Happy Mother’s Day! And waterfalls.

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Megan Fajardo

This post is for my mom because, as you know, it’s Mother’s Day. And since my mom is wonderful and supportive, she follows this blog and gets notified of the updates. Today we’re going puppy shopping together because she’s thinking about getting a dog, but I know something my mom loves more than warm, cuddly puppies if you can believe it.

My mom loves waterfalls. She often goes out into the woods or goes driving around Oregon to find them. So, since I love my mom and my mom loves waterfalls, here’s some of our best waterfall posts—and a post publicly declaring that I have the best mom in the world—for you, and also a little bit, for her.

Mackay Falls, New Zealand by Ravensburger. 1000 pieces.

Heritage Cardinals by SunsOut. 1000 pieces.

Rainbow Setting by SunsOut. 500 pieces.

Big Bear Falls by SunsOut. 600 pieces.

Butterflies in the Mist by SunsOut. 1000 pieces.

Niagara Falls by Buffalo Games. 750 pieces.

Elephant by Heye. 1000 pieces.

Waterfall in All Provinces by Peaceful Wooden Puzzles. Starting at 430 pieces, largest is 890 pieces.

Celebrate Your Mom!

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Megan Fajardo

Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and that means there’s just enough time to find her the perfect puzzle! We have an entire subsection under our holiday puzzles for Mother’s Day Gift Ideas but we thought we might add a post of some of our favorites that might help you put together some ideas for Sunday, along with some Mother’s Day ideas or anecdotes.

But to start, did you know that the apostrophe in Mother’s Day is actually pretty important? While usually a collective possessive has an apostrophe after the “S” (as in “the Jones’ cats were orange,” or ”the mothers’ necklaces were all made of pearls”) in this holiday, the official spelling is “Mother’s Day.” That’s so it’s all about your mom specifically, not moms in general. It’s a small way to personalize the holiday and make her feel extra special!

coffee puzzles, espresso, mocha, food and beverage puzzles

Espresso by Ravensburger. 500 pieces.

Lots of moms love coffee. After all, how could they not? To keep up in life, they had to be caffeinated from the start of the day!

As Jennifer Gish says on her blog, “Often when I have my morning cup of coffee, I think of my mom. She’s responsible for my long-time relationship with a fresh-brewed cup (preferably with a little milk). I think I had my first sip out of her mug when I was 5 … It’s become my ritual with my own mom anytime I go home. We sit at the kitchen table talking and drinking coffee.”

Beach Shells by Ravensburger. 500 pieces.

Sea shells always remind me of my mom because the ocean is a special place for her. Whenever she has experienced a lot of stress, it has been common for her to pack up the car and take a trip to the coast. I think it’s because the beach is so beautiful and the waves are calming.

A simple and relatively cheap (besides the cost of gas) idea for Mother’s Day is to pack a picnic, head to a beach if there’s one near you, and hunt for nice shells together (or rocks if the only thing close to you is a lake or river!) After you can get an old mason jar, decorate it, and display your finds!

Bouquet for Bluebirds by SunsOut. 500 pieces.

Want to give your mom a unique and personalized gift? Why not build her a birdhouse? You can learn to build a birdhouse from tutorials on the web, paint it her favorite color or add a nice quotation on there. Then get her some bird seed and wait for the birds’ songs to fill the air and garden around her home!

Cezanne – Blue Vase by Eurographics. 1000 pieces.

Give her the flowers that last all year with a puzzle of her favorite! Flower and garden puzzles are always popular. Or go the regular route, buy her some real flowers to display, and then plan on spending another special day together to create pressed flower art together!

Good Housekeeping – By the Sea by New York Puzzle Co. 1000 pieces.

Gather up some old magazines or books and modge podge something! There are so many things to mod pogde these days, from mason jars to light covers to bowls! Whatever your mom needs, it can be mod podged together to create an experience and a unique gift!

Lucille Ball by White Mountain. 1000 pieces.

If you’re not feeling crafty, rent or buy her some seasons from her favorite television shows from when she was growing up and let her reminisce the old days!

We hope you have a wonderful Mother’s Day with your mothers and grandmothers. Have a favorite puzzle you’ve done with mom, either from when you were a kid or an adult? Share it in the comments!

