So what are the important factors to consider when choosing a manufacturer to create your personalized photo puzzle? What does Jigsaw2order.com incorporate into the manufacturing process to ensure that these high standards and expectations are met?
]]>At Jigsaw2order.com, we believe that the assumption of quality should be the same when you order a mass manufactured store jigsaw puzzle or an individual picture puzzle made to order from your own photograph. Unfortunately that isn't a view held by all manufacturers of photo jigsaw puzzles. Many companies offering low priced products do not compare where quality or durability is concerned resulting customer disappointment with the photo puzzle you receive.
A personalized photo puzzle should be something that not only can be used today, but also last without fear of damage or fading (normal wear and tear notwithstanding). Personalized picture puzzles are often given as gifts or souvenirs and it would be very disappointing to consider that within a short space of time the puzzle looked old, tired and even damaged — even without it having been used.
So what are the important factors to consider when choosing a manufacturer to create your personalized picture puzzle? What does Jigsaw2order.com incorporate into the manufacturing process to ensure that these high standards and expectations are met?
Essentially there are five separate factors which contribute to the eventual quality and durability of a Picture Puzzle. Of these five factors, four of them are within the control of the manufacturer, with the fifth being down to you! Jigsaw2order takes pride in offering the very best possible quality in all areas within its control.
Your own contribution to the success of the puzzle is in providing a good quality digital photo. The photo you choose will depend on the puzzle difficulty you want and personal taste. You might decide to be deadly and supply a photograph of recurring patterns such as a flower bed consisting of hundreds of identical flowers! Most people however opt for a romantic photograph of your partner and yourself or a family shot. Either way, lighting, focus and overall picture quality will all be important.
Technically, your image needs to be large enough (high enough resolution) for the size of puzzle you want to order. The larger the puzzle size, the bigger the image needs to be. With today's digital cameras, image resolution is less of a problem. Even the cheapest cameras produce 4 or 5 megapixel images — enough for a nice quality 500-piece puzzle. When uploading your image with your order at Jigsaw2order.com, the system automatically checks the image size is suitable for the puzzle size ordered.
The Jigsaw2order.com website automatically checks each image you upload to make sure that it is suitable for the puzzle size you ordered. Once we have the image, our graphics design team digitally resizes, adjusts and enhances every photo uploaded. We also remove red eye, imprinted dates and other photo imperfections to make your photos look their best as puzzles.
The printing method used to produce the jigsaw puzzle image is critical to a good quality product. A quality puzzle will have accurate colors and printed on paper that will resist moisture and not fade easily. Cheap jigsaw puzzles are often created using nothing more than a standard ink jet or laser printers with results that fade rapidly, or smudge easily from moisture on your hands.
Jigsaw2order.com produces all their photo puzzles using professional photographic enlargements digitally produced using the latest photo lab technology. The resulting print has a beautiful silk finish and excellent color representation with colors that will last for many years. An added benefit of using photographic paper is that the puzzle picture surface is protected with a coated surface resistant to water drops.
Most personalized photo puzzles are made from cardboard (sometimes called chipboard) which comes is a wide range of thicknesses and qualities. Poor quality cardboard is usually characterized as being soft and floppy due to a high moisture content. Good quality cardboard is stiff and hard and has a low moisture content resulting in a good quality puzzle. Low cost puzzles area usually made from low quality cardboard so thin that each piece will be very flexible, and the whole puzzle will not so much click together as flop together. Of course, cardboard that absorbs moisture easily will soon warp, meaning that the pieces will be very ill-fitting.
At Jigsaw2order.com we use only Grade 'A' cardboard that has a minimum thickness of 1.2 mm producing quality stiff puzzle pieces. We also only use environmental friendly cardboard that is recycled from waste paper doing our part to protect the environment.
Another factor to consider is the quality of the glue used to fix the image to the cardboard. The water content within the adhesive is a key factor in producing a quality puzzle that does not bend or warp. Low cost puzzles generally use an everyday paper glue resulting in a warped puzzles and a product that will almost certainly peel away from the cardboard backing over time. Remember, if the puzzle is going to be used, all the edges of the pieces will be handled, and rubbed against each other. Jigsaw2order.com uses a professional standard latex based adhesive with an extremely low water content. This results in a flat cardboard sheet that when cut produces a better quality puzzle. It's also non-toxic, an important criterion for kids puzzles.
