Puzzlify notes

A thank-you for your button museum and jewellery quarter heritage volunteers: a photo of a card of old buttons, a jeweller's bench or a street of workshops as a jigsaw, with your note at the end

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Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Puzzlify is our product, so weigh what follows with that in mind. We've tried to make this useful even if you never use it. We're not affiliated with any button museum, jewellery museum, jewellery quarter, jeweller, goldsmith, silversmith, button maker, assay office, trade association, craft guild, industrial museum, record office, archive, council, heritage body, heritage funder, sponsor, school or community organisation. Nothing here is legal, historical, archive, data protection, building, conservation, valuation, precious metal, gemstone, security, insurance, machinery, press, flame, chemical, lifting, manual handling, first aid, health and safety, safeguarding, bereavement, copyright, trade mark, photography permission or employment advice; check your own group's guidance on gifts, photos, the workshop, the tools, the collection, security, children and people's details.

It's ten to two on a wet Wednesday at the end of October, and a retired dental nurse called Pauline is standing at a jeweller's bench by a tall, dusty workshop window. The bench is a heavy wooden board with a semicircle cut out of the front, and slung underneath the semicircle, like a hammock, is a leather skin, darkened by a century of use. On the bench there's a little wooden peg sticking out, scarred by thousands of saw cuts, a row of files, a piercing saw, a pair of pliers worn to the shape of somebody's hand, and a soldering torch on a hook. Everything is exactly where the last jeweller left it. "The family locked the door one evening and never came back," Pauline tells the small group in the doorway. "The tea cups were still on the shelf. The calendar was still on the wall. And the leather skin was still under the bench, because every scrap of gold and silver dust that fell off the work landed in it, and at the end of the year they'd sweep it up and send it off to be refined. You didn't waste a speck." A boy of about ten asks if there's still gold in the floorboards. "Probably," she says. "They used to burn the old floorboards and the aprons to get it out."

The quarter around the museum is still full of jewellers. Some of the old workshops are now flats, cafés and offices, but many streets are still lined with small shop fronts selling wedding rings and watches, and behind them, up narrow stairs, in back rooms and yards, people are still making, setting, engraving, polishing and mending things by hand. A hundred years ago there were thousands of them: goldsmiths and silversmiths, setters and engravers, chain makers and badge makers, button makers, pen-nib makers, medal makers, stampers, polishers, platers and the girls who carded buttons and packed brooches. Many worked in family workshops of three or four people. The museum keeps one of those workshops just as it was, and tells the story of all the others. It's run by a few paid staff and a lot of volunteers.

A few streets away, in a smaller building, a group of volunteers runs a button collection that began with one man's tins. They look after tens of thousands of buttons: brass buttons from uniforms and livery, pearl buttons cut from shell, horn and bone buttons, glass and jet buttons, cloth-covered buttons, enamel and paste buttons, and the thread-wrapped buttons once made by hand in cottages. On the same afternoon, one volunteer is sorting a biscuit tin of buttons that someone's grandmother kept for fifty years. One is mounting a set of tiny brass buttons on a card, one by one, with a needle and thread. One is in the archive, answering an email from a family historian in Australia whose great-great-grandmother was a button carder. And one, a man in his eighties who started as an apprentice engraver at fifteen, is sitting by the door with a cup of tea, waiting to show the next group how to hold a graver.

If you've stood in a preserved jeweller's workshop, taken a school group round a button collection, found an ancestor's name in an apprentice register, sorted your grandmother's button tin with a volunteer's help, or simply live with one of these people, this guide is for you. It's about how to say thank you in a way that feels personal and appropriate, with words first and an optional gift second. One idea is a private digital jigsaw made from a photo of a card of old buttons, a jeweller's bench by the window, a tray of brass dies or a street of workshop fronts, with your note revealed when the last piece goes in. But there are plenty of other good ideas, and we've listed those too.

