world at large. We look at what’s available (resolution issues negate a great deal of art). We think about what our talented in house designers are capable of. We follow up in areas that are always popular, while also pursuing subjects and approaches we don’t already see on the market. Questions we frequently ask are: Is it better than what we already have? Or does it add something new to the line?

Q. How long does it take to create a puzzle from start to finish? A. (Allegra) On the image-creation side, our puzzles can take mere hours or some weeks to make ready to print. On the extreme fast end, we have images that magically appear in my inbox just begging to be made into puzzles. Created by professional artists and illustrators, they’re cleanly scanned and colour balanced and ready to hit the presses. All that’s needed is to execute contracts, send the advance, create the box art. But this is a rarity. More often days are spent searching online, going through artist and licensor portfolios trying to spot puzzle potential. Many licensors have thousands of images to sift through. Then you make a wish list and ask to see larger files. Many artists/licensors preview their images very small and watermarked to prevent theft. But it means you don’t always have a clear idea of how detailed or well-painted an image is. The licensor receives your wish list and knocks off any that are already under license as puzzles, and sends their high res files. Sometimes these files are ready to go to print.

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But this is the exception rather than the rule. After all the hours of sifting, a good amount of our wish list will have files that are of insufficient resolution or clarity to be one of our puzzles. This is why, in addition to single large images, we also look for collections we can license to collage together into a puzzle. Collages, of course, are their own time sink. For instance, the Country Diary seasons are made of hundreds of individual elements – flowers, bees, branches – and all the elements had to be separated from their backgrounds, the digital equivalent of cutting everything out with scissors. Before you can even start to arrange them. Many of our titles are photographs of collections. Sometimes the amount of time taken is clear – like icing dozens of cookies, or arranging dozens of teacups. Sometimes it’s deceptive how long things can take, for instance Vintage Tins. For a year every time I was in an antique or salvage store I would grab decorative tea caddies of sufficient age (we don’t want to step on the trademarks and copyrights of contemporary companies). When we had enough we built shelves by dismembering a palette (we wanted the shelves to be weathered). Why build our own? Because we can measure them to be exactly the right height for the tins, so that the image area is taken up with interesting tins rather than background. But just in case – we also collected fun fabric and papers to line the back of our shelves. Arrange – light – photograph… but wait! We’re not done. Now we take our digital file and lighten/brighten/sharpen, as well as more substantial changes like narrowing the shelf edges (they’re not that interesting) increasing the size of some of the pretty parts, and adding colour to monochromatic bits… sometimes it feels like you never finish, you just decide to let it go.

NORTH AMERICA

O N L I N E

W H O L E S A L E INTERNATIONAL

Cobble Hill Puzzles can be found in stores in North America Wholesale Inquiries are available Shop internationally online Find an international distributor

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cobble hill puzzles - Photos of creating the Mad Hatter tea party

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Q. What is your biggest project so far? A. (Allegra) The longest project we’ve produced so far was the Rainbow. A single 27 foot long assemblage that took Shelley Davies 6 months of kneeling patiently arranging and rearranging elements into an attractive whole. Six months of opening doors softly (no wind please!) and keeping the cats out. But Cobble Hill has an even longer project in the works… stay tuned

Shelley has become a leading artist in the field of Modern Art. She is a Canadian artist who creates paintings, collages and photographs, some of which end in 3 dimensional. Shelley has a background in animation, feature films, television and theatre. She has worked as an editorial illustrator and has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers across Canada. Many of Shelley's works of art have been turned into jigsaw puzzles at Cobble Hill Puzzle Company selling over 110,000 which includes the following titles: Element Series, Earth, Water, Air, Fire Colour Series, Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Yellow, Pink, Purple, Black Rainbow in 1000 or 2000 pieces Others include; Catsville, Dogtown, Beach Scene, Sewing Notions, Dollies, Time Pieces, Vintage Art Supplies and Shelley's ABC's

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32,256 PIECES | 214 x 76" | 544 x 192cm

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8 Bags | 4,032 Pieces Per Bag | 38" x 57" Started- September 2019 Completed- December 2020 Duration- 16 Months Hours- Over 600 Average hours per month- 40 Difficulty Level- High Assembly process- 3 people

Just looking at the number of pieces and the actual completed size of the Ravensburger 32000 piece New York City Window jigsaw puzzle is daunting enough. To actually assemble it and see it connect together into a mammoth image on the wall is a Puzzler's highest reward of achievement.