Jigsaw2order.com uses a professional standard latex based adhesive with an extremely low water content. This results in a flat cardboard sheet that when cut produces a better quality puzzle. It's also non-toxic, an important criterion for kids puzzles.
A jigsaw needs to be cut, and the method and quality of cutting is an important factor in a quality puzzle. Most manufacturers use a steel die, much like a cookie cutter, that cuts through the cardboard sheet dividing the puzzle into the individual pieces. The quality and design of the puzzle die will affect the quality and fit of the puzzle pieces. A good puzzle die is expensive to purchase and in many ways is the hidden secret to a quality puzzle. The die needs to be very sharp otherwise tearing is possible, or pieces may not be separated effectively and remain partially joined. Attached pieces, fuzzy or torn edges all suggest the die needs to be replaced (dies cannot be sharpened). Due to their cost, many manufacturers may not do this as often as necessary resulting in poorly cut puzzles.
Jigsaw2order.com designs all its own puzzle dies and replaces these on a regular basis to ensure cut quality is as high as possible. You can be sure that the quality of all our jigsaw puzzles is as sharp as our dies, and you'll be delighted with a puzzle that will last many years.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.
]]>If your like most people, terms such as dpi, ppi, megapixels, jpeg, tiff and image resolution just sound like tech talk and you have no idea what these terms have to do with photography, then this article is for you.
]]>When we talk about image resolution you need to know there are two separate resolution factors to consider. For example let’s say you receive an email from your sister. In that email is the cutest picture of your niece. You’d like to create a jigsaw puzzle from that photo, but there is just one problem. The image resolution required to print a good quality picture is a minimum of 150dpi (dots per inch) and most photos sent by email or viewed on the Internet are about 75 dpi.
What that means is while the photo may be cute the use of the photo to create a photo puzzle will likely find your niece blurry because the file size is too small. The end result will not be what you had hoped for because the image resolution is too low.
These three photographic expressions may sound like either an economic report or an animated studio, but the truth is each element can tell you something different about your photo, your camera and what to expect from your finished product.
DPI — This stands for “dots per inch” and essentially helps you understand how detailed your picture will be. If you print at 600 dpi you will have a very clear print, but the size of the print may be smaller than you like. By reducing the dpi to 300 you will produce a larger sized photo with minimal loss in clarity. If you need an even larger print you can also print at 200, 150 or even 100dpi, but you will also add to the overall loss in quality. This is why the 75 dpi found in most online photos makes them nearly impossible to use for any print application such as the production of a Photo Puzzle.
Pixels — This is the smallest measurement of a digital image. Each pixel contains information that will help reconstruct a photo. The more pixels used – the more clarity the picture will have. Standard cameras generally have 6 megapixels (6 million pixels) or less. 4-6 megapixels is often enough to create a pleasing result for one of our jigsaw puzzles.
PPI – This stands for “pixels per inch” and generally coincides with dpi (dots per inch). While this doesn’t signify the number of dots in printing it does signify the number of photo information elements used in a print.
These image elements relate to each other as follows:
1. You can always calculate the print size of an image by dividing the image’s width and height in pixels by the print resolution. A 1800×1200 pixel image printed at 150dpi would produce a printed image of size 12in x 8in. The same image printed at 300dpi would only produce a 6in x 4in print.
2. The width and height of a digital image measured in pixels can be multiplied to work out the megapixels. For example, an image which is 1800×1200 pixels can also be defined as a 2.16 megapixel image (1800×1200 divided by 1million).
We talked about this a little bit, but it is worth nothing that when you choose a higher resolution you also reduce the image size. Many users will conclude that by selecting a resolution of 600 or even 1200 dpi they will gain a larger and more pure image. It may indeed be a clear print, but the image size will be small.
A common compromise is 150-300 dpi. The end result is almost as clear as a higher resolution and the end result is a larger image size.
Jigsaw2order.com uses a minimum print resolution of 150dpi at 100%. This means that we digitally enlarge your image to the size of the puzzle you have ordered and save the resulting layout at a resolution of 150dpi. The minimum print size therefore for a 16×20in puzzle is an image file which is 16×20in in size at 150dpi or has a pixel dimension of 2400×3000 pixels.
We can print at higher resolutions than this (up to 300dpi) but we have found that 150dpi produces a good quality print.
