Lately I’ve been spending excessive amounts of time on Pinterest trying to brainstorm creative ideas to help my toddler learn. Last week I decided to make my son a name puzzle so he could start recognizing his name and begin to learn letters. 

I began designing the puzzle using the Forest Bear-A to Z Alphabet Set by Tallagandra Farms on Etsy. Tallagandra Farms also has many other themed alphabet sets. The alphabet set consists of two layers, with the top layer featuring  bears, mountains and pine trees arranged on the individual letters. After laying out the letters, the bear and leaving enough spacing to glue everything together I ended up with final dimensions of 4 inches tall by 15 inches long.  I chose to use a few different wood species to create the puzzle. I chose ¼  inch green and blue painted birch for the front and back pieces that make up the body of the puzzle and natural birch the bottom layer of the letters. For the top layer of the letters I used ⅛ inch walnut and for the bear I used ¼ inch red oak. 

Takeaways…What Would I Do Differently? 

The final result turned out super cute, but there are a couple things I am going to do differently next time. The main issue that was noticeable right away was how delicate the top layer of the letters were. The alphabet set was designed to be used at a larger scale than what I used for the name puzzle.  In the original design file the letters are approximately 7 inches tall, but I shrunk the letters down to about 2 inches resulting in a very thin border.  Since I was planning on the letters being two layers and protruding past the surface of the puzzle I did not include finger tabs like I did for the bear. My initial thought was that I should fill the interior of the letters with resin or epoxy…..but I didn’t have any, and I certainly didn’t feel like loading up two kids, under two, into the minivan to drive 35 miles to Rockler to get some.

 Solutions?

Some other ideas were to recut the top piece of the puzzle body out of the ⅛ walnut and recut the letters with the design etched directly onto the single layer letters. This would allow me to be able to use the same design for the top piece of the puzzle since the ⅛ inch top would allow the letters to protrude and little fingers to pull them out.

 I think the best solution for me will be to eventually remake the puzzle using ¼ inch wood for everything, using single layer letters with finger tabs and etching the bears, mountains and pine tree design directly onto the letters.