No heavy cup to lift over your head or a plaque to hang on your wall - only a very extreme level of accomplishment and some disbelief. As a matter of fact, six months down the road, if your still looking at it on the wall, you won't believe that you actually spent all that time and endless hours of staring at pieces that look the same either in shape form or colour shades. But you will still be thrilled with your accomplishment knowing that you did THAT! I can tell you this. There were many many 'trying' hours. There were thoughts of 'impossible' and yes, thoughts of giving up. So, what is it about jigsaw puzzles that 'drive' a person to complete a massive beauty such as this NYC Window? I would have to say, for me, it's the end result vision on the wall. I have seen this one accomplished in the past and said to myself, "I want to see that one on my wall". Call it determination, sense of accomplishment or pure pride. Regardless of what the description is, you'll be beaming as other Puzzler's eyes gleam over your photos - well worth it indeed! It was determined the only place in our home the entire puzzle would fit was in the corner wall of the living room. The idea would be to have the corner wall appear to have a New York City window view. It was also difficult to get the entire puzzle image into one camera shot but there it is, placed on the wall with all it's glory.

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I am grateful for all the help I had while working on this project. My adult daughter helped put the pieces together with me. I can give her credit for about one-third of the entire project. She loved doing the sky area and it was determined she enjoyed large sections of similar colours.

My Husband is the muscle behind this project and it sure needed muscle many times so a special thanks to him for the many times the boards needed to be moved. His skills saved us from a few spills especially when it came to turning the puzzle over for taping. Also, we used clear tacks to hold the 8 sections to the wall which can be very painful on the fingers since we used about 14 tacks per section. When we completed each section, we would turn it face down and use wide clear packing tape on the back and then tack it to a space on any random wall in the house. This gave us plenty of time to enjoy viewing each section.

Here's how we did it... To give you an idea of the process, here's a brief explanation of how we did it. Maybe it will inspire you to try this as there is a simple technique that will speed up the process. But you won't know about that until later in the article. It's more about getting a good board that's big enough and strong enough to hold the pieces which also has an edge on it. More on that later too. Then, having the manpower when required once each of the eight bags is assembled. At some point, these massive assembled bags of puzzle pieces need to be moved somehow, so that needs to be considered very early on in the process. PUZZLE HOBBY MAGAZINE |

THE ASSEMBLY PROCESS First the board for each bag of 4,032 pieces was measured to be about 5 feet x 4 feet. Hubby located a board at the lumber store that they use between piles of different thickness of fencing such as 2x4's or 2x 6's etc. It's heavier than wall panelling but way lighter than plywood. Also, we used 2-way taped foam insulation around the outer edge of the board so the pieces would not slide off. Next, each individual bag, starting with Bag A, was sorted into the ByAllison Trays by associated colours. Then, the trays with the most 'similar' pieces were assembled first on 20" x 30" foam boards so more than one person was working on each bag at the same time. Eventually, large sections were connected to the main board then the remaining mixed pieces were completed right onto the main board to fill in the 'blank holes'. The next step was to turn the entire puzzle over so it was face down and we could use wide clear packing tape strips across the back to turn it into a 'poster'. That's where the "muscle and field fit" Operations man (a.k.a. Hubby) stepped up, armed with enough strapping gear to tie down a hot air balloon in a wind storm. But that was exactly what we wanted. We 'clipped' 6 foam boards over top of the puzzle to be sure every corner was covered. Then we ran the Cam Buckle Lashing straps under the bottom of the wood board and wrapped them over the top of the foam boards. The Cam Buckle Lashing straps were then tightened as much a possible to secure the entire 'package', then moved the buckles as close to the one edge as possible so there would be access to them upon the 'flip'. It took three of us to carefully flip the board upside-down. Once it was on the floor in a big space, we undid the Buckles and carefully slid the blue/black lashing straps out from under the boards. Next we had to 'very gently' pull the white foam boards out from under the puzzle pieces so the finished puzzle, upside down, laid flat on the hardwood floor. The only step left after that was to apply the 2" wide clear packing tape across the back of the puzzle. We started at one edge and worked across from side to side and from top to bottom so that the untaped puzzle section was always in front of us. It was quite tricky and we had to be very mindful and careful. 22

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Each of the 8 Bags are labelled with a set of digits and the capital letter A-BC-D-E-F-G-H is centred within the numbers. Each separate bag measures 59" x 39" (150x100cm) so your puzzle space board should be slightly bigger than that.