The lower the image resolution, the less information is saved about that image and therefore available for the printer to print. A 75dpi image as normally found on the internet, has enough information to display a good quality image on your computer screen but too little information to produce a good quality print.
To produce a Photo Puzzle, we use a minimum print resolution of 150dpi which produces a nice quality puzzle print. If you needed an image for a high quality magazine article, 150dpi would be too low and a print resolution of 300 to 600 dpi would be required.
Once an image has been captured, it can be saved in various formats. Most digital cameras today save images in a compressed “JPG” format but there are others.
One main difference between image file formats is whether the image information used to define the picture is compressed (to save space) or saved uncompressed (sometimes called lossless) where the file size is large but all the information is retained.
JPEG (.jpg) – (Recommended) This file format is perhaps the most common image format and is the image file format recommended for use by Jigsaw2order.com. You can shrink the size and crop the pictures to meet your demands however, because it compresses the photo, you can also lose information that may make the JPG file blurry or even pixilated the more manipulations the photo undergoes.
The JPG file format also allows you to specify the amount of compression used when saving an image. Using a low compression setting, will save a higher quality image but also increase the resulting file size.
TIF (.tif) – This is a lossless file format. What that means is that you can do virtually everything you could do to a JPG as far as editing the photo, but it does not lose information with every transformation. The resulting file sizes are much larger which often make tiff files difficult to transmit over the internet.
GIF (.gif) – This is a file format that can be used to develop simple animation and is generally used for internet images and animated banners. The primary difference is the compression in JPG files makes the GIF more popular with some online users but the resulting quality can be reduced.
PDF (.pdf) – This is a portable document file (developed by Adobe) that can be used to save an image. Some users will save a photo with text using a program that can export the completed document as a PDF. PDF image files are more complex to create and may not always produce good quality results if the settings are incorrect.
BMP (.bmp) – Often called a bitmap this photo file may be most at home in a Windows based online environment. It can be manipulated in some programs and works well for online applications. A BMP image file does not generally have the same level of quality as a JPG or TIFF file and is therefore generally not recommended print projects such as Jigsaw Puzzles.
We've already defined the term megapixel, but we should also point out that digital photographers have the option of selecting a lower megapixel range in order to maximize space on their onboard hard drive or removable card. If you are taking pictures to use in the development of a jigsaw puzzle we recommend choosing a high megapixel (high quality) setting on your camera.
If all you have is a physical photography, you can create a digital version of this by using a digital scanner. This is sometimes called “digitizing” your photo.
Your first choice will be to select a suitable photo to scan. If you have a choice between a small wallet sized photo or larger photo such as an 8×10in print, choose the larger one as this will result in a better scan. We always recommend using the largest print available. The larger the image the more we can work with in creating a puzzle product you will be happy with.
Before scanning your image, make sure you wipe clean the surface of your scanner and the photo to remove any dust. A speck of dust becomes a football when the image is enlarged. We do digitally retouch (remove) any dust marks but it is better if you remove the dust before scanning.
We also prefer to work with the original image file that was generated from the camera or scanner. This gives us a better starting point from which to enlarge the photo to the size of puzzle you have ordered.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.
]]>Jigsaw puzzles have been around for decades. Some might argue that it's a game for children, but it is just as popular with adults. They are often purchased at stores, but there are many other ways to get them. For example, you can make your own and start a family tradition of making one every year.
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Jigsaw puzzles have been one of the most popular puzzle games since the mid 1700s when a map maker from London, John Spilsbury, first created commercially available puzzles. They have endured for hundreds of years because of the fascination people have with creating order from chaos, an image from a fractured box of meaningless color. The reward of finally completing the jigsaw puzzle is always deeply satisfying. Jigsaw Puzzles however have come a long way since these early days.
Unlike many puzzles, jigsaw puzzles have the added bonus of providing the successful puzzler with something enjoyable to look at — a beautiful scene, a famous work of art, a map, or some other picture which can be kept as something to enjoy for its own sake. It is for this reason jigsaw puzzles continue to be as popular today as they have ever been and appeal to a wide audience and age range.
What has changed is the ability to create high quality personalized jigsaws from photographs you supply. This has resulted in this widespread popularity of Personalized Photo Jigsaw Puzzles. Photographs can now be scanned into a computer, or simply transferred directly from a digital camera allowing people to purchase jigsaw puzzles that use their own photograph or artwork.
