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Year: 2013

Puzzling in a Multi-Child Home – A Guest Post by Matthew at Puzumi

Puzzling in a Multi-Child Home – A Guest Post by Matthew at Puzumi

Hello to all of Penny’s readers! My name is Matthew, I’m the writer and researcher for Puzumi. We’re a puzzle company that prides itself on creating puzzles that help people train their brain, sharpen their skills and let folks have fun while doing this! A big focus of mine of late has been looking at how puzzles impact children during their development. From their earliest moments when they begin using puzzles that are simple cutouts of basic shapes, to more…

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Weird Places to Find a Puzzle Piece – #3

Weird Places to Find a Puzzle Piece – #3

Conversation with my almost 4-year-old son yesterday, “Mommy, can I have a piece of candy?” “Sure, Derek. Get one piece out of your Halloween bowl.” A minute later, “Mommy, look….a puzzle piece!” What?! My missing piece from Kevin Sloan’s The Messenger has been found! I wonder how it got in Derek’s Halloween stash?! It’s wood so I don’t think it would have tasted too much like 100 Grand bar. Hmmmm…….

JigamaWHO? Why, Jigamajoy of course!

JigamaWHO? Why, Jigamajoy of course!

Earlier this week, I was contacted by Mike from the Jigamajoy Company of Pine Brook, New Jersey, who has created a very unique product that combines standard playing cards and jigsaw puzzles into a really interesting puzzling experience.  A few formats have several different ways to solve each puzzle and some even have math questions to help kids put the puzzle together correctly.  Huh?  Who would have thought of combining these two seemingly unrelated aspects of “gaming”, but it seems…

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Whimsical Woodie

Whimsical Woodie

In my last post I mentioned that I was getting my first wooden jigsaw puzzle, entitled The Messenger by Kevin Sloan.  What I didn’t say at the time, as I hadn’t yet received the puzzle, was that I was contacted by Artifact Puzzles and given the opportunity to choose any puzzle I wanted (up to a generous pre-set price) and they would send it to me absolutely free of charge.  Of course I was very skeptical at first because it sounded too…

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Puzzle of Life

Puzzle of Life

I get a lot of catalogs.  Catalogs for clothes…catalogs for kids stuff…catalogs for things I would never buy in my lifetime.  However, catalogs for home decor are my favorite  I have bought more home decor stuff through catalogs than any other catalog item.  Most of the time I just glance at them and toss because I just can’t buy everything I like or I’d have to move out of my house to make room for all the stuff!.  LOL  But…

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Got Wood…

Got Wood…

Last week I found out about a relatively new puzzling company that makes high quality, wooden jigsaw puzzles.  I have never tried a wooden puzzle up to this point because they’ve always been so expensive.  It’s just cost prohibitive for me as it takes me so long to get to a new puzzle with the Life puzzle still under construction.  However, this company, Artifact Puzzles, has some pretty reasonable prices.  I like several of their puzzles, including Bruegel’s Netherlandish Proverbs and Kevin Sloan’s…

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Puzzle Blogging 101

Puzzle Blogging 101

I have had this blog for over three years now and I am finally starting to actually look into optimizing the blog to gain more followers.  It is simply amazing to me how much thought and work goes into making a blog successful.  There are so many ways you can go about increasing your followers that it can be a little bit overwhelming.  So this week I have been doing a bunch of research on best ways to do this….

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Some Much Needed Mommy Free Time

Some Much Needed Mommy Free Time

I am happy to report that I got a nice little chunk of Mommy Free time this last weekend and it was WONDEFUL!!!  It was the first completely kid free time I’ve had since Cole was born about 2.5 months ago.  Randy took both kids out for several hours and gave me a break.  Of course, instead of napping like I probably should have, I couldn’t wait to get in some puzzling time.  I spent close to 4 hours working…

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Two Relatives Visits and Two Kids = Too Little Puzzling Time

Two Relatives Visits and Two Kids = Too Little Puzzling Time

Wow, hard to believe it has been two months since I touched my puzzle!  Of course, having another baby and a toddler has definitely had a huge impact on that.  Plus the fact that we’ve had almost nonstop company since Cole was born.  Not that I’m complaining about our growing family, lack of sleep, or the visiting relatives and friends, but it sure isn’t allowing for any puzzling time. So for the first time yesterday, I got to spend about…

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Weird Places to Find a Puzzle Piece – # 2

Weird Places to Find a Puzzle Piece – # 2

After not having puzzled for more than two weeks due to baby Cole’s early arrival, imagine my surprise when my mother in law is in the kitchen day before yesterday and says, “Here’s a puzzle piece.”  She pats it dry (apparently the back was a little wet) and said she had found it laying on the kitchen counter.  At first I thought, oh this must be a piece from one of Derek’s puzzles, but then when I saw it I…

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