Tag Archives: Commonwealth Press

Winter Mazes | Parking Chair, Snow Shoveling, & Groundhog Day – Plus a bonus Valentine’s Day Maze!

Posted on by Standard Reply

I feel like it’s been a while since I posted a maze. Here’s 3, with black and white and color options for each. I have posted them on social media, but they’ll probably be slightly better quality here. Who hasn’t felt this winter to their core? Snow removal struggles and anger at poor Punxsutawney Phil have been all over social media.

I post this as I contemplate selling mazes on Etsy. Think there’s a market? I see other artists selling small *.pdf packs of printable mazes, coloring pages, or other hand-drawn puzzles or activity pages. A lot of the stuff you can find free online via Pinterest, or places like here on my blog or r/mazes. Are there people looking for paid downloads? They would of course probably be exclusive or only elsewhere available in my books. It’s certainly way more about art & expression than money, but it is cool to see my mazes on stuff, even if I’m my own biggest customer.

Oh, can’t forget a small bonus maze first since it’s Valentine’s Day!

A heart shape filled with a complex maze pattern, outlined in black.
A heart-shaped maze design in vibrant red against a gradient purple background.

❤️🥰💖💗💓💘💝

The Pittsburgh Parking Chair Maze.

You have to respect the chair. You can get an official one, or up your game and put out a walker, a table or even a statue of Jesus. Don’t park there if you didn’t shovel! Luckily now we don’t have to worry as much about it, but we lived in Dormont for years where no one really owned the spot in front of their place. The anger is real when someone ganks your spot after you labored for sometimes hours to clear it.

A complex hand-drawn black and white maze illustration with a Pittsburgh parking chair at the bottom and some Yinzer instructions.
A mostly black and white illustrated maze with winding paths, featuring a speech bubble with Yinzer-speak urging urgency and a cartoonish depiction of a chair at the bottom and bits of color.

🌨️🪑🌨️🚗🌨️

The Snow-Shoveling Maze.

A lot of people are over it. We got hot with an amount of snow in our area what we haven’t seen since 2010, and it stayed cold for quite some time. Removal was difficult unless you kept up with it through the storm… and even then some folks had their sidewalks piled upon by the snow-plow trucks. Here you can do some scrawling instead of shoveling. This might work as a coloring page too? You can work back from the dead ends and the solution will be left.

A complex black & white hand-drawn maze illustration with a snow shovel near the top and a door at the bottom corner. The text in the maze asks, "Can you shovel through the snow to get to the front door?"
A hand-drawn & computer colorized maze illustration showing a green snow-shovel and a red front door, accompanied by the text, "Can you shovel through the snow to get to the front door?"

❄️🪏❄️🚪❄️

The Groundhog Day Maze.

Who doesn’t love Punxsutawney Phil? I guess a lot of people when he predicts 6 more weeks of winter. We can’t balk at tradition now, can we? If you get stuck in this maze, you might feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

There once was a groundhog from Punxy.
Instead of consorting with skunks, he
Sat with turkeys to gobble
On that famous knob hill
While all the bystanders got drunk, see?

❄️🌸🪻⛄

So there you have a winter maze drop. As always, if you take the time to complete one, please share it & tag me on social media. If you dig these free mazes, I have lots more. I urge you to also maybe buy a book or a T-shirt or hoodie. Also, let me know what you think about selling *.pdf downloads on Etsy. Is it worth it?

Need help from those of you that sell art and/or merch using fulfillment services. (𝘢.𝘬.𝘢. The return of A-Maze Mugs & more?)

Posted on by Standard 7

So, Ci3 closed up shop… and with it went A-Maze Mugs. Not sure that any were actually sold anyway? I know I have 2 prototypes and we did work up art for the box. I posted about them a few times. I also did a (very) poorly recorded jingle.

I feel like I just sit on all my maze art, while others are able to monetize their art projects. This is me reaching out for advice from my creative peeps.

I know there are no-money-up-front printing/fulfillment services. Does anyone have good (or really bad) experiences with any of those? I clicked a link on one, and 30 are showing up in my FB ad feeds. Are any more reputable/profitable/flexible than the others?

Even better, does anyone local do printing & fulfillment services, like Commonwealth Press?

Would it be worth it to save & invest some money into it?

I would like to put my mazes on all kinds of stuff. I get likes on my mazes on Instagram. Occasionally someone sends me a solution. Maybe T-shirts would be useless… unless you had one on the back and wanted someone to complete it as a sort of massage? Ha ha.

Tiles may be interesting. The socks that Mike worked up were super cool! Mugs seem to be out but those new stainless steel tumblers are in. Maybe a beer stein? Maybe just a book of mazes? My thing though, is most of my stuff has no theme. They’re just mazes. I have a TON drawn. They just need scanned & maybe cleaned up a bit.

I’m not looking to get rich, but creativity funding more creativity never hurts. Right?

These look like a fun product IMHO, anyway. Finding someone to ship a mug and a dry erase marker AND do the printing may be tough?

The 4 initial maze mugs maze ideas.

I’m open to any and all suggestions and solutions. I feel like I’m just sitting on these, have been for years, and should be doing something with them.