This photo to the right shares a visual overview of the size compared to human shoes. Those shoes are a size 6. Once Bag A was completed, my daughter discovered the puzzle grid pattern. So we decided to work smarter and not harder. We determined we would work Bag B on top of Bag A and see what happens. Sure enough, she was correct. There are four sections of approximately 500 pieces in each 4000+ piece bag so we referred to them as quadrants. PUZZLE HOBBY MAGAZINE |

A B 24

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ONE

JIGSAW

PUZZLER'S ULTIMATE

SWEET DREAM RETIREMENT

Keetha's Puzzle Zone 28

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Featured Puzzler C oup l tog puzz es ar eth les e li jus er b tha ke ji t en y t t h gsa oug ouch ang w h p ing oin in ts. Greg & Keetha Photos provided by Keetha Broyles

Keetha joined the Jigsaw Puzzle Connections Facebook Group well before she became an Admin in November 2017. She has constantly remained a dominant Puzzle poster while monitoring the Group, keeping it in a very welcoming position. Her commitment has earned her the title of 'Ambassador'. She also is living the dream of many Puzzlers! I also had the pleasure of having an interview with Keetha. Here is her story.

Q. Can you tell us a bit about yourself? A. My hubby, Greg, and I met in college. We have been married for 46 and a half years. We have 4 married children: Keri (F), Kelly (M), Korie (F), and Kyle (M). We have 7 grandchildren and 5 grandpuppies.

Q. When & how did you become interested in puzzling? A. I began puzzling (right out with 1,000 piece puzzles) as a child with my mom, dad, and sister. Often we puzzled on snow days from school so immediately puzzles became associated in my mind and heart with joy and celebration. Later after I was married, I began taking jigsaws on vacation AND buying more while there.....further reinforcing the 'celebrational' Joy. During those years I often puzzled with my Aunt Kitty, which was a joy beyond measure. She is now past on and I miss her tremendously. For the last five years of my husband's career we traveled two hours one way for his ER shifts. We stayed in a hotel for up to 20 days at a time. I hauled along jigsaws to stay entertained in the hotel. That is when I started puzzling nearly every day.

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Retirement In Wisconsin Q. What brought you to the Wisconsin area?

Greg & Keetha's Home This Is Home

A. Hubby and I vacationed in the Hayward, Wisconsin area for 30+ years. I actually grew up in Hayward from kindergarten through 5th grade. We loved it here and began to dream of retiring here. When we realized we could make that happen, my first priority for a new home was that it would include a designated puzzle studio. I looked at many homes online, so when I found this house I knew it was as near perfect for us as anything I was going to find. Keri was with me the first day I looked at it. We were standing in the basement and she pointed at the far wall and said, "Mom, would you put your puzzles there?" Before I could even answer, which WAS going to be a yes, the realtor who also happened to be the owner said, "If you give me an offer on this house, I'll have my builders throw up some shelves on that wall for your puzzles." She wrote it right in the contract, and the rest is history. My puzzle table also "came with the house." I requested it to stay because it is a perfect size for my puzzling method. Q. How many puzzles do you have?

View From Puzzle Table

A. Currently I have 532 puzzles (plus a few on loan which will return, but I don't remember how many) I have done ALL of those AT LEAST once (most of them multiple times) except for 8 which are brand new. The stack of puzzles on the end of my counter is my "to do next" stash. Some of those are brand new, some are repeats. I like to mix it up. Q. How do you keep track of how many times you have done a puzzle? A. Since I keep most of my puzzles and redo them, I mark the back of the box with month & year each time I do them. So this one has been completed AT LEAST 5 times, possibly more because I got it before I began marking my puzzles.

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It's A Family Affair Q. What advice would you give to someone who has never puzzled before? A. Some people say they don't have the patience to puzzle. Many times they tell me what puzzles they have tried. Nearly always they are puzzles that I would classify as difficult. (Dark, blurry, low on detail.) I have had some success turning them into puzzlers by showing the puzzle styles that will be easier and more fun.

