The Name Puzzle Madness of 2020

Let’s talk about our best selling item today, the Name Puzzle! The first one we ever made of this was a few years ago when Jason’s sister came to visit us in Fort Worth with her new baby! It was a fun weekend and we had just gotten the CNC machine not so long ago so Jason was wanting to make something for them while they were in town. I had had the idea of a name puzzle in my head for a few days so I suggested we make that for our new nephew. And he loved it! Before they left we took a few photos of the name puzzle and then listed it in the Etsy shop a few days after.

here’s the first name puzzle we ever made!

And it didn’t sell. Like most of our products on Etsy it takes a while for them to take off, it’s as if Etsy has to decide if your product is good enough before pushing it and making it show up in the searches (if I had the following to make my shop solely on my own website platform I would ditch Etsy so fast! But that’s for another time). Slowly people started to buy the name puzzles. And by slowly I mean we were lucky to get 1 or 2 orders a month. But it did pick up and soon it was our best item, which isn’t saying a lot as we did not have many options in our shop at this point.

Then my favorite blogger, Dani Austin, announced she was pregnant! And I took a shot and emailed her asking if I could make a name puzzle for her new baby! She replied yes and told me the name even though she hadn’t announced it publicly yet (and I kept the secret)! I sent it off to her and then kind of forgot about it. And one day I start getting a lot of favorites of the name puzzle on Etsy and I think huh, that’s cool. Then a more than normal amount of people start buying it. And following me on Instagram which never happens so I finally log in and see that Dani used my name puzzle to announce the name of her daughter and tagged me in and I was ecstatic! We had over 30 orders in just a few hours and more than 100 new followers on Insta.

The puzzle I made for sweet Stella. It was also the first shades of pink puzzle we made and I loved it!

That’s when the hard work started. You have to remember it’s just me and Jason making these items in our free time after we both work 10 hour days. It was coming down to the point where we needed to get all the puzzles finished before the next week so my wonderful family and closest friends came up to help us paint letters all weekend and get them finished!

And then Christmas time came around. This was during the “panorama” in 2020 so everyone was shopping online for their gifts that year. And Dani added the name puzzles to a sweet Etsy finds gift list she made. And that blew up even more than before! I’m still so appreciative to Dani for sharing our creations the way she did (she definitely did not have to do any of that) and for all the publicity she gave us.

This time around we sought out help in making the billion name puzzles before the deadlines. We visited Jason’s family (he’s got a big one) at the beginning of December and brought probably about 40-50 puzzles with us and all his sisters and mom and aunt helped us paint letters for like two days straight! We managed to get them all out in time and had the best Christmas season ever for Local Pines!

This is maybe about a third of what we made.

And of course now in the early months of the year things always slow down so we’ve had a nice little break from making them but they are one of my favorite items and now I’m ready to make a ton again!

Ordering is very easy, you click the link here, select your letter finish (I love all the colors that we offer but if I had to choose one I’d say pastels, or blues. Gosh I can’t pick just one. The natural wood option is also really fun if you want to paint the letters yourself and make it truly unique!), and then add the name you want in the personalization box and you’re done! Easy peasy. Oh and if you want a custom color letter we can totally do that too! Just leave us a note a checkout of what color you like.

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And now just a few ideas of ways to use/reasons to buy a name puzzle. They make for the perfect name announcements just see Dani Austin’s proof of that! With the letter color options of shades of blue and pink the puzzles can be gender reveal announcements too! They’re also super sweet baby shower gifts if you already know the name. Or buy one for your baby that’s already here and decorate their nursery!