Blog Posts Across StavePuzzleNuts.com

My Pending Stave Orders

My order queue is dangerously packed with puzzles right now from Stave, the # is the number that the puzzle will represent in my collection of Stave's, yeah, I will hit 30 when this order completes. Eeek! …

27

Tough Act to Follow

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Posted by Erik on July 5, 2008 at 10:51am — No Comments

Used puzzles

I can't resist a used wooden puzzle, particularly when I had to convince the lady who was selling it at the local library from their donations shelf to take a dollar for it rather than the 50 cents she wanted. It was a 300 and some piece Optimago puzzle. It was fun to put together, although I have never liked the fit of Optimago puzzles, they are too wobbly for my taste. However, when it was all done the puzzle was missing four pieces - no surprize there - but had two extra pieces, including an… Continue

Posted by John Burmaster on June 7, 2008 at 11:32am — 5 Comments

what happens in vegas

Hello fellow Puzzlenuts, Jennifer from Stave, here. I'm wondering if any of you wild and crazy folks out there can help me out. I'm not sure where the best place is to post this so I'll try it here. Gee, it's not really puzzle related so maybe I shouldn't even be putting it on the site. I am going to be starting my own blog on our site but it's not quite ready yet so I can't do it there. Here's what I need... I'm going to Vegas in late October/early November with 2 girlfriends and we are trying… Continue

Posted by Jennifer on June 6, 2008 at 1:59pm — 3 Comments

Who has OCD? Not Me.... Coming soon to a profile near you....

Do you think my boss will be bugged that working ont his made me late today? [updated @ 1030pm ca time with almost all of the rest of my collection] …

#	Puzzle Name	Difficulty	Pict
1	Peaceable Kingdom

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Posted by Erik on June 2, 2008 at 8:30am — 5 Comments

New Stave Line of Business

I would like to openly propose a new line of business for Stave: baked goods! So if you followed the blog post & thread about my profligate spending on puzzles here, you'll know that two of the Stave gang, Jennifer and Paula were reassuring me that if I went b… Continue

Posted by Erik on June 1, 2008 at 11:43am — 3 Comments

memorial day '08

So here I am on Memorial day. Sitting at home with nothing much to do (if you don't count the Great Wall of China growing out of my sink, and Laundry Mountain in the laundry room, and I don't). The weather is finally trying to turn around here in northern WV. It's been an odd spring to date, and today is really one of the first days that has hinted at the promise of the hot, humid summers we're accustomed to. Owen, Chloe, and I played in the sand box for a while and gazed longingly at the empty… Continue

Posted by Shannon Allen on May 26, 2008 at 5:57pm — No Comments

Puzzle Orders

Ok, to heck with financial responsibility... with the help of my "girlfriends" at Stave (Tammy and Paula), I've got on order: Tough Act to Follow

[New 2008 design]… Continue

Posted by Erik on May 19, 2008 at 9:30am — 7 Comments

Team Building

After a weekend with my team... Perhaps they found the custom Stave puzzle I had commissioned too frustrating? … Continue

Posted by Erik on May 9, 2008 at 9:30am — 4 Comments

The Magic in a Design , The peacock you are now naming.

Hello everyone, Paula asked me to talk a little about the way a puzzle starts its life. Trust me it does take on a life of its own. For the sake of this discussion I will address teaser puzzles because trick puzzles go down a different road! Lets talk about the peacock puzzle, the one that you are now putting a name to........ The idea for this design actually was conceived two years ago. I was flipping through a catalog and there was a stunning peacock with gardens behind it, "that would make… Continue

Posted by Dee Rogers on May 5, 2008 at 12:30pm — 5 Comments

Time Traveler 36/50 Final Report

[Again, being careful not to post spoilers that will ruin things for Ted or June who both report they have the puzzle on order. That said the links to Flickr photos DO provide spoilers and do give away some of the secrets.] I finally finished my journey through time! Go Me. Great job by the Stave team in designing such a clever puzzle including compliments to illustrator and (I believe) puzzle designer Andrea Farnham. I already posted quite a bit about the entire experience so I would recomme… Continue

Posted by Erik on April 28, 2008 at 11:00am — 2 Comments

Sword and Bolt Ratings: The Stave Explanations

Here are the sword ratings for teaser puzzles. In teasers, you'll find repeating shapes, irregular edges, confusing colors and empty spaces in the middle of the puzzle. Teasers are small enough to tempt you, clever enough to challenge you, yet manageable enough to solve.

Requires extra concentration.