Of course personalized jigsaw puzzles have been around for quite a while now, but what many people don't realize is just how much the manufacturing process has developed in the past few years. Early examples of personalized jigsaws were often fairly flimsy affairs, limited in size and offering only a few puzzle pieces. This resulted in a puzzle which was easy to complete, small, and not very satisfying. Today the situation is different. It is now possible to order a jigsaw puzzle based on a photograph you supply which is manufactured to as high a quality standard as any professional jigsaw puzzle available in the shops.
High quality personalized puzzles are now available in a wide range of sizes and piece counts catering to a more demanding market. These puzzles provide more choice, more durability, and even more of a challenge! Poster sized puzzles can now be produced with 1000 or more pieces displaying your favorite photo or artwork. Your photos will never have looked so good or given you so much fun.
Quality from the larger photo puzzle makers has also improved dramatically in recent years with excellent printing quality, and high grade cardboard with good quality adhesive now being used. Today's technology also allows the manufacturers to enlarge, enhanced and corrected your photo so it produces the best possible looking puzzle.
Don't however take quality for granted as all suppliers are not created equal. When looking to buy a personalized puzzle, read the suppliers' website carefully and ask questions. As a general rule, buying a personalized jigsaw puzzle from one of the larger suppliers is a safe bet and will give you and your family hours of fun.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.
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]]>If you are anything like me, you will love to take pictures of your beautiful family. When you do, you can put them in a photo puzzle for family and friends to enjoy. Creating a custom photo puzzle is a great way to display the memories of the people who were in them and create something that is very personal and will be treasured for many years to come.
]]>It's not surprising then that the demand for personalized photo jigsaw games made from your own photos has increased in recent years as people look for new and innovative ways to enjoy their photos. A picture is worth a thousand words and what better way to remember the good times than through pictures.
A custom-made Photo Jigsaw is one such way to enjoy your pictures. These make perfect gifts and can be enjoyed and treasured for many years to come. The increased quality of even an entry level digital camera or smartphone means that jigsaw puzzle manufacturers can now create puzzles of a larger size, with many pieces, without any loss of quality of image.
Many people are going further than this and taking personalized jigsaw puzzles to a new level. With the ease of image editing on a computer, it is now perfectly possible to create composite photo collage images using a number of photographs either scattered randomly much like a pin board or a page from a scrapbook. By using a multi-photo collage image to create a puzzle, a really individual, unusual and fascinating puzzle game can be created.
Imagine being able to present a friend with a jigsaw puzzle that includes a half dozen photographs of recent trips out or shared events; or perhaps a photo jigsaw given as a souvenir gift to parents on their child's first birthday. With a dozen photographs of a child scattered across the whole puzzle each taken in a different month of that child's first year, this makes a great gift. With just a little imagination, many ideas spring to mind to create something which is not merely a jigsaw puzzle, but a commemorative keepsake that will be treasured and enjoyed for many years.
Looking at images on a computer screen while enjoyable lacks the personal touch - the physical and tactile enjoyment of holding pictures. Creating personalized jigsaw puzzles is not simply creating a gift, but giving something which helps to recapture the tactile enjoyment of an image. By breaking a photograph up into dozens, scores or even hundreds of pieces, it creates an opportunity to hold, study and discover small elements that individually might otherwise become lost within the bigger pictures - a smile, a look, something forgotten, often treasured. It is true to say that jigsaw games really do help us to see our own photographs in a completely new way.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.
]]>Everyone has a story. What stories have you captured in your camera? A photo collage puzzle is a great way to get your favourite photos printed and turned into a treasured keepsake. Photo collage puzzles are also a great way to show off your talent and creativity. Here are some reasons why you should bring your photos to life in a photo collage puzzle.
]]>Scrap Bookers have been doing it for years. Cutting out parts of photos and pasting these to a textured background to create a unique photo collage layout. In fact that's where the term "cut and paste" came from. Similarly, a photo collage is something that everyone is used to seeing. Whenever you open up a web page or even a magazine, you'll find that the designers have used photo collage techniques to create many of the pictures and layouts you see. What's new is the availability of tools to digitally create photo collage layouts. No more scissors and sticky glue - all you need now is a computer.
