One project I was proud of was the series of five collages, Spring Flowers in Berkeley.
Spring Flowers in Berkeley 1 – Urban Beauty
All these flowers were photographed in Berkeley, CA from March to May 2025.
Spring Flowers in Berkeley 2 – So Many Varieties
The only modifications were cropping and adjusting color saturation, warmth, brightness and / or contrast. Except for one of the background images that may have more manipulations to make the background prettier.
Spring Flowers in Berkeley 3 – Beautiful California
Yes, palms have flowers, too. By the way, palms are not trees but monocots like lilies and grass.
Bay Area climate supports an impressive variety of ornamental plants from all the inhabited continents (Antarctica does not count), and the residential streets of Berkeley are an ideal place to spot them blooming.
Spring Flowers in Berkeley 4 – Relax and Enjoy
Spring Flowers in Berkeley 5 – Moments of Calm
These five collages have been uploaded to CreateJigsawPuzzles site and can be bought from there (click a picture and the link will take you to the shopping page), though I should warn the US readers that the current tariff situation with the elimination of de minimis rule from China may make them surprisingly expensive and / or complicated to buy.
One advantage CreateJigsawPuzzles has is that their bulk discount applies to products of similar type even if they individual puzzles have different designs, so one Spring Flowers in Berkeley tube puzzle is 20,40 euros + shipping, whereas all five tube puzzles of the series are 83,00 euros + shipping or over 18% cheaper per puzzle (for some reason CreateJigsawPuzzles is not showing USD prices for me any more.) Two puzzles instead of one already have the same discount, i.e., price of 16,60 euros per puzzle.
I am planning to create Summer Flowers in Berkeley series once the summer photos have been collected. Right now, I am processing lichens from Finland.
I now have also an Etsy shop for my Print on Demand produce from Printify. The link is in the header section.
Anything bought there by July 23rd, 2025 (or later) would boost my modest income. Not all my products have been harmonized between my three on-line Printify based shops, so there are every now and then novelties that are unique to a specific shop behind a given link.
Finland, a gray day (108 piece jigsaw puzzle, click on photo to play)
Finland is a beautiful country rain or shine, there will be more photos, hopefully videos and designs, too, in weeks to come once I have arranged my folders. I have also recorded hours of bird song (assuming the traffic and other noises did not overpower the morning chorus), just in case I need some soundtrack on videos I may compile in future.
Finland, sunset (80 piece jigsaw puzzle, click on photo to play)
Pollening (I suspect the pine) is strong right now – spend a couple of hours outdoors and your devise touch screen will show the dust. I have added here a photo of front porch tiles with accumulated pollen.
Pollen(?) on porch (40 piece jigsaw puzzle, click on photo to play)
I am thinking about joining TikTok and Pinterest, but those can wait until I am back in USA with my contact information back to normal.
This is my main jigsaw puzzle sales site (products currently under review, the first three jigsaw puzzles, one 2-sided mini jigsaw, one 1-sided tube and one 2-sided postcard, will hopefully be accepted, and I am planning to design and upload more!) The products are on sale from China (tariffs to USA are now fluid, and GPSRs may be needed for EU sales – I’ll need to figure that out.)
This is a Printify pop-up shop. In there, I am designing multiple types print-on-demand items, maybe including jigsaw puzzles. This shop currently has the first two T-shirts available. I have other products in development (more T-shirts, laptop sleeves, coasters, postcards, tote bags, key rings, etc.). Printify sells in USA, UK and EU, including Finland.
I have been busy recently trying to get my jigsaw puzzle business going. First, browsing Print On Demand suppliers for dropshipping partners, I realized that I could sell my designs printed also in other items. Then, I realized that I might need a seller’s permit, especially if I also sell physical goods to local stores for resale.
I got a seller’s permit for State of California but in the office I had a brain freeze and had to use a placeholder name for my print-on-demand business. I needed to later change that to PlanktonPunkt Designs. I also learned that I should get a city business license. The permitting office was next open on Monday morning.
On Saturday, I took a long trip (for me) driving over 100 miles to each direction to a comic book garage sale to connect with comic book crowd and to ask advise in on-line sales. On my way back, I stopped into a comics & games shop to ask if they were interested in buying my jigsaw puzzles. In principle, yes, in practice, let’s wait until I get my business going.
On Monday morning, I walked to a copy shop to print my applications for business license and fictional name registration, then to city permitting office, where I was told I would need to register my fictional business name before I could apply, but if I made it back before 2pm, I could submit my application in the same day.
I walked back near my rental place, where I had parked my car and drove to county registrar where I could register my fictional business name. Otherwise good, except the office was next to county court house and registrar of voters and there was a special election going April 15th, so it took some searching to find a parking spot. The registration itself went smoothly, relatively short waits and minimally complex bureaucracy, only cost me 40 dollars.
After finishing my business registration application while drinking Vietnamese coffee, I drove to city permitting offices again and this time, after some wait, I managed to submit my application (80 dollars) but was directed to zoning board. Nonplussed, I meandered upstairs and got to fill a zoning application. I think it was approved, but that took a 250 dollar fee, paid in the spot. After which my business application will travel through a few more desks (I don’t know how much those are going to cost and what more forms or other actions will be required.) Meanwhile, I will need to within next 45 days post four times at minimum 5 day intervals an announcement of PlanktonPunkt Designs (I’ll need to find details, exactly what) in some newspaper circulating in the county…
While I waited to become commercial, I edited some of my older posts, mainly replacing a couple of jigsaw puzzles and other images that are OK in non-commercial blog sites but not in commercial environments with more acceptable content.
About a week later, I went back to City Permitting Offices to ask about my business license. I was told it will still need to be seen by two more desks and it could take up to two weeks. I was horrified. I asked if it could be expedited. They promised nothing, since that is not a service the offices do. However, on Sunday when I unusually opened my email I discovered that my business license has been approved. Plot spoiler, I am still in process of testing my samples, not going to open a Print On Demand store by the Mother’s Day rush, though that was what I had originally aimed for.
Getting licenses and ordering samples was more expensive than I thought, so I had to put some samples on hold until I got some money from my other business. Today, as I finally could afford this, I bought an upgrade from WordPress and a business email contact@planktonpunkt.com from Titan Mail.
Now I’m busy doing designs and ordering samples (the supply chain is still undecided), but at least I have upgraded this blog site for monetization and got a domain name, planktonpunkt.com for development of actual ecommerce. I’ll keep you posted as I continue my business attempts.
Once I get my print-on -demand shop(s) open, I’ll link to those. Other medium to intermediate projects I have planned include making little videos and / or podcasts to Instagram, YouTube and / or TikTok to advertise PlanktonPunkt Designs.
While waiting to become commercial, I have edited some of my older posts, mainly removing a couple of jigsaw puzzles and other images that are OK in non-commercial blog sites but not in commercial environments with more acceptable content.
I had planned on designing physical jigsaw puzzles for sale. I had been selecting pictures and making test designs and was preparing to order some samples, when the new tariffs came in power. The print-on-demand company I had been planning to use is based in Hong Kong. While we need to in-shore industries, finding a place that prints double-sided postcard jigsaw puzzles and is located in US will take a bit time. Looks like I’ll need to look a bit more and think about my options, maybe rethink my strategy.
Meanwhile, I have been looking for interesting things to post and writing fiction. The current job market is a horror show, but unfortunately that is not fiction.
PlanktonPunkt 