Requires extra concentration and practice.… Continue

Posted by June Herold on April 10, 2008 at 11:42am — No Comments

Time Traveler 36/50 -- One Last Trick Remains

Ok, well I'm back from my business trip and posted about the custom corporate puzzle, so it is back to finishing "Time Traveler". I'm still suck on solving one last trick and not getting any inspiration--yet. I did spend about an hour with the puzzle last night without success and also got confirmation that my grid explaining the anachronisms was correct back from Tammy. Today was a long day, but tomorrow I'll get back to it, so close now I can taste it. Continue

Posted by Erik on April 8, 2008 at 9:07pm — No Comments

Corporate Puzzle -- Story

So this is a limited edition puzzle of a different type. In this case a custom traditional puzzle I had made for our top inventors. Only 50 were crafted for us. Each has ~50 pieces. The artwork was designed by our marketing department and then "juiced" up for the puzzle. Look closely, you'll see our current slogan "Your license to speed" embedded in the picture. I worked with Tammy (and Cindy behind the scenes) to go over different image choices and then ultimately pick the tricky continuous j… Continue

Posted by Erik on April 8, 2008 at 9:01pm — No Comments

Time Traveler -- Stalled

Just so you all know, I'm stalled on solving the last trick still didn't get to puzzle yesterday or today and then off for a business trip. ARGH! Continue

Posted by Erik on April 1, 2008 at 11:19pm — 8 Comments

Time Traveler 36/50 down to the last mile

[Again, being careful not to post spoilers that will ruin things for Ted. The description of the chains is taken verbatim from the rule book and I try to avoid giving too much away. That said the links to Flickr photos DO provide spoilers and do give away some of the secrets.] Ok, since Saturday night, I stepped away from the puzzle, but Sunday was a new day and with the help of another friend we began fixing history. As previously noted this is a four bolt (… Continue

Posted by Erik on March 31, 2008 at 12:40am — 3 Comments

Time Traveler 36/50 Saturday PM Update

It's been another ~4 hours of puzzling and I've finished the basic assembly Flicker link to completed assembly, picture offsite here Now, on to following the instructions and making my time machine work and solving all of the anachronisms. What a great puzzle Continue

Posted by Erik on March 29, 2008 at 8:09pm — No Comments

Time Traveler 36/50 Saturday AM Update

I spent another four hours this morning working on the puzzle and would estimate I am about 50-66% complete with the first assembly. Partial Assembly Picture over on flickr I have had the most success so far on the 1700->2000 time periods. Though I just got 1000 into the puzzle. The sense of whimsy, but also serious history pervades the puzzle. The difficulty so far comes from (a) some things are out of their prop… Continue

Posted by Erik on March 29, 2008 at 2:03pm — No Comments

Time Traveler 36/50 Friday PM Update

[Most images are links to a flickr gallery to avoid spoiling Ted who has ordered the puzzle.] Ok, let me take a deep breath and try to give everyone a sense of Time Traveler. The puzzle itself has artwork by Andrea Farnham depicting historical events spanning the period from 1000 -> 2000. The artwork is quite luscious and has what I would describe as a whimsical style perhaps almost cartoonish, without actually being cartoonish. This very small image will give you a general flavor:… Continue

Posted by Erik on March 29, 2008 at 2:44am — 1 Comment

Time Traveler 36/50

Ok, I cracked the box open last night. The set up is quite beautiful (more pictures to come later). June requested some pictures and so I took a break to take one Link to Flickr Picture of the Time Machine When I get more time this weekend I will post some pictures of the outsides of the books and give more overall flavor. So far I'm just loving the quality, artwork, and baffled by what I've read in the books. [Pos… Continue

Posted by Erik on March 28, 2008 at 9:15pm — No Comments

Time Traveler Arrives Today

So, UPS has Time Traveler (a limited edition) out for delivery to me today. Would it be wrong to skip my meetings this afternoon and start working on it? :) Continue

Posted by Erik on March 27, 2008 at 12:46pm — 2 Comments

Pull My Strings - Completed!