While a digital technology has changed the way photo collage designs are created, not everyone has the skills or the ability to create their own Photo Collage layouts or even the desire to do it themselves. Yet photo collage designs are a great way to show off your family photos and keep your memories alive. Fortunately websites such as jigsaw2order.com now make the process of creating a family photo collage simple and easy for very little money. Not only that, they can also turn the finished photo collage layout into a unique Jigsaw Puzzle.
With nearly everyone owning a digital camera these days, people are looking for more creative ways to use their photos. They are no longer satisfied to leave their photos on their computer or hide them in an album that is stored away most of the time. More and more people are genuinely looking for a way to keep their memories fresh, to look at their photos more regularly and to celebrate those events that are really worthwhile. A family photo collage picture puzzle, like a traditional jigsaw puzzle is created from a montage of your own photographs and offer a great way to put your pictures to work.
For those of you who are thinking that a Photo Collage Jigsaw Puzzle is a great idea but are unsure how to go about it, there's good news. When you work with Jigsaw2order.com, all you need to do is decide what photos you want to use in the design - and their Graphics Designer will do the rest.
If you have a concept in mind or other ideas for the layout, just let the designer know what you want and within days, you will receive a preview of the photo collage layout for your review and approval. The designer will take your ideas and create a unique layout for you. Every photo will be checked and retouched to remove dust or scratches. Colors will be enhanced if necessary and exposure adjusted to make your images stand out and look their best. In some cases, borders will be added to photos and in others the subject of the photo will be cut out and superimposed on a different background.
If after reviewing the preview you would like some changes to the layout, just email the designer with your request and a new revised preview will be sent for approval. Once you approve the design, it takes around 7 working days to produce your unique Jigsaw puzzle based on the photo collage layout. What a great way to remind you of those special family moments, fun vacations or time spent with friends.
If you are looking for ways to enjoy your photographs, get them out of the drawer or off of your hard drive and use them to create a unique Photo Collage Picture Puzzle. Once the puzzle is complete, the finished Photo Collage Jigsaw Puzzle can be framed so that the memories, old and new stay fresh in your mind.
Personalized photo puzzles are a unique way to express your thoughts and feelings. You can use a photo of you and your significant other, your child, or even your pet. The puzzles can be given as a gift for a birthday, anniversary, or other special occasion. These puzzles are ideal for any occasion and come in a wide variety of themes.
]]>The photos you take always tell a unique story capturing those magical moments in time. There is nothing really more personal than those memories and that's why using your photos to create a personalized photo puzzle for someone close to you is a great gift idea. You're not only giving a unique and fun present, but bringing life to those special memories.
Photo Jigsaw Puzzles say it all when you're looking to give an unusual gift with a personalized touch for a special occasion. They are perfect for wedding anniversaries to surprise your wife or husband with a gift made from a special photo of a treasured time in your life, presented in a fun and unique way. Even better is that you get to pick the memory. You can choose your favorite wedding picture; a photo of the two of you on your honeymoon; or perhaps a picture of the family and kids. A Photo Puzzle is extra special as it's not only brings fun in itself, but it's the one gift that also brings back happy memories. Every time they look for a piece of the puzzle, they will be thinking of that special time in their life.
The possibilities for a Photo Puzzle are unlimited and offer a great gift idea for all types of events and celebrations. Birthdays, Family Reunions and retirement gift are all popular times to give a personalized photo puzzle. They can also however have fun practical uses as well. A unique way to announce your party of event is to use smaller postcard puzzles and send these out as invitations. What a novel and creative way to send an invitation! Use them for birthdays, parties, special announcements or as a giveaway gift. You can create silly and funny ones that children will simply love to put together.
For that really special anniversary or announcement, why not use a photo puzzle to surprise your partner with a second honeymoon or a unique gift they have always wanted. Just incorporate the clues or words into the puzzle that reveal the secret. Think of the surprise on their face as they gradually realize the contents of the special message within the puzzle. It's a great way to surprise someone!
After the jigsaw puzzle has been solved and the last piece put in its place, the enjoyment does not stop here. A personalized photo puzzle gets made time and time again because it's not just the fun of the puzzle, but the memories that go with it that add to the fun. What better way to spend a few hours solving a picture puzzle made from a happy memory?
