Getting Crafty

I put together this photo puzzle tutorial last fall for photojojo. It ended up not getting published, so I decided that rather than just let it sit in a folder on my computer forever, I will share it with the world. It takes probably an hour to complete one puzzle (depending on the size and amount of pieces). I've given them as gifts and stocking stuffers.

Photo Puzzle Tutorial

I always love a good rainy day activity, and puzzles are a classic. But a 1,000 piece windmill puzzle isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. Instead of putting together a puzzle, why not spend a rainy afternoon creating your own photo puzzle?

What you’ll need:

• Blank puzzles (available at craft stores, in a variety of sizes with large or small pieces)
• Printed photos (8x10 and 5x7 work the best)
• Rubber Cement
• Scissors
• X-acto knife
• Pencil and a marker

Step 1

Pick your photo to puzzle-ize, if it’s not exactly the same size; trim it to fit your puzzle. If your puzzle is bigger than your photo, mark the size of the photo on the puzzle and use the x-acto knife to cut off the extra puzzle. If you don’t want to trim your photo or puzzle, you can add a boarder with construction paper.

Step 2

Once your photo matches the size of the puzzle, flip your blank puzzle upside down, take one row of pieces out at a time and trace them with a marker. Continue until you have all of the pieces traced.

Step 3

Cut along the lines with the x-acto knife, and glue each photo puzzle piece to its matching puzzle piece.

Step 4

Mix ‘em up, and let your friends and family assemble the puzzle to discover your photo.

Best of Today

Today is kinda blah.

But the internets did have two cool things for me. These are my favorite bits of today:

1) Judge Judy Prank Calls! Ah, the prank call....a lost art.

2) Lego recreations of iconic photos. (The one above is my new wallpaper)

Pretty Pictures

I recently took an online portrait photography class. Click here if care. I have some focusing issues, but I'm still happy with how some of the photos came out. (It doesn't hurt that I'm friends with such pretty ladies)


Dying to see more? I'm now on flickr too.

Things I learned from Reading

Whilst reading the paper this weekend I learned two things:

1) Polaroid is going to stop making film, which just seems wrong, after all “Shake it like a picture using the technology licensed by Polaroid.” Just doesn’t have the same ring to it…

2) What a Super Delegate is (hint: they will decide who the Democratic nominee is and they are comprised of a lot congress members, former presidents, and the like, so it’s pretty obvious who will win)

Which got me thinking about how totally f-ed up our electoral process is. The Onion breaks it down

Here are a few of my favorites:

Election 08 Glossary

Caucus: The process by which Americans are quadrennially reminded of Iowa's existence.

Democracy: A moderately representative plutocracy.

Electoral college: A process by which the number of states in the Union is narrowed down to the most important seven or eight.

Hope: An intangible object within every American that is destroyed every four years in November.

Likability : The degree to which each candidate is able to hide the extent to which he or she is full of shit.

Rock The Vote: Something that is, apparently, still happening.

Land O' Plenty

I just read about photographer Chris Jordan today, his stuff isn't the most amazing photography I have ever seen in my life, but it is pretty cool.

Although the message may come off a bit preachy at times, his new series: Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait is a really interesting idea: to read that 2 million plastic bottles are used every 5 minutes in the US and then photograph it (above). Well, it makes me feel good about using the same water bottle for the past four months- germs be damned at least I'm not wasteful.