karenpuzzles

New video - Meet my team for the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships

We are less than a month away from Worlds and my preparation is moving into high gear! The other weekend I flew out to Connecticut for a regional competition and a practice day with my team. Unfortunately Sarah got sick and couldn't be there, so the first time all four of us will be together will be in Spain. But it was still a really helpful weekend to hone our strategy, and discover that I love doing sky in a team puzzle 😂

2023-08-27 16:02:40 +0000 UTC View Post

New video - I don't know how they made these 3D puzzles

Today's video is all about some puzzles I've been wanting to cover for a while - the Contour puzzles by Milton Bradley released in 1968. These are made of foam and the pieces are different heights and textures to correspond with what is on the image. They're very cool and I've never seen anything else like it:

https://youtu.be/1zsPMPdT97o 

So you might be wondering where all of the footage is from last weeke...

I finished the 9000 Piece Puzzle + another exclusive video

Hello everybody! I am so happy and relieved that the 9000 piece puzzle is over and I have my dining room table back. I loved the start of that puzzle...and then things changed when I got to the sky. You can watch the full video here:

https://youtu.be/58PJs4EtmB0 

As you saw at the very end of the video, I'm at my parents' house for a bit, so I thought I would film a tour of my childhood bookshelf, since you ...

The final 9000 Piece Zodiac Puzzle video is here!

Oh my gosh, what do I even say? This video has been such a labor of love (and despair, at times). I really didn't remember what I was signing up for when I took on the Zodiac puzzle again, and that sky was BRUTAL. You can watch the entire (almost hour-long!) video here:

https://youtu.be/58PJs4EtmB0 

For real this time I'm definitely never doing it again. But I'm already thinking about which giant puzzle I wa...

Exclusive Preview of the 9000 Piece Puzzle Video Part 4

I had some ambitious plans that after finishing the puzzle on Wednesday that I might be able to get the video turned around by this weekend. I've been editing as I go, so some of it was already cut together by then, so the plan wasn't as crazy as it might sound. But, I was so exhausted after several full days in a row of powering through that sky that I just couldn't do it.

I am working on it though and I should be able to post it next weekend, but for now I have an exclusive preview of...

I opened the mysterious holographic puzzle

Hey Patreon! I know I literally just said I wanted to do easier puzzles for a change, but I just had to know what was inside the super rare holographic puzzle that I showed in my recent haul video. You'll have to watch the video to see my reaction and find out whether it's solvable or not.

https://youtu.be/HNieUipWv0k 

Outside of my own video this week, I also contributed to Tom Scott's newest video. He had ...

Can we just do something fun? (Plus new exclusive puzzle vlog)

Hey Patreon. So let me tell you about today’s video. I bought this cork puzzle from Sarah Schuler and was so excited to solve it. As I say in the video, the cork puzzles from Jane Wooster Scott are some of my favorites. I won't lie, even though it was an easy puzzle to solve, it was kind of a difficult video to edit. But in the end, I think it turned out ok. You can watch it here:

https://youtu.be/Xjp4-_u_5sM

A...

I found my new holy grail puzzle + Bonus Unboxing Video

Hey Patreon! My new video is another giant haul, including a handful of very exciting holy grail puzzles that I’ve been wanting for ages. You can watch here:

https://youtu.be/EPuwIHl_Yi4 

I filmed this a few weeks ago, but it’s because I wanted to get a relatively quick video finished early so that I could have some extra time to work on the 9000 piece Zodiac puzzle again.

I also spent all of this ...

An update on the 9000 Piece Puzzle

Hi guys, bet you didn't expect to see me today. I wanted to film a little bonus update video on the 9000 piece Zodiac puzzle to let you all know what's going on. It's still going to be a few weeks until the final video is up, but hopefully this video explains all of my reasons. I have a lot of other fun puzzle stuff coming up, so stay tuned!

Newsletter #7 - I Raced the Fastest Puzzler from 1986

Hi everybody and happy puzzle Sunday! Today’s video is one that I’m super excited about - I got the two puzzles that were used in the 1986 National Jigsaw Puzzle Championships and I’m speed running them to find out how I would have placed. Make sure to watch until the end for a lot of bonus info about how the old contests worked back then:

https://youtu.be/oH3jhG8mhI4

This is the Springbok Fever website wit...

