Growing up, my family ate breakfast in our pajamas, sitting around the the kitchen table, slurping our cold cereal. Each kid hunched over their plastic bowl while reading the back of one of the cereal boxes. If you haven’t checked since you were a kid, cereal boxes still have the great puzzles printed on back. I am not sure who has the awesome job of designing the back of the cereal box but I am grateful that they still create great designs each and every month! Just this morning I solved the Honey Nut Cheerios puzzle to help Buzz get out of the safe where they keep all the honey and pollen for his hive.

Once you are done with solving the cereal box puzzle and eating the cereal the fun does not have to stop there. Here are some fun suggestions of puzzles and other projects you could make with your empty cereal box:

Let me know if you come up with any cereal box puzzle ideas…

Submit your Puzzle Toy Ideas as a comment to this post. Thanks and have fun!

I found some great examples of puzzles being used for more than 500 pieces of a little cardboard falling out of a box and then spending the next 4-10 hours trying to put together. Don’t get me wrong… I like those kind of puzzles, but hopefully these examples will help you see that your puzzle design can be whatever you want it to be! Submit your puzzle design here and be entered to win the free toy giveaway!

As I have continued my research of puzzles I began to notice how many great wooden animal puzzles there are out there. Here are the best of the ones that I found.

I have been researching puzzles for the past while and have found some really great ones. I just can’t keep it in any more… I just had to share some of my favorites with you…

The beginning of a new year often means reflection, recommitment, goals, resolutions… Going through this process often leaves me feeling more overwhelmed and confused than when I started. In the midst of this craziness I had an apostrophe (a.k.a. epiphany): Each year is like a jigsaw puzzle… and the beginning of each new year is the time we get to design the puzzle. Then, we spend the rest of the year putting it together. It’s kind of like this:

In lieu of this epiphany, I thought it appropriate that the first project of this year should be designing puzzles!

I am very excited for this project and hope you will join in and design your own awesome puzzle. As you do, you will become more and more likely to win the free toy giveaway (Oblo Ball see below).

Hopefully while we explore, design, and make puzzles the process will help us figure out what puzzling 2011 will bring.

Feel free to share any cool puzzles of any kind (jigsaw puzzles, wooden puzzles, digital puzzles, 3-D puzzles, puzzle games, word puzzles, etc…) you have seen as a comment.