Q. Are there any other puzzlers in your family? A. I know that three of our four children puzzle. I was MOST surprised to hear that Kelly, our oldest son, puzzles because he likes activities that include a high level of risk. I'm not sure if our youngest puzzles because he lives in Tokyo, Japan. BUT I do know he bought 4 of his sister's Kickstarter jigsaws to support her!!!! Q. We now know that your children enjoy puzzling but what about Greg? A. Hubby doesn't puzzle at all.....from time to time he DOES enjoy hiding one piece of my WIP. These are pix of 2 of our kids, their spouses, and our grans puzzling together last Thanksgiving. Hubby proudly jumped into the group pic even though he didn't place even one piece.

A Family Team Is Like A Puzzle, Every Piece Is Vital

"To Do Next" Pile PUZZLE HOBBY MAGAZINE |

Book of the Month

I always saw jigsaw puzzles in the stores on the shelves growing up and never gave them much thought. A puzzle is a puzzle - usually a very nice picture, some pictures prettier or more colourful than the next one. Some images did not appeal to me and some just jumped out at me. One day I was in Hallmark and I saw the Norman Rockwell, Saturday Evening Post and I thought, that's kinda cool. Likely about a month later, I was back in Hallmark again and I saw my first Stereogram jigsaw puzzle and I came to realize there might be more interesting and unique styles of jigsaw puzzles. The rest is history, as they say. I started writing a blog about them. I've written about 300 reviews on puzzles alone. There are other endless topics and events I have covered and that's not them all. I gathered sixty articles and bound them all into a book titled "There's More To Jigsaw Puzzles Than Pieces" in hopes that other people would discover what I have about jigsaw puzzles.

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Blogger of the month Linda Richard

Introducing this month's Blogger. Linda has been blogging about jigsaw puzzles since 2014. Her passion for this hobby was renewed after the nest became empty and a move to another part of the country in Canada. However, her passion to share jigsaw puzzles extended beyond an online Blog. With social media came another opportunity to share the enthusiasm of jigsaw puzzles with others who experience the same effects and benefits of the growing popular activity. Some of the Events created online Social Medias by others were: Travelling Tea Cups World Puzzle Days Jigsaw Jubilee Puzzle Olympics Global Puzzle Pieces Challenge Over the years, with so much content created on the website, an accumulation of articles were gathered and put into a book form to be sold conveniently through Amazon. The title of the book is 'There's More To Jigsaw Puzzles Than Pieces' because, IF a person took a step back and seen only a small portion of what jigsaw puzzles bring to the table, they may be surprised. Eventually, as the discovery of more and more content surfaced, it inspired the Puzzle Hobby Magazine.

About This Blogger Video Credit Narrator: Judithlynn Krusky

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Puzzle of the Month

Musical Notes Puzzle Brand: Piatnik Title: Musical Notes Pieces: 1000 Size: 26.5" x 17.4" Image: 10 String Quartet No.15 in A Minor, Opus 132 Ludwig van Beethoven V. Allegro apassionato

Overall Experience: Fantastic Cut Quality: Excellent Board Quality: Solid Shape Cut: Grid-like Image Quality: Superb Hardest Area: The majority of inside Puzzle Dust? Next to none There was not much sense in trying to sort this by colors as it is totally black and white. I did sort by pieces that were more white than black and more black than white. I did pull out the outer edges while I was doing that. Next you will see how I sorted according to sideways and topto-bottom. Then the next sort was according to the puzzle shapes which I laid them out onto foam boards that sat on the left and right side of the Musical Notes assembling area. Once the pieces were 'intricately' sorted to the max, I managed to assemble the border by following the image on the box. It was challenging enough and the sides were more testier than the top and bottom. Then I needed to determine my strategy.

