Wedding Idea you might like to play with!

[Dee Gallo]

I ran across this and thought it is the kind of thing "we" might like to make. It is basically a gift for bridesmaids or groomsmen. It could be a necklace or keychain. There are all kinds of possibilities for customizing!

puzzle necklaces.jpg

[stefano panusa]

First thing I thought of was a birthday scavenger hunt type idea.. put them together to find the final location (or something like that). It really does have a lot of potential.

[Craig Matheny]

That is cool let the imaginations roll

[Bruce Boone]

I like it. It looks perfect for the laser I'm building. Combinations of meteorite, black zirconium, titanium, silver, and brass would look nice too.

[Dee Gallo]

I like it. It looks perfect for the laser I'm building. Combinations of meteorite, black zirconium, titanium, silver, and brass would look nice too.

Yes, Bruce, you have the perfect tool for this - the rest of us will have to play with wood and acrylic, but still... lots of possible uses. Post if you do make one with those materials, it would be fantastic.

I had a customer who wanted something for her family as the kids got older- this might be the perfect family thing now that I think of it. I came up with 4 keychains with all four names on them, but each one had one name color filled. The idea is that they would each think of the others every time they used their keys. This would be even better, as the concept of pieces of a whole would be very strong juju.

[Chad Fitzgerald]

talk about good timing. I think this is an awesome idea. I just had a lady contact me looking for a special bday gift for three sisters who barrel race together. Im going to make a sample to show her.
Does anyone have some sort of "jigsaw vector template". Or is there something in corelx4 that would make the pieces, or do i need to do it freehand? thanks for the idea. this place is great.

[Douglas J Miller]

For families, put a picture of the entire family on it, and have each face on one piece. Putting them together shows the entire family. How about a picture of a families crest, for those that have them, and they each get a piece. Put together, the entire crest is shown, and the family is whole again. All kinds of things you can do with this....

[Kim Vellore]

Each member of the family has one of the puzzle piece and when put together it forms a key to a box (simple acrylic one) which holds the key to the kitchen store room or something as valuable as that...

[Matt Turner (physics)]

Does anyone have some sort of "jigsaw vector template". Or is there something in corelx4 that would make the pieces, or do i need to do it freehand?

GIMP has a customizable jigsaw rendering plug-in (Filters->Render->Pattern->Jigsaw). You could try generating the outlines in GIMP and then tracing them in CorelDRAW to make the vectors.

[Chad Fitzgerald]

What is GIMP and where do i find it??? is it on the internet, software, ??? Thanks for the help.
Chad

[Matt Turner (physics)]

What is GIMP and where do i find it??? is it on the internet, software, ??? Thanks for the help.
Chad

GIMP is basically a free alternative to Adobe Photoshop. You can download it at http://www.gimp.org/. I gave it a try using Inkscape instead of CorelDRAW (I don't have CorelDRAW) to trace the paths to create the vectors. I was able to create the vectors using the automatic trace tool. It seems to work best if you fill every other puzzle piece black, like a checker board pattern, in GIMP before saving the bitmap and trying to trace it. If I have some time in the next few days I'll see if I can put together a tutorial.

[Paul Phillips]

Wow Matt, just noticed your posts, in case no one has said it yet, welcome to the creek, and I'm sure inquiring minds want to know what does an experimental physicist do with a 400W Kern laser?
Paul

[Douglas J Miller]

and a 7.5 MeV tandem Van de Graaff particle accelerator

I mean, like, who DOESN'T have one of those?

Some people get all the fun toys....

[Bill Cunningham]

Do a search here for jigsaw puzzle, there have been a number of cutting vectors posted in the past..

[Dee Gallo]

Not to sound like a fuddy duddy, but really folks, this is a simple thing to draw... give it a try! Even if you have to trace it. I can see it being used for a shape like a heart or state or star outline too. Tessellations would not be hard either.