Hobbies: Quilting

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Megan Fajardo

Looking to pick up a new hobby? Quilting might be the one for you! It’s fun, creative, and relatively easy for beginners, and there’s a huge bonus: it’s a wonderful item to pass down in your family! Also, you can make quilts out of anything. I have a friend who has a quilt made out of a bunch of his souvenir old T-shirts from whatever places he traveled from when he was a little kid. He loves it!

Quilting’s history began in a time when there was a shortage of fabric and when electricity wasn’t around to keep people warm. Worn out items were recycled into quilts and made by women when they were taking a break from their heavier chores. Nowadays people quilt more as a way to express themselves than financial reasons, but what can beat recycling and turning something into a keepsake? Or what can beat a trip to the fabric store and picking and choosing what to match!

Now the hobby translates to much more than just blankets: placemats, wall hangings, cushion covers, diaper totes, cases for your eyeglasses–even make up bags! They can all be quilted. There’s quilting patterns for nearly everything.

Just like a puzzle, you’ll find yourself piecing together items, fitting them snugly together, and creating something new from scratch!

The Quilting Table by SunsOut. 500 pieces.

Spools by SunsOut. 1000 pieces.

Cat on a Quilt by SunsOut. 1000 pieces.

Beach Retreat by SunsOut. 500 pieces.

Autumn Farm by Willow Creek Press. 1000 pieces.

Autumn Quiltscape by SunsOut. 500 pieces.

Quilting the Land by SunsOut. 1000 pieces.

Patchwork Match by SunsOut. 500 pieces.

Challenge Yourself: Scheming with Color

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Megan Fajardo

Finding yourself itching for a challenge, but not quite ready to jump up to the impossible puzzles or the other uniquely challenging puzzles with a twist?

Or maybe you just prefer the traditional puzzle look and feel. You might like the routine of starting with your edge pieces or working with familiar piece shapes. Whatever the case, don’t think you still can’t challenge your brain. The bright side is, you don’t have to up your piece count either. Work with the size and style you already love. Just switch up your color scheme!

Finding puzzles that are largely of one or two color schemes can make you have to work a little harder, be a little more creative, and definitely test your patience as you wonder how you should start organizing the pieces!

If you have a favorite puzzle that you’ve completed before that was challenging because of the color scheme, share it with us in the comments. We’d love to hear about it!

zebra puzzles, safari puzzles, black and white puzzles

Explosion by SunsOut. 550 pieces. Finished size: 15” x 24.”

Crash Course by Thomas Barbey Puzzles. 1000 pieces. Finished size: 23” x 29”.

Greece by Clementoni. 1000 pieces. Finished size: 26.5” x 18.25”.

Red Rose by Ravensburger. 500 pieces. Finished size: 19.75” x 19.75”.

Kittens in Pots. 1000 pieces. Finished size: 19.25” x 26.5”.

Feathers by Piatnik. 1000 pieces. Finished size: 26.5” x 17.25”.

Big Wave by Heye. 1000 pieces. Finished size: 22” x 22”.

Beautiful Swan by Ravensburger. 500 pieces. Finished size: 19.5″ x 14.25″.

Autumn Reflection by Springbok. 1500 pieces. Finished size: 28.75″ x 36″.

Home Sweet Home

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Megan Fajardo

I’ve spent the last several day packing up all my things into boxes and moving across town into a new house with new roommates. It’s sort of exciting rearranging your furniture in a new room and calling a new house “home.”

So what is the difference between a new house and a new home? Well, as my favorite writer Lemony Snicket puts it: “The difference between a house and a home is like the difference between a man and a woman—it might be embarrassing to explain, but it would be very unusual to get them confused.”

Our homes are our spaces to relax, to spend time with our families and friends, to do our hobbies (how many of you have a puzzle spread out on your coffee table right now?) Snicket has another great thing to say about homes, which rings true for many of us: “There is something marvelous about returning home at the end of a long day, even if there is tuna fish for dinner.”

Coziness and comfort are what makes a house a home for me, but then there are some homes that are so beautiful and elegant, prim and proper—but these are no less homes to the people inside them. Here’s some of our best houses and homes in puzzle form, some that emanate warmth and tranquility, some that are modern and sleek.