WengsWorld - Connecting and Sharing

After the first competition, my (kind of, short working project-type) colleague Christine who took part, suggested to me that I should have a theme for future events. For my second competition, I chose the theme "Connecting the World" for 2 main reasons, namely:
(a) I had signed myself up to be Singapore's representative on the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation, and
(b) Around that period, I was still half toying with the idea of taking part in some international 24-hour jigsaw puzzle competition in Belgium! <crazy right?>


In line with the theme, I chose as the competition puzzle a map of the world, as people explore and discover the world and connect with other people by using maps.


For the next event on 17 Dec, being near the end of year and the Christmas period, I have chosen the theme "Connecting and Sharing". In Singapore, with the gap between the haves and have nots growing more and more (our gini coefficient appears to be increasing all the time), those of us who are slightly better off should really share what we have with other Singaporeans or those around us. I think that as a society as a whole, we really seem to have focused on certain aspects of life (eg, namely economic progress, wanting a better life for ourselves and our families, etc) in recent times, to the neglect of other aspects of life.


So, for the next event, I'm asking all participating teams to bring their used puzzle(s) to the event, and to donate the puzzles to the Singapore Association for Mental Health (SAMH) centre at Tiong Bahru. I blogged a bit about SAMH on 22 Nov. I will consolidate what can be collected, and bring them down to SAMH. SAMH can either use the puzzles for their own in-house activities, or give them to their clients. Let's see how many puzzles we can gather and share.


To everyone participating on 17 Dec, I do hope you will consider supporting this effort. Everything starts somewhere, so let's start something on 17 Dec together. If you don't have anything you wish to give away, that's perfectly fine! Please be comfortable with whatever you are doing  :)

WengsWorld - ‎3rd WengsWorld Jigsaw Puzzle Competition in Singapore

‎3rd WengsWorld Jigsaw Puzzle Competition in Singapore



Calling all jigsaw puzzle lovers, and those who want to try something different. Come take part in this event. Details as follows:


Date: 17 Dec 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 2.30-5.30pm
Venue: Tiong Bahru CC (67A Eu Chin Street, Singapore 169715) Hall.


Competition details: 500 piece competition puzzle. Teams of 2 persons needed to take part. Registration fee $14 per team (payable at the event itself). Prizes for the top 2 teams!


Please register your interest either here, or


you can email me at wengsworld2@gmail.com, or


you can follow me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/WengsWorld/225313257479703, or


you can follow me on Google+ at https://plus.google.com/u/0/107836135274202893745/posts

WengsWorld - Jigsaws and Mental Health

I've not really seen any formal research or studies that links making jigsaw puzzles with better mental health. Intuitively however, I'm guessing that there should be some benefits. After all, when one is making puzzles, you're using your eyes to look and search, using your fingers to touch and feel, and most importantly using your brain to rotate pieces, fit them, and ultimately create the picture. If you happen to be doing the puzzle with another person, there's also the social and interaction aspect as you talk to, listen to and communicate with your partner.

I'm going to be doing a puzzle activity with the clients of the Singapore Association for Mental Health (SAMH) YouthReach soon. Their centre at Tiong Bahru is run by Mr Ang Poh Hee. Poh Hee and I knew each other from the time we were both previously working in children and youth services. We met up over lunch about a month and a half ago, after many years of not being in contact with each other. As we talked about what we were doing, the topic of jigsaws came up and we decided we could try this out with the clients of SAMH. And so next month, I will be doing a 2 hour jigsaw activity with some of their youth.

For my friend Poh Hee, he is always on the look out for activities to keep his youth engaged and occupied. For the holidays especially, since his clients don't have school, he and his staff have to double their efforts to keep engaging the youth. He would certainly welcome anyone who wishes to volunteer their ideas or time. The organisation's website is www.samhealth.org.sg

For me, in my more than 13 years in social services previously, I never actually worked directly with mental health clients; it was mostly children and youth. So this is something quite new for me too, and something I'm looking forward to. Let's see how it turns out  :)

WengsWorld - Puzzle History (sharing link)

Some very interesting stuff!

http://rohnertpark.towns.pressdemocrat.com/2011/11/news/gallery-puzzling-history-in-rohnert-park/

WengsWorld - Life is like a box of jigsaws; you never know when you're gonna find 1 piece missing.

What do you do when you complete your jigsaw puzzle and find you're missing a piece?!?


It happened to me twice.

The first time was probably 20 years ago. My girlfriend and I and 2 other friends took part in a jigsaw puzzle competition in the uni, and we came in 2nd. The prize was a 750 piece puzzle from Heye, sponsored by one of the local jigsaw puzzle shops. I made that prize puzzle with my girlfriend and when we completed it, we discovered to our 'horror' that there was 1 piece missing. How disappointing! It just didn't feel right, after all the effort we put in, to come up short. Although we knew that the puzzle was a prize, we still felt somewhat short-changed.

We decided to go to the shop to see if we could get some help from them. We brought with us the pieces surrounding the missing piece. I remember that the shop was at Serene Centre. It's no longer around, although Serene Centre still is. At the shop, we were fortunate to meet the same lady who gave away the prizes to us after the competition. She recognised us. When we told her about our 'problem', she told us to look for the same puzzle on the shelf. We found it; the puzzle was new and still sealed. The lady told us that we could open up the puzzle to look for the missing piece. How nice of her! We tore open the wrapping, poured the pieces onto the floor, and started looking. Again fortunately, our missing piece was one of the unusual ones, one of those with 3 innies. The majority of the other pieces were of the 2 innies 2 outies variety. The few customers who came into the shop and who saw us sitting on the floor doing............ ["What the hell are those 2 doing?"]. After about 20 minutes, we found it.............the missing link! The shade of the missing piece was slightly lighter than our set <picky picky> but..........I digress. We put back the pieces into the box, thanked the lady, and happily left the shop. After we left the shop, we did wonder if the lady would sell the incomplete set, or whether she had a way to exchange it with her supplier, but we knew we were lucky to find our missing piece.