I just completed my first

teaser puzzle, Pull My Strings. I have had this puzzle out for at least 6 months. Once or twice a month I would spend a few minutes as life just seems so busy lately. And until today I had the outline, the Chinese dragons and a variety of 2-3 piece groupings together. This afternoon I finally had a little free time and I thou… Continue

Posted by Ed on March 24, 2008 at 8:58pm — 1 Comment

Corporate Puzzle

So, I just got the corporate puzzle we put together for our company. I need to wait until we share it at our company event to show it here. But, needless to say the Stave team did a great job. For a ~50 piece puzzle it is amazingly hard. I'm so excited for when we give it out in a few weeks and I'll post more after the event. Continue

Posted by Erik on March 21, 2008 at 11:20pm — 1 Comment

Treasure Island

Hi All,

After putting Knight at Stavely Castle together - FINALLY - I decided to revisit Andrea Farnham's Treasure Island. Compared to KaSC it was a 'walk in the park' but immensely enjoyable. The art work is, well, a work of art! A riot of colour (that's the correct spelling by the way) :)

My new friend Ted informed me that only 41 of the intended 50 were made as Andrea left Stave before the series was complete and more can't be made as Andrea has the plans but Stave owns the… Continue

Posted by Noel Ashman on February 8, 2008 at 2:19pm — 4 Comments

Speed Record

So I ordered Luxembourg Gardens (

) and it arrived Wednesday night. I finished it in about 1 hr. I was a puzzling mad man, and I loved every minute of it. Great puzzle, very beautifully done.

You can see photos of it completed on my flickr page. (spoiler warning other staves in completed form are shown there)
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Posted by Erik on January 18, 2008 at 12:10pm — 3 Comments

Creating my first puzzles . . .

A few months before Christmas, I had a conversation with Kathy, my wife. It went something like this:

"Kathy, I think I know what I want for Christmas."

"Good. What do you want?"

"A scroll saw"

"What's that? I've never heard of a scroll saw."

"It's a saw that looks like a table with a small thin blade that goes up and down through…

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Posted by John Furlong on January 16, 2008 at 12:43pm — 1 Comment

How to link a puzzle name to the Stave Web Site

In case you are not familiar with creating a web link, here are some instructions that will show you how to link a puzzle name to the corresponding Stave web site. This will work in the Stave PuzzleNuts forum and blog posting sections.

1. Locate the puzzle on the Stave Web site. Just go to stave.com click on Search, put the puzzle name in the search field and press return.
2. Find your puzzle in the list that is shown and then click on the name of…

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Posted by Ed on January 15, 2008 at 2:37pm — No Comments

How to embed Stave Sword and Lightning bolt images into your forum posts or blog entries

In case your are not sure how to do this here are some directions on how to add Stave Swords

or Lightning Bolt

graphics to help describe a puzzle name in the Stave PuzzleNuts forums and blog post entry fields: 1. From the list below find the Sword or Lightning Bolt that you want and select the web address by clicking with your mouse starting at the www and ending with t… Continue

Posted by Ed on January 15, 2008 at 2:30pm — 5 Comments

"This puzzle is tricky . . . "

My five year old daughter was very excited to give my wife (Kathy) her Christmas gift this year, Jonah and the Whale - our first Stave puzzle. Julia even picked it out herself, adding to her excitement. Kathy has done puzzles all her life long and in the last 10 years or so, we've picked up a number of wooden puzzles "cut" by J.C Ayer (for those who don't know, Jim uses a water-jet system to make his puzzles). She waited until the kids got into their gifts, then she cracked open the box expect… Continue

Posted by John Furlong on December 26, 2007 at 6:06pm — 2 Comments

Taking Them Apart

I left several puzzles assembled for nearly 10 months because I enjoyed looking at them and remembering the nights that brought them to life. But with an impending move, it was time to box them up. Wiggling each piece loose reacquainted me with the characters of the little worlds. In the past, I'd hurriedly throw them back in the box to catch at least a few winks before the work day started. But now, I took my time. It was nearly as enjoyable putting them back to bed as it was wak… Continue

Posted by June Herold on December 2, 2007 at 7:37am — 1 Comment

Custom puzzle design

As a digital artist at Stave I most enjoy creating custom artwork for our client's puzzles. These projects can start with a few photos or a ton of them. It is fun looking over all the photos and blending them together into a collage or other form of custom art. There is usually quite a bit of discussion and planning with the crafter, graphic designer, and customer to conceptualize the puzzle design and personalization. Then the magic happens..........the artwork is created and the puzzle is cut.… Continue

Posted by Cindy on December 1, 2007 at 3:06pm — No Comments

Why Stave Puzzle Nuts?

Hi. The idea to create StavePuzzleNuts.com was born in the wee hours of the morning. I was alone, bent over Treasure Trove. Dolphins and Starfish actually move at 3 a.m. And here's a fact: You can pull your hair out and yawn at the same time! I knew I wasn't the only one obsessing over puzzles but how would I find kindred spirits?