Who we mean

By button museum and jewellery quarter heritage volunteers we mean anyone who gives their time to keep the story of small metal, shell, horn, glass and thread work alive, in a museum, a preserved workshop, a button collection, a heritage centre or a quarter's heritage trail, including:

  • workshop guides, who show visitors round a preserved jeweller's, button maker's, badge maker's or pen maker's workshop and tell the story of the trade and the families;
  • craft demonstrators, who show piercing, filing, soldering, engraving, chasing, stamping, setting, enamelling or polishing at the bench, or make thread buttons, covered buttons or shell buttons the old way;
  • button collection volunteers, who sort, identify, mount, card, record and display buttons, and help visitors identify the ones in their own tins;
  • walk leaders and trail volunteers, who take groups round the streets of the quarter, the old works, the chapels, the canal side, the cemeteries and the clock towers;
  • collections volunteers, who look after the tools, benches, presses, dies, punches, pattern books, sample cards, boxes, display cases and finished pieces;
  • archive and records volunteers, who catalogue the apprentice registers, order books, pattern books, trade directories, photographs, plans and letters;
  • research, family history and oral history volunteers, who help families trace relatives who worked in the trades, and record the memories of former workers and the people who grew up in the quarter;
  • education volunteers, who run school days, design sessions, button sorting and making sessions, and history talks;
  • shop, front-of-house and events volunteers, who welcome visitors, run the shop and keep the open days going;
  • treasurers, secretaries, trustees and the founders who started it all.

Some of these places are big museums with paid staff in charge and volunteers alongside them. Some are a single preserved workshop. Some are a button collection kept by a society or a small trust, in a room above a library or in a converted chapel. Some are heritage trails in a quarter that's still a working jewellery district. And some are a handful of retired craftspeople and collectors who meet once a month to sort, mount and talk. Almost all of them rely on volunteers.

We've written this with buttons, jewellery and the small metal trades in mind: the benches, the presses, the cards and the people. Costume and fashion museums, needle and fishing tackle museums, and chain and anchor forges have their own volunteers and their own stories, and we've written about them separately.

What to say first

The most important part of any thank-you is what you say. Button and jewellery museum volunteers often work out of sight. Visitors see a friendly guide at the workshop door for ten minutes, or a demonstrator at the bench, but they rarely see the volunteer who spent three years mounting the brass button collection on cards, the one who indexed every apprentice in the register, or the treasurer who found the money to stop the workshop roof leaking onto the benches. So be specific:

  • name the job: "every Wednesday at the workshop door since 2012", "the hours you spent sorting my mother's button tin with me", "the design session you ran for my son's class", "the drawer of dies you finally catalogued";
  • name a moment: the day my daughter tried on the jeweller's apron and sat at the bench, the afternoon you found my great-grandfather's name in the apprentice register, the moment you held a pearl button up to the window and showed us the rainbow in it;
  • name what it meant: the first time I understood that the things in my jewellery box were made by real hands, the way you made the button carders real, the feeling that my granddad's trade mattered;
  • name the years: "twenty years of explaining why the jeweller's bench has a hole in it" means more than "thank you for all you do".

If you're thanking a whole group, try to name the people who never get named. The treasurer, the person who keeps the collection records, the volunteer who answers emails from family historians all over the world, the one who dusts the workshop exactly as it was without moving anything, and the one who comes in early to check the alarms and switch on the lights. They're the ones who keep the place open.

A sentence like "you kept a whole trade's story alive" can sound like a big claim, but for many button and jewellery heritage groups it's simply true. A jewellery quarter or a button town was a small world: masters and apprentices, outworkers and factory hands, families who'd been in the trade for generations, women and children who carded buttons and threaded beads at home for pennies a gross, all crammed into a few streets of workshops, yards and back-to-backs. Most of their stories were never written down, and the people who remember them are getting old. If the person you're thanking is the one who wrote them down, say it.

