Meet Janell Amely: Puzzle Maker and Owner of 3 Cat Max

I stumbled across the history of wooden puzzle making when I was designing a curriculum to teach middle school students how to use a laser cutter. Around the last turn of the century, scroll saws were quite similar to treadle sewing machines, and society ladies would cut wooden puzzles from calendar images glued to wood. They would cut strange shapes, add shaped pieces that could look like a flower, for example, and cut fun little tricks to challenge their friends during tea. Using a design program and a laser cutter, I made my first one and loved it so much that I made another that I gifted to my mentor, who promptly hired me to create a custom puzzle for her father’s retirement celebration.

Lack is the mother of invention, and I lacked a way to print or glue an image onto wood. Tapping into my problem solving skills, I realized that I could laser the surface of the wood that had been primed white to create the picture, then paint it with watercolors like a paint-by-number scene. But it was so nerve wracking to cut that first custom art piece into 150 pieces! I literally couldn’t look until the laser had completed the job, and I was immensely relieved to see that it had cut exactly like it had on my test pieces. Because of that first commissioned job, I made a business of selling puzzles with creative cuts, custom artwork, and meaningful whimsy pieces.

Soon after that first commission, I was in the right place at the right time to be gifted a windfall of 100 pounds of reclaimed mirror acrylic. I am passionate about the eco choice that I make in my business, so my mind quickly fired up my problem-solving-through-design muscles to figure out what could I make with these 6” x 6” plain mirror squares? Through a bit of internet sleuthing, I found a way to dye that plain mirror with bright and wild colors using alcohol inks. Now it was time to let loose my imagination to come up with a set of shimmery puzzle designs that incorporated the art as the puzzle, constrained within that 6” x 6” area.

All of my shimmery puzzles share my love of nature with 3 Cat Max puzzle fans, and are perfectly sized to get in a bit of puzzle zen to your day. Or, invite your puzzle-loving friends and gather around the table with lots of shimmery puzzles so each can complete their own, then switch seats to keep the fun going!

Debbie Fields is truly an awe-inspiring human, and I look to her everyday life when I need an example of how to be. This is a person that researches and teaches about disruptive learning in conferences world wide, and in her off time teaches yoga or performs in acrobatic shows. Recently she has been hit hard by long-term COVID, resulting in barely being able to stand for a couple of minutes. Instead of bemoaning this stunning change, she immediately started pulling together research, attending virtual discussions, lobbying her city governor about the impact of long-term COVID, and ever-so-slowly working through an exercise program to get back to the point of simply standing next to the stove to cook breakfast. I’m the oldest in my family, so I call her my older sister — the one I can look up to, ask life questions from, and learn from her experiences and how she chooses to exist in this world. I was rather lucky to be swept into Hurricane Debbie’s maelstrom back in 2013, and I look forward to her continual disruption in my life!