As it happened (from my Journal archives)

December 17, 2001

9:20 pm - In what turned out to be a very long day of cutting, I completed #202, Walk, the last puzzle specifically ordered for Christmas. Will have piece count later - probably 300 Swirl Curl. I came close to losing the puzzle while cutting the clef note figural (probably my most difficult figural), a thin interior piece will require some attention while handling, overall the puzzle is superb. Will have a picture later. The puzzle was made from a matte-photo - the paper cut extremely well, was hard to follow the blade at times as the "trail" was hardly visible. The paper has a bit more glare than some other paper I've worked with so lower light is recommend when assembling.

I revised my "Love" text piece a bit, making the line which flows from the letter "o", go through the "v" to connect with the "e". A fine "piece" of work in my opinion. I also placed a leaping frog figural in an appropriate location relative to a dragonfly figural (newly designed). The puzzle's picture is of a path through a very dense woods.

From the customer's website (Jeff Kellem) - "The History"

Earlier in the year, before Erin's birthday, I came up with the idea to have a nice puzzle created from one of her photos. I was originally thinking of having a very large (16"x20"), many piece (500-1000), puzzle made. I found that this would be very expensive. And, I couldn't find a puzzle maker that I really liked. So, I ended up putting the idea on the back burner, for a while.

A couple months before Christmas, I thought about the idea again and started searching for puzzle makers. After much searching, I ran across Custom Puzzle Craft, John S. Stokes III. John's passion and obvious quality of work convinced me that he was the puzzle maker to use. I absolutely love to support people in the things they're totally passionate about. And, he's great. Also, the journal he keeps as he creates the wooden puzzles is a nice, personal touch. I find a lot of people really like to see what's happening as he creates their puzzle. I know I did.

In November, I contacted John at Custom Puzzle Craft about creating a puzzle for a Christmas present. Of course, he was very booked up and had a huge backlog of puzzles. Luckily, after he analyzed his worklog schedule several times, he found he would be able to squeeze me in as the last puzzle for 2001. Yay!

In December, I told Erin that a friend and coworker, John (a different John), wanted the "Walk" puzzle for a gift. So, she quickly produced the matte print, which I immediately FedEx'd to Custom Puzzle Craft. John at Custom Puzzle Craft recommended a matte print.

He was able to start and complete the puzzle on Monday, December 17, 2001 and sent it via the USPS the following day. Unfortunately, with Christmas and all the extra precautions these days, it didn't arrive by Friday, as we had hoped. Normally, it would only take two days to get from San Diego to Mountain View. The pictures of the figure pieces for the puzzle on John's journal entry for December 17, 2001 looked fabulous.

Since the puzzle didn't arrive before I left to visit my parents on the east coast, I had to wait until January to give Erin the present. That's fine, though, since we're used to doing multiple Christmas's.

On Saturday, 5 January 2002, I went to Dan and Erin's house to give them the last two Christmas presents, one of which was the awesome puzzle detailed here. She loved the puzzle. I also included printed excerpts of John's daily web journal that included references to her puzzle, for her to read. She really liked that, too. We put together half of the puzzle that night. She and Dan completed the rest of it one Sunday. She had to call me immediately after finishing the puzzle to tell me that they had completed it!