Another popular idea is to frame the completed photo puzzle and hung it on the way. This is a great way of remembering not just the fun, but the memories that the photo puzzle displays. The Photo Puzzle is truly a gift that keeps on giving.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.]]>There are many different reasons to celebrate your wedding anniversary, and a wedding anniversary gift should be just as unique and special as the reason for celebrating. If you want to find the perfect gift for your partner, you need to know what to look for. This blog will give you ideas for a unique and special gift for a wedding anniversary.
]]>So what makes a great wedding anniversary gift? When you need wedding anniversary ideas for a couple who have been together for thirty or even fifty years, the challenge is finding a gift idea that is unique and special to the couple and that really showcases their life together.
It's probably not the first thing you think about, but more and more people today are buying a personalized Photo Collage Picture Puzzles as wedding anniversary gift for their spouse, grandparents or close friends. When looking for wedding anniversary ideas, you will want to choose something that will offer enjoyment, bring back memories, and can be shared by two people. After all, an anniversary is as much about memories as it is about celebration.
Creating a personalized photo collage picture puzzle as a wedding anniversary gift is as simple as going on-line, placing your order and uploading your photos. You can use whatever photos you like that reflect the defining moments in the couple's time together - or focus on a memorable event or activity.
The photo collage layout is professionally designed to showcase the people and images in the best possible way. You can request the designers to highlight certain images, frame or fade images into one another; add words to incorporate a special message and have it all placed on top of a chosen background image or theme.
Your first choice will probably be to include your wedding photos but don't worry - no matter how old these are, they will be restored and enhanced for best possible effect. Other favourite photos such as pictures of the kids, vacation snaps, family get together and special events all can be included in the photo collage picture puzzle to create the a unique gift that will be treasured as much as the memories themselves.
Popular also with recently married couples is to create a Photo Collage Picture Puzzle of their special day as a unique keepsake. Combining a few of your favourite wedding day shots into a Photo Collage is a lovely way to capture the memories of that special day. After solving the Jigsaw Puzzle, they can have it framed and hung on the wall so that the memories remain fresh and vibrant.
Whether you are looking for wedding anniversary ideas for a couple who still fall into the category of newlyweds or you are looking for wedding anniversary gifts for a couple that have build a lifetime together, it's important to think about what is special to the couple. By selecting photographs that capture key moments in their lives together, and creating a photo collage picture puzzle, you can be sure to surprise and delight them with an anniversary gift that will be treasured. Ultimately, this sort of unique customized gift is at the heart of what you are looking for when considering wedding anniversary ideas.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.]]>Family fun nights are an amazing way to bring the family together. When you get everyone involved in a shared activity, it is always a special time. Everyone gets to know each other better and this has the potential to be a memory that will last a lifetime. If you are interested in planning your own family fun night, this blog post is for you.
]]>These days, it is all too easy to get caught up running from one place to the next. Your son needs to get to soccer practice, while your daughter is going off to a ballet or gymnastics class and yet another is out spending time with friends. Unfortunately, in most families it's difficult to get everyone around the dinner table let alone spending quality time talking and having family fun.
One of the things that you quickly discover is that family fun can seem like a great concept but it's often really difficult to fit into how a modern family works. Just because it may seem as though there are few, if any activities that the whole family can enjoy together, it is still essential for any family to spend some quality time together, talking, learning and simply finding out what's going on.
When you're scheduling a family fun night, you need to recognize a number of things. First, playing video games isn't really interactive and conducive to great conversations the way that playing board games are. Similarly, watching TV or even having a DVD movie night isn't going to help you to start talking and really stay connected with your family. When you're planning a family fun night, what you need is a focus for everyone's attention, a centerpiece for the evening which allows and even promotes conversation. One answer is a Picture Jigsaw Puzzle.
Picture Jigsaw Puzzles have been bringing families together for hundreds of years and are still as intuitive and fun as they always have been. What has changed is the availability of Personalized Jigsaw Puzzles — picture puzzles with your own family photo as the puzzle. What better way to stimulate family conversation and have fun at the same time! A photo of last year's family reunion, or your son's birthday party; maybe a family portrait or even a picture of mom and dad in fancy dress are all great ideas for your personal picture puzzle. The fact that you can use your own photo really adds to the family fun aspect of this pastime. Having a half made puzzle lying around the house is a great way to get kids and adults to stop for a while and share some quality time.