My second experience (well.........kind of) was just recently, about 6 weeks ago. My youngest was doing a  204 miniature piece puzzle and when she completed it, she found 1 piece missing. Unlike 20 years ago, the jigsaw puzzle shop here in Singapore now has a formal way for customers to request for missing pieces. There's a standard form the shop gives to customers with each purchase, detailing what needs to be done in order to make such a request. My youngest pestered me to quickly submit the form; I think she was feeling the same way as I did some 20 years ago. However, because I wasn't the one actually completing the jigsaw (and except for 1 or 2 pieces didn't even contribute at all), I don't think I felt emotionally involved in the puzzle. That and work and other stuff, well, I put off completing the form and submitting it. Hey, it still would have taken 8-10 weeks for the request to be processed even if I had done it immediately! Then one day, while opening the drawer to look for something, my youngest found the missing piece! She guesses that the piece must have dropped into the drawer during either the opening or sorting part. Problem solved, despite my lack of effort. This is the pic of the completed puzzle:

204 piece miniature puzzle

WengsWorld - Puzzle-making Tips

[1] Break down the entire puzzle into manageable parts

Unless you are an expert or super serious puzzle maker who likes to start with the most difficult portion of the puzzle (eg the entire blue sky!), it usually is more helpful if you complete the ‘easier’ portions of the puzzle first to encourage yourself to go further. Success breeds success, and there is nothing more invigorating than finishing different portions of the puzzle until you finish the entire thing! 

[2] Start with the sides and form the frame

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out. There will be less pieces with straight edges and so you can quickly form the frame of the puzzle, which allows you to start building the puzzle inwards from the sides.

[3] Spend some time sorting out the pieces

It pays to be systematic, so it is worth spending the time separating the pieces according to where they will appear in the puzzle. Look at the picture of the puzzle. Identify and group the pieces that go together. Make use of the following cues to do your sorting:

(a) Colours and shades

Look for pieces of the same colour, eg the blue sky pieces, the green grass pieces, or the brown animal pieces. These may form a sizeable portion of the entire puzzle. There may also be smaller objects in the puzzle of an obviously different colour, eg a red balloon, a white cloud, or a yellow car. Look for these pieces, piece them together, and build up your puzzle from there.

Even among pieces of the same colour belonging to a portion of the puzzle, eg the blue sky, look for differences in the shade of the colour to help in your sorting and piecing together.

(b) Boundaries

Look for boundaries between objects, eg the line where the grey building ends and where the blue sky starts, and find those pieces with the boundaries. After you have joined the pieces and formed the boundaries, work your way inwards or outwards from those boundaries.

(c) Textures and lines

Look for portions which are polka-dotted, striped…………anything different! Remember, you are trying to take advantage of any visual cues which will allow you to identify and pick out pieces easier from among all the pieces.

Look for lines appearing in the picture, eg a road, a train track, the edge of a building. These are easy to form.

[4] Use cues on the puzzle piece itself

In addition to using the different cues from the picture, eg colour, texture, lines, you should also use the cues on the actual puzzle piece itself. Some pieces have 1, 2, 3 or 4 tabs, (also known as knobs or outies), which are the protruding parts of the jigsaw piece. Likewise some pieces will have 1, 2, 3 or 4 innies. If the gap where the missing piece is has 3 innies, you can narrow down your search by only looking at pieces which have 3 or 4 outies.

For portions of the puzzle which have uniform colour and texture, eg a blue sky portion, you may not be able to use colour, shade, texture or other cues. In such a situation, before attempting to try piece by piece on a trial and error basis, look at the characteristics of the jigsaw pieces. I sometimes find it worthwhile to align all the (for example) pieces with 2 innies and 2 outies in the same orientation, and look out for special quirky characteristics of each piece. Some pieces may have innies or outies which are slightly bigger, or the outies may be curved slightly upwards or downwards, or the piece may be slanted in a particular way. Look for the corresponding piece which has the complementary characteristic.

My wife calls this technique (if you can even call it a technique) ‘staring’. It is almost as if you are looking for some unique feature of each piece, from pieces which appear to be the same. Look at the gaps in the puzzle where the ‘special’ piece would fit. You’ll be surprised how a little bit of additional observation can save you from having to do everything by trial and error.

When all else fails, well …… you would have reduced as much as possible the pieces you need to fit using the trial and error method.

[5] Be patient and persevere!

There will be pieces that are practically impossible to sort because you just can’t identify where they go in the picture. That’s fine. Start piecing together those you have already sorted, making use of the cues listed above. Depending on the puzzle and also your own abilities and experience, you will encounter roadblocks along the way where you can’t seem to find the correct piece to fit. That’s all part of the frustration and fun of jigsaw puzzle making! Keep at it and don’t give up. Move to another portion of the puzzle and come back later to the portion where you were stuck at. Consider changing your orientation, perhaps move to the opposite side of the table to view the puzzle ‘upside down’. Who knows, everything is about perspectives, and you may fit a missing piece that much easier. 

When you do complete the puzzle, admire the picture for what it is, and give yourself a pat on the back for having overcome the challenge. 

WengsWorld - Jigsaw Competition on 17 Dec 2011 in Singapore

As several of you have indicated your interest in a 17 Dec event, I'm going ahead to plan for it. Please spread the word!