Who it suits

A photo jigsaw with a note works best for someone who:

  • enjoys a small puzzle on a phone or tablet, which, for someone who spends hours matching tiny buttons to the right card, may feel very natural;
  • has a strong feeling for a particular object, a bench, a workshop, a street or a corner of the quarter;
  • is stepping down as a guide or a demonstrator, retiring from the weekly sorting session or celebrating a long-service milestone;
  • has finished a long project, such as a remounted collection, a restored workshop, a new exhibition, an index of the apprentice registers or an oral history recording, and would love to see it in a new way;
  • has moved away and misses the quarter, the workshop and the people;
  • has a partner or family who'd like to say thank you for all the time they gave.

It's less suitable for someone who doesn't use a phone or a computer at all, in which case a handwritten card may be better, or someone who would feel uncomfortable being singled out. For them, a quiet word at the sorting table over a cup of tea may be best.

Tools, security and people come first

A few practical rules before you send anything:

  • A volunteer shift is working time. When volunteers are guiding a group, demonstrating at the bench, mounting buttons or helping someone with the records, they're concentrating on safety and on the people in front of them. Never interrupt, even with a thank-you. Wait until the tour has finished, or leave a card at the front desk.
  • Benches, tools and flames. Jewellers' benches have sharp gravers, saw blades, files and burrs, and demonstrations can involve soldering torches, open flames, hot metal, polishing wheels and chemicals used to clean metal after soldering. Stay behind every rope, keep children by the hand, never touch a tool on a bench, and never lean in close to a polishing wheel or a flame.
  • Presses and machines. Old fly presses, drop stamps, rolling mills, lathes and button-making machines have heavy moving parts and pinch points. Never touch a press, never put a hand under a die, and never ask a volunteer to operate one just for a photo.
  • Security matters more here than almost anywhere. Museums and workshops that hold gold, silver, gemstones and valuable buttons take security very seriously, and many have rules about bags, photographs and where you can stand. Follow them, and never photograph locks, display case fittings, safes, alarms, CCTV, keys, door codes or the way into a store room.
  • The collection belongs to the museum. Rings, brooches, buttons, badges, tools, dies, punches, pattern books and sample cards are part of a collection, even when they look like the bottom of a sewing box. Don't pick things up, don't try things on, don't run your hands through a tray of buttons, and don't ask anyone to take something out of a case for a photo.
  • Donations, valuations and repairs. If you have a tin of old buttons, a piece of family jewellery, a set of tools or a box of papers from a workshop, offer it to the museum through its own channels rather than handing it to a volunteer, and don't ask a volunteer what it's worth, whether it's real gold or whether they can mend it. That's not their job, most museums don't give valuations, and it puts volunteers in an awkward position.
  • Tiny things and small children. Buttons, beads, findings and small parts are a choking hazard for young children, and many sorting tables are covered in them. Let the volunteers decide what children can handle, and keep small children away from loose buttons.
  • Records name real people. Apprentice registers, wage books, order books, letters, insurance records and workshop accounts carry names, wages, ages, debts, illnesses, dismissals and sometimes very sad stories. Access is decided by the museum or the archive, not by the volunteer on duty. Don't photograph pages without permission, and never share a page that names someone.
  • A working quarter. Many jewellery quarters are still working districts, with jewellers, setters, engravers and repairers at work behind their shop fronts, and many of the old workshops are now people's homes. Keep to the public streets, never photograph into a working jeweller's window, workshop or yard, and respect every "private" sign. A working jeweller is not a museum exhibit.
  • Designs, hallmarks and trade marks. Designs, makers' marks, badges and logos may still belong to someone. Keep makers' marks, company names, regimental and club badges and trade marks out of anything you make and share.
  • Owners, paid staff and partners. Where the museum is a council museum, a charity or a trust, and paid curators, conservators and managers work alongside the volunteers, many organisations have rules about the gifts staff can accept. Keep the gift modest, and keep it to the volunteers unless you know the rules.
  • Group money. Don't send cash, vouchers or anything that looks like payment to an individual volunteer. If you'd like to give money, give it to the museum, the society or the trust, through their own channels, or buy something at the shop.
  • Children. Many button and jewellery museums welcome families and schools, and children love a workshop where nothing has been moved in decades. Let the volunteers decide where children can go, and never photograph a child at a bench or at a sorting table unless their parent and the museum have clearly agreed.
  • The rota, the bookings and people's details. The volunteer rota, school bookings, research requests, the membership list, the donor list and anything with names, addresses or phone numbers are private. Don't photograph them, don't share them, and don't put them in a puzzle.