Meanwhile, scheduling and other variables of life have prevented me from attending Stave Puzzle Parties. Why not find other Nuts and get togeth… Continue

Posted by June Herold on November 12, 2007 at 12:13pm — 2 Comments

Sacred Spirits Teaser

Sacred Spirits arrived yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised. I had a feeling, by its description in the catalog and online, that it might be more of a challenge than some of the recent teasers I've done. I was right! Because the silhouettes are intricately decorated and in a pallet of muted colors, getting those little suckers in the right place wasn't easy. Normally I go through the smaller teasers in 45 mins max. But it took a little over an hour for this pupp… Continue

Posted by June Herold on November 12, 2007 at 12:11pm — No Comments

Grand Finale... Twin Farms Puzzlenut Party 2007

Ya shoulda been there!!! Late yesterday afternoon around 4:45 it was wrap-up time.... time to bring the 2 days of puzzling madness to a close. During these wild 2 days we rewarded correct answers to the various mystery challenges with poker chips.... 100, 1000, 5000 denominations. Three of the teams had accumulated nearly 100,000 worth of chips. Paula had the brilliant idea of auctioning off 4 Teaser puzzles, the players using their accumulated chips. So everyone took 5 minutes to divide their t… Continue

Posted by Steve Richardson on November 11, 2007 at 6:09pm — No Comments

Saturday Lunch-time at Twin Farms Puzzlenut Party

Paula, Jennifer and I just finished a delicious lunch here at Twin Farms... yum! This place is amazing! Recently voted America's #1 small luxury resort they really know how to do things right!

This morning was filled with brain-straining challenges including a Clue-type game involving a 3-D, 6 room mansion/dollhouse constructed by Stave:

…

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Posted by Steve Richardson on November 10, 2007 at 2:20pm — No Comments

Saturay Morning at Twin Farms

OK, it's a beautiful day here at Twin Farms... 10:00am.... hmmmm, how many Puzzlenut participants will show up given the sunny, cool weather. Yesterday the room was packed with about 30 of us, including Paula, Jennifer and me. We had two energy packed sessions, morning 10-12 and afternoon 3-5.. we had 8-9 teams of 3 depending on who was getting spa treatments. The puzzle race grand finale was quite spirited. By the way, we are offering two(2) grand prizes: a 2 night stay at Twin Farms and a 250… Continue

Posted by Steve Richardson on November 10, 2007 at 10:05am — No Comments

Friday afternoon at Twin Farms Puzzlenut Party

3:30 here at Twin Farms and the Puzzlenut party-goers are starting to arrive for the afternoon activities. This morning they were challenged with six(6) different Mystery challenges, the goal being to try to determine which guest 'stole' which item from Twin Farms, a DVD, a book or a bottle of wine. One of the challenges was t assemble a 100 piece puzzle and solve the rebus and enlarged silhouette which were clues to who stole what.This afternoon it will be regular puzzling of small puzzles alon… Continue

Posted by Steve Richardson on November 9, 2007 at 3:34pm — No Comments

Gobble Gobble Game!

Hi to all Stave PuzzleNut community members.

I have been testing the Gobble Gobble Game for a few days now. Several of us around the shop are playing right now - it's hard to stop. I think this is one of the funnest games we have had so far. Melody has even started to chase the turkeys instead of avoiding them.

HINT - TURN YOUR VOLUME UP! And play alot so you can be a part of the $2007 in puzzles and prizes!

Gobble Gobble, Paula
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Posted by Paula on November 8, 2007 at 8:51am — 3 Comments

Stave Puzzlenut Mystery Party at Twin Farms starts TOMORROW!!

EGADS!!!! How time flies. Here it is Wednesday night and we are all feverishly working to get everything ready for tomorrow when we go to Twin Farms (45 minutes away) to start the party. I will be making regular postings from Twin farms during the next 3 days so stay tuned!
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Posted by Steve Richardson on November 7, 2007 at 5:45pm — No Comments

Teasers and Tricks

I just posted this on my blog but thought it might be more appropriate to publish here.

One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday morning is to watch the CBS Sunday Morning show. A while ago we saw a story about Stave Puzzles. I was completely enthralled. I have always loved puzzles. As a kid, I would to sneak downstairs at night to finish my moms puzzles before she woke up in the morning. As an adult, I'm sure, she just… Continue

Posted by Lis Malmgren on October 30, 2007 at 12:19pm — 2 Comments

Hello Fellow Stave PuzzleNuts!

I am so pleased to be part of the amazing family at Stave Puzzles and this is the best yet! A place to meet others who share an appreciation in the artwork of puzzlery. I'm looking forward to learning more about how to navigate around this gem of a website. As an artist who has just started breaking ground on the possibilities unfolding in my life, I am very excited to be a part of this network connected with Stave Puzzles. I have spent over 30 years with my love of art simmering on the back bur… Continue

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