Newsletter #6 - I finally did the giant Lazels puzzle

It’s new puzzle Sunday once again! In today’s video I’m solving the 473 piece Lazels puzzle. You guys have been waiting for this since my last Lazels video, and it is truly a work of art. This is a metal puzzle with teeny tiny pieces - you have to use tweezers to put it together! You can watch here:

https://youtu.be/ht0cl21Evsk 

Paid Patrons

For my paid patrons this week, I uploa...

Exclusive bonus video - Do some speed puzzling practice with me

Hi everyone, so today’s bonus video doesn’t really have anything to do with this week’s main channel video. I just decided to do some speed puzzling practice and bring you all along with me for it. My goal was to finish the puzzle in under an hour - check out the video to see if I did it:

https://youtu.be/PVKwMQ6lUdU

For full disclosure, this puzzle was gifted to me by Eeboo. But if you want to try it yours...

Newsletter #5 - Part 3 of the 9000 Piece Zodiac Puzzle is up now!

Hi everybody. It’s been a minute. Thank you all so much for your well-wishes on my Instagram post. I am feeling much better now and excited to get back to work after taking so much time off.

Speaking of getting back to work, Part 3 of the 9000 Piece Zodiac puzzle video is here! After how easy the beginning of this puzzle was, the sky was no joke. You can watch right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watc...

Bonus video: All of the puzzles I did in Alaska

Hi everybody, and welcome back to Puzzle Video Sunday for the first time in a while! Part 3 of the 9000 Piece Zodiac Puzzle is up now and you can watch it right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw0WKPwQumw 

As I said in the preview post, I didn’t quite finish the puzzle yet, but I will be getting back to it in between making the videos with brand deals that have to go up, so stay tuned ...

Exclusive preview of the Zodiac Puzzle Part 3

Thank you so much for all of your well-wishes last weekend. I am feeling much better now and have been able to get back to filming and editing. I'm almost done with Part 3 of the Zodiac puzzle, so I thought I'd put up a preview of the beginning of the video for all of you since it's been a while since you got a video from me!

I promise the music gets less unsettling as the video goes on. I just wanted to convey just how difficult the edge was. Honestly, I'm still rearranging it even now...

Where I've Been

Hi everyone, it's been a minute. Is this thing still on?

I wanted to just send out a quick update that I'm alive and...not totally well, but well enough.

So here's what happened. Two weeks ago, my family took a vacation to go on a cruise through Alaska. We've been working on this trip and planning it for about a year now, and it was so exciting to be able to see a new part of the world together. So that was the planned time off that I was hinting at on here.

Unfortunately, a...

Exclusive content of the 9000 piece Zodiac Puzzle Part 2

As promised, Part 2 of the 9000 Piece Zodiac puzzle is up! You can watch the video right here:

https://youtu.be/GDYiqIaVCQk 

And just like last time, I decided to edit together some deleted scenes as well as a bonus segment showing a closer look at all of the different textures in the outer ring, since a lot of that solving happened in the time lapses. You can watch above or right here:

2023-06-02 16:03:29 +0000 UTC View Post

Newsletter #4 - Part 2 of the 9000 Piece Puzzle is out!

You all have been so patient and it's finally here - Part 2 of the 9000 Piece Zodiac puzzle! You don't believe how fast I'm getting through it. You can watch the video right here:

https://youtu.be/GDYiqIaVCQk

Make sure to leave your guess for my final time in the comments, and whoever gets closest will get a shoutout in the next video!

I'm already back to work on the final part (solving that giant purple sk...

Exclusive preview of the 9000 Piece Zodiac Puzzle Part 2

Hi everyone, so as you can see, I couldn't get my next video finished by today. I have been hard at work at the 9000 piece puzzle, and I actually think I could have hustled and gotten the video finished in a week...except that I spent Wednesday and Thursday with an awful headache that meant I couldn't work on the puzzle those days. But I was able to film all day Friday and I got SO MUCH DONE. So the puzzling is done for the video. I just still have to film the outro and then finish the editin...

Newsletter #3 - Starting My Next 9000 Piece Puzzle!

After many many months without doing a giant puzzle, I am back at it and tackling the 9000 piece Astrology puzzle from Ravensburger! This is the same puzzle I did when I was 18, and I kept a time log back then, so I'll be able to do a full comparison between the two solves. So far in this video, I documented the first four days, which was the sorting and the inner circle of the puzzle:

https://youtu.be/SPn9D1QcCMg ...