When to send it

The button and jewellery year has its own rhythm, tied to the seasons, the school holidays and the old trade calendar, when the busiest weeks were the run-up to Christmas and the wedding season. Some good moments:

  • at the end of the summer season, when the busiest months of tours, trails and family days are over and the volunteers finally have time to breathe;
  • after a heritage open day, a quarter festival, a button fair or an anniversary, such as the anniversary of the museum opening, the workshop being saved or the society being founded;
  • at the end of October, when the clocks go back on Sunday 25 October in the UK and much of Europe, the light through the workshop windows goes early and the museum's winter season begins. The first dark evening is a good moment for a thank-you that arrives on a phone;
  • at half-term, when many museums run button sorting, badge making and design sessions, and volunteers who've given up their own holidays deserve a word;
  • before Christmas, when the old workshops worked late to finish rings, brooches and presents, and when many museums run late openings, craft fairs and busy shops;
  • after a restoration milestone, such as a remounted collection, a restored press, a repaired workshop roof, a new exhibition or a finished oral history project;
  • when someone steps down or reaches a long-service milestone, which is the most important moment of all.

If you're not sure, send it after the visit or the event you're thanking them for, while the memory is still fresh.

Why a jigsaw can fit

There's something about buttons and jewellery that suits a jigsaw. A card of old buttons is already a pattern: a grid of tiny circles, each one different, stitched in neat rows by someone a hundred years ago. A jeweller's bench is a still life of tools, each one shaped by a lifetime of use. A tray of brass dies, a drawer of punches, a sample card of badges or a street of narrow shop fronts all have the same thing in common: lots of small, distinct, beautifully made parts, fitted together. A photo of any of them makes a satisfying jigsaw, because every piece has a little shine, a little texture and a little detail.

A jigsaw also has the same moment that a jeweller's work has: the moment the last stone goes into its setting, or the last button goes onto the card, and the whole piece is suddenly complete. At the bench, it's a quiet nod; in a Puzzlify jigsaw, it's your note appearing at the end. It's a small surprise, but a personal one.

For the workshop guides

Workshop guides take visitors into a room where time has stopped and make it come alive. They explain what every tool on the bench was for, why the leather skin hangs underneath, how a family workshop of four people could turn out hundreds of rings, lockets or badges a week, how apprentices learned, what the work did to people's eyes and lungs, and why the door was locked one day and never opened again until the museum came. They do it for every group, from school classes to retired jewellers who stand quietly at the back and then come up afterwards to tell them something new. If a guide made the workshop real for you, tell them. A photo of the bench by the window, the row of files in their rack, or the tea cups on the shelf, taken with permission, suits them well. "You made a dusty room feel like the family had just popped out" is a good start.

For the bench and craft demonstrators

Demonstrators show the skills that the quarter was built on: sawing a fine pattern out of a sheet of silver with a piercing saw, filing and finishing at the peg, soldering a ring closed with a tiny flame, cutting a line with a graver, stamping a blank in a fly press, setting a stone, or polishing a piece until it shines. Many learned from a retired craftsperson, and many are retired craftspeople themselves, who spent forty years at the bench and now spend their Wednesdays showing a room full of strangers how it's done. If they showed your family something at the bench, tell them what it was like to watch. A photo of the peg with its saw marks, a row of gravers, or a single finished piece in its tray, suits them.

For the button makers and thread button volunteers

Some volunteers keep alive the making of buttons by hand: thread buttons wrapped round a ring in patterns of spokes and wheels, the way cottage workers once made them by the gross; cloth-covered buttons; shell buttons cut and drilled the old way; or simple buttons stamped and assembled on old machines. They run workshops, teach visitors, and make careful copies so that the originals can stay in their cases. If one of them taught you to make a button, say so. A photo of a finished thread button, close up, with its neat spokes, or a little row of them on a card, suits them.