But why only use one photo when you can have a photo collage puzzle created from multiple pictures. Photo collage puzzles can showcase great times that you've had as a family such as last year's summer vacation — what a great way to get the family talking about this year's vacation plans and have fun at the same time. You can also use a custom-made jigsaw puzzle to surprise the rest of the family with news of a special event, an exotic vacation or major purchase. What better way to surprise the kids with a Disney vacation than to organize an evening solving a picture puzzle with a Disney theme.
When you are looking for a great way to get the family talking; an activity that everyone can enjoy during a family fun night; something that will keep all ages involved from kids to grandparents, check out a Personalized Picture Puzzle. After all, picture puzzles that are focused on your family are an ideal option to get everyone talking and sharing — a great way to bring the family together and have family fun at the same time.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.
]]>Any of these family reunion ideas and activities will help bring your family together and most importantly get people talking. After all, that's what reunions are all about and personalized puzzles provide a great, non intrusive activity that the whole family can participate in and enjoy.
]]>Far away job opportunities, educational choices or simply the urge for families to travel make family reunions even more important today. Far away job opportunities, educational choices or simply the urge for families to travel make family reunions even more important today than ever before. A family reunion is about keeping in touch with brothers and sisters, meeting and getting to know new family members, and for kids to spend quality time with their grandparents, aunties and uncles that they may not see very often.
When families see little of one another, family reunion games and activities become an important ice breaker to bring people together and promote conversation. By getting everyone involved in family reunion games, you can help make connections and have fun at the same time. The important thing is to arrange family games and activities that will keep everyone involved from grandparents to the grand kids. A favorite family reunion idea that brings all ages together is a family Jigsaw Puzzle — even better is a jigsaw puzzle that is custom-made for your family and personalized with a picture of family members.
Today, custom-made picture puzzles are low cost to order, come in a variety of sizes and piece counts and can be made from almost any photo or artwork. Turn your favorite photo of the family into a fun and challenging Jigsaw Puzzle that everyone can enjoy. Take this a stage further by selecting multiple photos and having a professional photo collage layout created and turned into a puzzle. This makes a great talking point and centre of attention on the coffee table and a great keepsake after the reunion is over. Websites such as jigsaw2order.com offer such a service.
Here are 5 other great family reunion ideas on how to use personalized jigsaw puzzles and photo collage puzzles as family reunion games at your next event.
Give puzzle pieces in advance to all family members with the instructions to bring these with them and complete their piece of the puzzle. This is symbolic of bringing the family together and a great way of saying the family is not complete without them. (tip: it's a good idea to have a second duplicate puzzle ready just in case some pieces are lost).
Have a photo collage layout made-up in the design of a family tree showing each family member and their place within the tree. Everyone who comes to the reunion can see how they fit into the family puzzle. You can have a large 1000+ piece puzzle made for the family to work on during the reunion and have smaller individual puzzles for each family member to take away as a keepsake of the event.
Have a small 8×10in puzzle made-up from a photo of each family member or family groups and give these out at random. The first person to make their puzzle and identify the family member wins a prize. This is a great activity to get people talking and one that any age can participate in.
Have a photo collage puzzle made up after the event based on photos of the family and activities at the reunion. A copy of this can then be sent out to each family as a memento or keepsake of the event.
Any of these family reunion ideas and activities will help bring your family together and most importantly get people talking. After all, that's what reunions are all about and personalized puzzles provide a great, non-intrusive activity that the whole family can participate in and enjoy.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.
]]>Grandparents are sometimes difficult to buy for. This article presents a unique gift for grandparents that they will love
]]>We all struggle from time to time trying to figure out an ideal gift for someone close to us. There are always going to be those people in our lives who seem to have everything they need or want. Even when you press for hints about what they might like to have, the answer almost always comes down to, "I don't really need one of those" or "I can't really think of anything I need". In particular, this is usually the case when thinking of gifts for grandparents or senior citizens.
The answer is to look at a gift ideas that are unique and personalized to an individual. When considering gifts for grandparents, one idea you must include is the Personalized Jigsaw Puzzle. Think about it - what could be a better gift for any grandparent than one that shows off their family and kids? Picture puzzles have long been a great gift idea for grandparents but now, with the availability of picture puzzles made from your own photos, why not take the idea to the next level. It's so easy now to order a picture puzzle made from your favourite family photo. A personalized picture puzzle is a fun activity that can also help focus their attention, keep their minds sharp and give them the pleasure of seeing their grandkids.