Exclusive video - Zodiac Puzzle Bonus Content

Today marks the start of my next 9000 piece video series - I'm doing the Astrology puzzle that I last did when I was 18! You can watch it here:

https://youtu.be/SPn9D1QcCMg

Since this was such a big project, I ended up with some extra footage that I cut from the video. That is in the first half of this bonus video. And then in the second half of the video, I filmed a new segment where I show all the mini-categori...

Exclusive video preview - 9000 Piece Zodiac Puzzle

Hi everybody, I just finished my next video, which is part 1 of the 9000 piece Zodiac puzzle series. And since I know my bonus content has been a little lacking lately, I thought I'd upload the first 2 minutes as an exclusive preview. It cuts off right before I share the footage from 14 years ago - even though I know it'll be out for everyone to see soon enough, let me have a few more embarrassment-free days first 😣

I also uploaded it as a native Patreon video instead of on YouTube, ...

Exclusive video - Karen vs Yvonne at Puzzle Chess

My new video is up and it's all about an online puzzle competition that I did with Yvonne the other weekend. To be honest, originally I was only planning to use this footage for Patreon and social media, but I ended up having enough to say that I decided to make a main channel video out of it:

https://youtu.be/RuTm9q3aNok

I also wanted to put up a relatively simple video this week because...I have officially star...

The Puzzle Competition Where Everything Went Wrong

Hi everybody and happy puzzle day Sunday! My new video is up all about the puzzle competition I did with Yvonne last weekend. The results weren’t quite what I hoped, but so much went wrong that I’m still happy with where we ended up:

https://youtu.be/RuTm9q3aNok

If you want to watch in real time, you can see the livestreams on ...

The Second Karen Puzzles Puzzle is here!

Hi everybody and welcome to the first edition of the Karen Puzzles Newsletter! I’m so happy that Patreon launched a free membership option so I can reach all of my top puzzlers in one place.

The big news this week is that the second Karen Puzzles Puzzle is here! It is called Gradient Cascade, and it features giant falling puzzle pieces with cutouts around each one to make 6 mini puzzles within the big puzzle. This is honestly the most perfect puzzle I’ve ever done and I’m thrilled...

Hello to all of my new free Patrons!

I was so excited when Patreon let us know they were introducing a free tier. That's something I've been wanting for ages, and I can't wait to have a space to reach all of my most dedicated puzzlers, even if you're not able to support my channel monetarily. Patreon is still rolling out this feature, but at the end of the week, I'll be launching my free weekly newsletter, where I'll be sharing all of the puzzling I've been up to as well as all of the top puzzle news from around the internet. 2023-05-02 01:27:27 +0000 UTC View Post

New Video: The Wild and Wacky World of Crossword Puzzle Jigsaw Puzzles

Hi everybody, and happy Sunday! I missed last week's video, so now I'm back with a 50 minute deep dive into every puzzle in history that has combined crossword puzzles with jigsaw puzzles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCjEQjQlF20 

I want to give a special shoutout to PuzzleYOU. They've been such a great partner on my channel and this video came about because I wanted to think of a creative ...

No new video today, but a few puzzling updates

Hi everybody, so unfortunately I wasn't able to get a new video finished for today, but I am halfway through filming next Sunday's video. That one is going to be all about jigsaw puzzles of crossword puzzles, so I'm doing three different vintage examples and talking about all of the creative ways different companies have taken this concept.

Unfortunately...I swear the video is cursed. I had issues with two of the three puzzles (not with the filming, just with the puzzles themselves), so...

It's finally time for my Gameophiles deep dive (plus an exclusive video!)

I have been wanting to make this video for a long time now, and now that it's tax time, it's the perfect week for it. I'm solving the 1040 Income Tax Form puzzle, released in 1973 by Gameophiles. And then, I'm doing a deep dive into all of the wacky products they released over the years. You can check it out right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ8_B_7hRxo 

I also wanted to do an exclus...

New tour video AND new exclusive video AND new info about my new puzzle

Well, this has been a big week. I started off the week thinking I was just going to begin dropping little nuggets of teasers about my second Karen Puzzles Puzzle with Ravensburger, and then a few stores in Canada got it in stock and now it's out...ish. I made two short videos to confirm that it was a real thing and to try to explain what is going on:

https://youtube.com/shorts/FIHRfoppFe8

2023-04-09 16:07:13 +0000 UTC View Post