For the button collection volunteers

Button collection volunteers are some of the most patient people in any museum. They sort tins and jars of buttons, sometimes thousands at a time; identify them by material, maker, age and use; sew them onto cards in neat rows; record them; and put together displays that turn a sewing box into history: uniform buttons from regiments and railways, livery buttons from great houses, mourning buttons in black jet and glass, pearl buttons from the shell-cutting towns, sporting buttons, children's novelty buttons, and the plain buttons that held up working people's trousers for a century. They also help visitors sort their own family button tins, which can be one of the most moving afternoons a museum offers. If they helped you with your tin, tell them what it meant. A photo of a finished card of buttons, or a single beautiful button held up to the light, suits them.

For the walk leaders and trail volunteers

Walk leaders take groups round the streets of the quarter, the old works and the chapels, the canal side and the clock towers, the cemeteries where the jewellers and button makers are buried, and the pubs where they drank. They point out the old shop signs and the ghost lettering on the brick, the workshops that are still working and the ones that are now flats, and the doorway where a famous piece was made. They do it in the rain, in the dark in November, and in the heat in August. If a walk opened your eyes to the streets, say so. A photo of a street of workshop fronts, an old clock tower, or a faded painted sign on a brick wall, suits them.

For the collections volunteers

Collections volunteers look after the tools, the benches, the presses, the dies, the punches, the pattern books, the sample cards, the boxes and the finished pieces. They clean, number, photograph, record, pack and display them, and they know where everything is. In a preserved workshop, they have a particularly delicate job: keeping everything clean and safe without moving anything out of the place the last jeweller left it. If they helped you find something, or put together a display that made you stop, say so. A photo of a drawer of dies or punches, a page from a pattern book on display (only where the museum allows it), or a sample card of old badges, suits them.

For the archive, research and family history volunteers

Archive volunteers look after the papers: apprentice registers, wage books, order books, pattern books, trade directories, insurance plans, photographs and letters. Research and family history volunteers use them to answer questions from all over the world: was my great-grandfather a button maker, where was my grandmother's workshop, which firm did my uncle serve his apprenticeship with. They spend hours with magnifying glasses, street maps and directories, and they handle very personal information with great care. If they found someone for you, tell them what it meant. A photo of the street where your relative worked, or the building as it is now, suits them better than a photo of any document.

For the oral history volunteers

Oral history volunteers sit with former workers and their families, switch on a recorder, and listen. They hear about starting at fourteen, the master who never smiled, the noise of the presses, the smell of the polishing shop, the girls who carded buttons at home round the kitchen table, the bombing raids, the workshops that closed one by one, and the ones that survived. They transcribe, check, archive, and make sure the stories are used with consent. If they recorded someone you love, say so. A photo of the place where the person worked, or the bench where they sat to be interviewed, suits them.

For the education volunteers

Education volunteers run school days, design sessions, button sorting and making sessions, and history talks. They explain how metal is shaped, why gold is so soft, what a hallmark is, how a button is made, what children's work was like in the trades, and how a whole district grew around small workshops. They manage excitement, tiny objects and a room full of children who have just been told there may be gold in the floorboards. If they ran a session for your class or your children, tell them what the children said afterwards. A photo of the empty classroom set out for the next group, or a table of children's button designs (with no names showing), suits them.

For the shop, front-of-house and events volunteers

The shop and front desk are often the first and last thing visitors see, and the volunteers who run them work hard: welcoming people, explaining bag and security rules politely, answering questions about the quarter, selling postcards and booklets, counting the takings, and running open days, festivals and Christmas fairs. If they made your visit, say so. A photo of the shop window at Christmas, or the museum's front door on a wet afternoon with the lights on inside, suits them.

For the trustees and the founders

The trustees and the founders are often the people who saved the workshop or the collection in the first place: who found the locked door and persuaded the family, the council or a developer to keep the room exactly as it was; who took over a collector's tins of buttons and turned them into a museum; who raised the money for the first repairs, and spent years in meetings so that everyone else could spend Wednesdays at the bench. If the place is open because of them, say so. A photo of the museum as it is now, or a carefully chosen then-and-now pair of the street, suits them.