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Finish Quality: Smooth, not shiny Box Quality: Good and solid Sealed Pieces Inside Box: Yes Was this purchased new? Yes Price: $17.99 USA Recommend Level: High (challenging) Time: 50 hours I thought I would start by assembling from the bottom to the top but that became tiring very fast so I started to look at the music 'bars' and how they ran from the top to the bottom. Some of the notes on the music sheets contained 'letters' which I managed to locate them into their perspective locations on the foam board. Then the musical symbols were laid out onto the board as well. You can see that pretty clear on the third work-in-progress images on the website. To get some close up views of the assembly process and finished look, it can be seen in this Youtube Video

Puzzle Completion

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Tips For Buying Lamps Determine if bulbs are replaceable Look for simple settings that are easy to change If possible, test how well the 'neck' moves for 'non-tipping' issues Be mindful of the heat intensity if using lamps close up Will the electrical cord be long enough or will you require an extension cord? Watch for light bulbs with 100 watt standard bulb (equivalent of 13W-18W in LED terms)

The most common choice by Jigsaw Puzzlers is the Multifunctional LED Desk Lamp with Wireless Charger, USB Charging Port, 5 Lighting Modes, 5 Brightness Levels, Sensitive Control, 30/62 min Auto Timer, Eye-Caring Office Lamp with Adapter - Reviews at www.PuzzleHobby.com 36

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Tips for Jigsaw Puzzle Lights

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Set of 4 Coasters

CA$19

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Throw Pillow

Stickers

CA$24

CA$2

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Be sure to search the web for the best price and/or reduced prices and coupons! The following link is fairly updated with coupons.

M O C . T O N E M L I A RET

PUZZLE HOBBY MAGAZINE

Christmas Tree Puzzle Ornaments So what does your Christmas look like? Do you have Christmas jigsaw puzzle ornaments decorated around your home? The Bits & Pieces Puzzle Company has these quick and easy jigsaw puzzle tree ornaments.

Brand: Bits & Pieces Title: Festive Ornaments Kit: Included frames and glue Pieces: 6 mini puzzles of 15 pieces Size: 3" round

Christmas Ornament Puzzles

PUZZLE HOBBY MAGAZINE |

SHOP CREATIVE DESIGNS Shop from our Creative Designs Collection PuzzleHobby has a Merchant shop that carries the following products using Slogans from our Creative Design Collection. Travel Mugs Coffee Mugs Water Bottles Posters Wall Art Jigsaw Puzzles Pillows Throw Blankets Post Cards

T Shirts Aprons Dresses Hoodies Sweat Shirts Hats Scarves Masks Bath Mats

www.puzzlehobby.com 40

PUZZLE HOBBY MAGAZINE

Mouse Pads Spiral Notebooks Cell phone cases Stickers Magnets Journals Greeting Cards Coasters Clocks

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SHOP MERCHANT PRODUCTS Shop our new merchant apparel Prices May Vary - Also Available in US Currency on Shop

Essential T-shirt

Premium Scoop T-shirt

CA$24

$CA 48

Racerback T-shirt

CA$29

V-Neck T-shirt

CA$31

Relaxed Fit T-shirt

CA$30

Long T-shirt

$CA35

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Puzzle Hobby Merchant Store Advertisement

PUZZLE HOBBY MAGAZINE

JIGSAW Magazine PUZZLE DIRECTORY Resource Board ARTISTS

Shelley Davies

BOOKS

There's More To Jigsaw Puzzles Than Pieces

PUZZLERS

Keetha Broyles Jolanda Schnieder Mari Navarro Sherri Demos

PUZZLE HOBBY MAGAZINE |

BRANDS

Cobble Hill Puzzles Company

EVENTS

Coming Soon

PUZZLERS

BLOGGERS

Linda Richard

ONLINE STORES

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PUZZLERS

UZZLE with

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We would love for you to share your jigsaw puzzle passion with us too. In return we will send you a free copy that includes your submission. How it works: One month free issue: Submit your puzzle review and images. We will notify you when your submission is selected and you will receive a free issue showing your submission in the magazine. One year free subscription: Become a monthly Contributor to receive a one year subscription. Simply prepare 12 jigsaw puzzle reviews with great photos within one month. If your 12 reviews get selected, you will be added as a Contributor and you will receive a monthly issue for 1 year. There are guidelines and copyrights information to review on the website. Use this link to signup: PuzzleHobby Magazine For media advertising see this Media Magazine Rates article. Then use the following link to make contact with us. We will get back to you during regular business day hours to set up your AD. Media Magazine Rates Submission Form

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