When you're looking at creating a Photo Jigsaw Puzzle, there are a wide variety of options that are available to you:
Simply put, giving a personalized picture puzzle or photo collage jigsaw puzzle as a gift allow you to feel confident that you can surprise the person "who has everything". It's a unique gift that allows you to share your memories with those grandparents who have not always had the chance to see their grandkids growing up. That of course is perhaps the greatest benefit to giving personalized photo puzzles as gifts - you are able to keep grandparents included and to let them see first hand the joy that your kids have experienced.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.
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The history of the Jigsaw puzzles can be traced back to 3000 B.C., where puzzles were originally used as a religious ritual in Egypt. However, the first modern day appearance of puzzles can be traced back to the 18th century and have their roots in the related puzzle known as the "Tangram". They were originally known as Disentailleur, or "de-disentangler" in French, which is a word that refers to the process of removing jigsaws from their mold.
The invention of jigsaw puzzles is credited to John Spilsbury, a London engraver and mapmaker. In 1760, he came up with the idea to mount a map onto hardwood and, using a fine saw, cut around the borders of each country. His objective was to create an educational tool that Children could use to learn about geography.
By the 1850's jigsaw puzzles had become an entertainment. Advances in printing and cutting methods progressively reduced prices, culminating in the die-cut cardboard puzzles that are mass-produced today, but the same technological advances also reduced the individuality of puzzles and all but wiped-out the art of the puzzle maker. Jigsaw2order.com is pioneering the comeback of the custom made Jigsaw Puzzle by combining individuality with modern production techniques.
The Golden Age of jigsaw puzzles came in the 1920s and 30s with companies like Chad Valley and Victory in Great Britain and Einson-Freeman, Viking and others in the United States producing a wide range of puzzles reflecting both the desire for sentimental scenes, enthusiasm for the new technologies in rail and shipping and, last but not least, new marketing strategies.
It might seem strange at first that a non-necessity like a jigsaw puzzle would sell so well in the Depression when money was in short supply. But the appeal, then as now, was that the Jigsaw Puzzle bought a good deal of entertainment for a small price. The weekly jigsaw puzzle could constitute a solitary or group activity, and would occupy one's time enjoyably for hours. And, of course, a jigsaw puzzle was "recyclable," in that one could break the puzzle up once one had completed it and then pass it on to another family member or friend. Another point to bear in mind that jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts in the Depression discovered what many in our own time are rediscovering - that working on a jigsaw puzzle is a great way to reduce stress!
More recently, the pandemic of 2020 forced people to stay home which spiked the demand for stay at home activities such as Jigsaw Puzzles. For a few months in 2020, store shelves were empty of Jigsaw Puzzles and many puzzle manufactures were forced to close to prevent the spread of the virus. Those that did stay open could not keep up with demand with sales increasing by 10000% or more.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.
In this modern age or hi-definition TV, 24 hour movie channels, smart phones and digital music you may conclude that the Jigsaw Puzzle would find it hard to compete for a part of the family's leisure time. Surprisingly enough, the Jigsaw Puzzle has prospered for over 200 years and still offers many benefits over its more modern rivals.
Most of us at some time in our life have enjoyed solving a Jigsaw Puzzle. Whether as a child to help us learn about our world, as an adult to bring the family together, or as a senior citizen enjoying the challenge of exercising the brain from the luxury of your own armchair. The satisfaction gained from fitting the last piece to complete the puzzle is undeniable generating a sense of achievement and accomplishment.
The Jigsaw Puzzle is unique in that it is a pastime that can be shared by anyone at any time. From 7 year olds to 70 year olds, the Jigsaw Puzzle holds its attraction. There are no rules to learn, no knowledge requirement, it’s completely independent of language and culture differences and requires no prior knowledge.
The Jigsaw Puzzles offers a challenge that the whole family can enjoy in a relaxed non pressurized atmosphere. It provides therapeutic recreation as an individual or group activity and is a great way to reduce stress.
After recovering from an illness, doing a jigsaw puzzle is a light activity that enhances the patient's eye-hand coordination and ability to match pieces by color. Patients can do this while standing or sitting (whichever is most appropriate) and at the same time can be socializing with other patients.
Jigsaw2order.com is a leading manufacturer of Jigsaw Puzzles to retail and trade customers. Let us turn your digital images into a photo jigsaw puzzles or multi-photo collage puzzles.
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