If you live with a button or jewellery museum volunteer

Partners and families give up a lot: the Wednesdays, the stray buttons in the washing machine, the magnifying glasses on every table, the evenings spent hearing about a regimental button or a maker's mark, and the holidays planned around button fairs and open days. A jigsaw from you can say something they might not hear from anyone else: "Thank you for all the time you give. I know what that workshop means to you, and I'm proud of you." A photo of their favourite card of buttons, their favourite bench, or the street where their own family once worked, suits this.

When a long-serving volunteer steps down

When someone leaves after many years, the group often gives them a card, a framed photograph of the workshop, a button card made by the other volunteers, a small piece made by a demonstrator, or their name on a board in the volunteers' room. A jigsaw from the group can sit alongside that. Pick a photo that sums up their years: the bench they demonstrated at, the collection they mounted, the street they walked a thousand times, the archive room they made their own. Ask everyone to add a line to the note, or keep it short and let the card carry the longer messages.

In memory of a volunteer

Some museums name a display, a bench or a card of buttons, or put up a small plaque in memory of a volunteer who has died. If a volunteer has died, a jigsaw can be a gentle way for their family or the group to remember them, but only with the family's agreement. Choose a photo they loved, avoid anything that might upset, leave the leaderboard off, and keep the note simple: "In memory of Pauline, who opened the workshop door for thousands of visitors and showed every one of them where the gold dust went."

For button and jewellery heritage volunteers elsewhere

What we've written applies in many places where the history of buttons, jewellery and the small metal trades is cared for by volunteers:

  • in England, where jewellery quarters, preserved workshops, button collections, thread button traditions, jet workshops on the coast and the old silver, badge and pen trades are kept alive by museums, societies and friends groups;
  • in Scotland, where silversmiths, Scottish pebble and agate jewellery, Highland brooches and the old trades of the cities are remembered by museums and heritage groups;
  • in Wales, where town museums, craft centres and family historians keep the stories of local jewellers, watchmakers and the people who worked in the trades;
  • in Ireland and Northern Ireland, where ring makers, silversmiths, lace-and-button cottage industries and the workshops of the big towns are remembered by museums and community groups;
  • in the United States, where the pearl button industry along the Mississippi, with its button cutters and shell gatherers, and the jewelry manufacturing districts of New England are remembered by local museums, historical societies and button clubs;
  • in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where button clubs, local museums and heritage groups look after button collections, old jewellers' shops and the stories of the trades;
  • across Europe, from the jewellery towns of Germany and the glass bead and button makers of Bohemia to the goldsmiths of Italy, Spain and Portugal, where volunteers help keep old workshops, tools, pattern books and stories alive.

The rules about gifts, photos, children, security, tools and safety vary from place to place. Check your own group's guidance, and keep the thank-you personal and modest.

The best photos for a button or jewellery museum thank-you are often the simple ones, taken during a quiet moment, with permission. Some ideas:

  • a finished card of old buttons, in neat rows;
  • a single pearl button held up to the light, showing its rainbow;
  • a jeweller's bench by the window, with its tools in place;
  • the peg on the bench, with a century of saw marks;
  • a row of files or gravers in their rack;
  • a drawer of brass dies or punches, where the museum allows it;
  • a handmade thread button, close up;
  • a street of workshop fronts, an old clock tower or a painted sign on brick;
  • the museum's front door on a wet afternoon with the lights on inside;
  • the old canal side or a chapel at the edge of the quarter.

Things never to photograph, or to keep out of the frame:

  • visiting children and school groups, at any time, unless their school, their parents and the museum have clearly agreed, including children at a bench or a sorting table;
  • volunteers or craftspeople using a flame, a press, a wheel or a sharp tool, unless they've clearly agreed, and never in a way that distracts them;
  • anything from a position you weren't invited to stand in: inside a rope, behind a bench, in a store room or in a working jeweller's workshop;
  • locks, display case fittings, safes, alarms, CCTV, keys, key safes, door codes, the till and the way into any store room;
  • valuable pieces in a way that shows where they're kept, and anything the museum asks you not to photograph;
  • makers' marks, hallmarks, company names, regimental and club badges and trade marks, if the puzzle might be shared;
  • legible pages of apprentice registers, wage books, order books or any document that names real people;
  • the volunteer rota, bookings, research requests, the donor list and any page with names, addresses or signatures;
  • working jewellers' windows, workshops and yards, and private homes in the converted workshops, with their windows, doorbells and cars.

If the photo has people in it, ask them first. A photo with no people at all, just the buttons, the bench, the tools and the brick, is often the easiest and best choice.

Getting the JPG right

Puzzlify works from a JPG. Most phone photos are already JPGs, or can be saved as one. A few practical tips:

  • switch the flash off: it bounces off metal, glass and pearl, flattens the colour of old brass and isn't allowed in many museums;
  • for a card of buttons, lay it flat in soft daylight near a window (where the museum allows), hold the phone directly above it and parallel to the card, so the rows stay straight;
  • pearl, metal and glass buttons look best in soft, indirect light, which brings out the shine without hard reflections;
  • a jeweller's bench by a window is bright behind and dark in front, so tap on the tools to set the brightness and let the window go a little light;
  • for close-ups, move back a little and zoom gently, or use your phone's close-up mode, rather than pressing the phone right up to the object;
  • a street of workshops looks best on a bright, overcast day, with the phone held level and parallel to the shop fronts;
  • landscape images usually make the most comfortable puzzles on a phone turned sideways;
  • buttons, tools, brick and old signs make wonderful puzzles, because every piece has a little detail;
  • plain backgrounds, big areas of velvet or felt and blank walls are tricky, so crop them or pick fewer pieces;
  • if your phone saves photos in another format, such as HEIC, change the camera setting to "most compatible" or export a copy as JPG;
  • remove location data from the photo before you upload it, especially if it was taken near someone's home or a working workshop. On most phones, you can switch it off in the share options or the camera settings.

Privacy and an optional PIN

The puzzle is private: it's shared as a link, not posted on a public board. You can add an optional PIN so that only someone who knows it can open the puzzle, which is useful if you're sending it to the museum's volunteer email list. Even so, treat the photo as if it might be forwarded, and keep children, people who are working, visitors, records, makers' marks, security features and anyone's details out of it. Puzzlify doesn't use your photos to train AI or share them with third parties.

Say it's from you

Museums and their volunteers get a lot of unexpected messages, from fake invoices to "your account has been suspended" scams, and they're rightly wary of unexpected links. Say who it's from and what it is in the message itself: "This is a little jigsaw of the button card you helped my mum and me make from Nan's tin, with a note at the end. It's from me, and it's safe to open." For someone who doesn't use email much, print the link as a QR code inside a card, and hand it over in person after the tour has finished.

Piece counts

Pieces Photo idea Best for
24 a single pearl or brass button, close up a quick solve, or a first puzzle
48 a handmade thread button with its neat spokes one clear subject, a relaxed solve
80 the jeweller's bench by the window, with its tools in place a busier image with lots of detail
130 a finished card of old buttons, or a rack of files and gravers a detailed photo for a keen puzzler
252 a street of workshop fronts with their signs and windows a long, slow solve for a long-serving volunteer
48 or 80 the museum's front door with the lights on inside a cheerful thank-you for the front-of-house team

If you're not sure, 48 or 80 pieces suits most people on a phone. A card of many small buttons is busy and very satisfying at 130, but plain backgrounds and big areas of one colour get tricky at high piece counts, so start lower if the image has large areas of one colour.

How to send it

Upload the photo, pick a piece count, write your note and preview it. When you're happy, publish the link and send it by email or message, print the link or a QR code inside a card, or ask the volunteer coordinator or the museum secretary to pass it on. Start at Puzzlify's photo puzzle maker.

If you're sending one puzzle to the whole sorting group or the team of guides, the optional leaderboard lets everyone see who finished first, which a group of people who can tell a railway button from a livery button at ten paces may take very seriously. Some groups enjoy the rivalry; others would rather solve it quietly. For a puzzle sent to one person, for anything connected with someone's family history, or after a bereavement, leave it off.

Note examples

  • "To Pauline: ten years at the workshop door, and every visitor left knowing where the gold dust went. Thank you."
  • "To the education team: thank you for the best school trip my class has had. They're still looking for gold in the floorboards."
  • "To the Wednesday sorting group: thank you for turning Nan's button tin into a card we'll keep forever."
  • "To Ray: thank you for showing my son how to hold a graver. He hasn't stopped drawing since."
  • "To the archive volunteers: thank you for finding my great-grandfather in the apprentice register. We finally know where he learned his trade."
  • "To the trustees: thank you for saving the workshop when everyone else wanted it cleared."
  • "To my husband: thank you for the Wednesdays, the buttons in the washing machine and the best-mounted card in the collection."

(Change the names, and keep anything personal or identifying out of a puzzle that may be shared.)

Honest pricing

Making and previewing a puzzle is free in your browser. You only pay when you publish the link to send it: one credit is EUR 3.99, three credits are EUR 8.99, and Plus is EUR 14.99 a year for ten credits, which can make sense if you want to thank the guides, the sorting group and the archive volunteers separately. The person you send it to doesn't need an account or an app; they just open the link in a browser.

This is a digital jigsaw you play on a screen. It isn't a cardboard puzzle in the post, a printed product, a piece of jewellery, a framed picture, a teaching resource, a raffle prize or a public puzzle board, and it isn't connected to any museum, jeweller, button maker or heritage body. It's also not puzzlify.io (a chess site), Puzzlit, Puzzly or Puzzify, which are different things.

Ideas that are not a puzzle

A jigsaw is only one way to say thank you, and often not the most important one. Other ideas that button and jewellery museum volunteers tend to love:

  • a handwritten card, left at the front desk or posted to the museum, naming the person and the moment;
  • a letter to the museum's newsletter, the society or the local paper, so the volunteer is thanked in public;
  • a donation to the museum or the society, or a membership, or sponsoring the conservation of a card of buttons or a tool;
  • buying something at the museum shop, such as a booklet, a postcard or a piece made by a local maker, and telling them where it ended up;
  • writing a kind review, so that more families find their way to the workshop;
  • sharing old photographs, documents, tools or stories about family members who worked in the trades, if you have them and they'd be welcome;
  • sitting down with the oral history volunteer to record your own memories, if you or someone in your family worked in the quarter;
  • offering your time: a Wednesday at the sorting table, help on an open day, a morning in the archive, once you've joined properly and done any training and checks the museum needs;
  • a tin of good biscuits or a cake for the volunteers' room, handed over when the last visitor has gone and well away from the collection, which never fails.

If a photo puzzle feels right as well, choose the buttons, the bench, the tools or the streets of the quarter, take it during a quiet moment with permission, keep children, people who are working, visitors, records, makers' marks, security features, private homes and anyone's details out of the frame, pick a piece count that suits them, and write the note in your own words. You can make a free preview here and decide later whether to send it.

Whatever you send, the most important part is the sentence that sounds like you, written to the person who stands by a dusty workshop window on a wet Wednesday and answers the same question about the leather skin under the bench with the same patience every time, who keeps an old trade alive so that the masters and apprentices, the setters and the stampers, the shell cutters and the women who carded buttons round the kitchen table, are remembered, so that next spring, when a child holds a pearl button up to the light and sees the rainbow in it, someone is there to smile and tell them how it was made, one button, one stitch, one piece at a time.

Written by the small team behind Puzzlify (info@puzzlify.app). Not legal, historical, archive, data protection, building, conservation, valuation, precious metal, security, machinery, flame, chemical, first aid, health and safety, safeguarding, bereavement, copyright, trade mark, photography permission or employment advice. Check your own group's guidance on gifts, photos, the workshop, the tools, the collection, security, children and people's details.