Puzzled About Everything with Monica Marlatt

Monica Marlatt is a Toronto-based puzzle influencer who rediscovered her love for jigsaw puzzles while navigating the challenges of the empty-nest stage. 

In this episode Monica shares how she transformed a solo, traditional hobby into a vibrant creative practice by mastering stop-motion animation, hosting location shoots across her city, and even launching puzzle-themed cruises with Royal Caribbean. 

The conversation explores the importance of lifelong learning, the global speed puzzling phenomenon, and practical advice for adults looking to fill the void after their children leave home.

• Preparing for Life Transitions: Monica discusses the unexpected emotional toll of the empty-nest stage and the importance of proactively finding new interests to fill the space left by growing children.
• Innovating a Traditional Hobby: By embracing technology, Monica uses stop-motion reels and location shoots across Toronto to present jigsaw puzzles in creative, artistic ways, building a following of over 17,000 people.
• Lifelong Learning and Social Connection: The episode highlights how engaging in creative pursuits in adulthood provides essential mental stimulation and social interaction, whether through global speed-puzzling competitions or online communities.
• The 'Boutique' Puzzle Movement: Discover the shift from mass-produced puzzles to high-quality, artist-led boutique brands that offer diverse textures and materials like wood, cork, and acrylic.
• Advice for Finding Your Passion: Monica encourages listeners to experiment with different hobbies without the pressure of perfection or perseverance. Trying something new provides valuable life experiences and conversational starting points, even if it doesn't become a long-term commitment.

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Transcript

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Monica Marlatt: 1:02

The empty nester stage was very hard for me. I don't think we talk about it enough. I really wasn't prepared for it. People will go, oh, you're going to love it. You're going to have your own time. You can read books and sleep in, and you can go vacation. But that's not what I found. I was very sad. I missed my kids dearly. So we're exploring our city all over again, which is a lot of fun, and we're seeing lots of nice art. Like, my city has so many art projects here, so I love that. And as we're older, we should always be learning something new. You could be learning new recipes, learning how to cook. You can learn a language, you can learn a musical instrument, but we should never stop learning.

Claire Waite Brown: 1:47

Hi, I'm Claire. For this podcast, I chat with people who have found or refound their creativity as adults. We'll explore their childhood experiences of the arts, discuss how they came to the artistic practices they now love, and consider the barriers they may have experienced between the two. We'll also explore what it is that people value and gain from their newfound artistic pursuits and how their creative lives enrich their practical, everyday lives. This time, I'm chatting with Monica Marlatt. Hi, Monica, how are you?

Monica Marlatt: 2:25

I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me. I'm excited about our little chat together.

Claire Waite Brown: 2:30

You're very welcome. Me, too. Start by telling me how you like to feed your creative soul.

Monica Marlatt: 2:38

Currently, I am a puzzle influencer on Instagram, and I try to look at a puzzle that I complete, and I ask myself, what can I do to make this look different from what everyone else does when they take a picture? So I. I do a lot of stop motion with my puzzles, and I do location shoots with my puzzles. I'm always thinking about what is different that I can do, how can I present this puzzle differently to other ones? So that's what I do.

Claire Waite Brown: 3:07

Brilliant. It sounds so interesting and different, so I'm really looking forward to finding out how you got onto that. But before that, when you were younger, did creative activities of any sort of play a role in your life? Were they encouraged at home, at school?

Monica Marlatt: 3:27

I'm going to say not so much. As a child, I don't think I was ever encouraged or nurtured that way. As a mother, that was definitely something I did with my children. I had three children, and everything they did was based around creativity. If it was just playing for fun, if it was a school project that they had to do, let's present it in A different creative way. I did a lot of hobbies. I did a lot of crafting when I had my kids. So not so much as a young, but definitely in my later years. I find being creative is very important. If we don't have creative people, life is boring.

Claire Waite Brown: 4:02

So then when you were growing up, did you have thoughts, plans, what you wanted to do after school? What did work life look like?

Monica Marlatt: 4:14

I was a program coordinator, so it was a community center. So I would create activities for people coming in from arts and crafts. So we did bunka paper tool, wood burning. So you'd always be trying to look for new instructors. And I guess we did. Yeah, we did it four times a year. There'd be four sessions a year. And then there was also, like entertainment involved in that and physical fitness that you. You would program. So I personally did like the finding different instructors, finding new trending crafts that people could do. And you'd always just be dropping in in those programs because you wanted to get feedback from people. Oh, how are you liking this? And how's the instructor? So sometimes I would go to that instructor's place after hours and I would learn that craft. I didn't have that opportunity while I was working, but definitely like the crafting idea. And I remember I did paper toll and I did bunka shishu.

Claire Waite Brown: 5:13

You did what?

Monica Marlatt: 5:14

Bunka shishu. It's a Japanese form of embroidery. And the only difference is you're using a different type of thread, more of a rayon thread. And you can manipulate that thread a little bit. It's quite gorgeous. And I have a few pieces hanging in my house that I did.

Claire Waite Brown: 5:31

Oh, interesting. That was a new one on me. Tell me a bit about family life as well.

Monica Marlatt: 5:38

I'm a mom of three. I did stay at home after I had my third child, keeping them busy. And I will say I kept them very busy. Maybe not so much with the crafting and stuff like that. But I'm telling you, every weekend we would do an adventure. And I think that takes somebody to be very inventive with, what are we doing today? Yes, you may go to a park, but I can tell you we did some amazing adventures where I'd organize the neighborhood kids and we'd go to an ice cream factory and we get an ice cream tour. So I would always be the organizer, but I'd be coming up with great adventures. We'd go to a pumpkin farm and we'd be able to go in the pumpkin field and pick out our own pumpkins. We would go to a vet and the Vet would let us all come in and, you know, see behind the scenes. We'd go to the local bakery, we'd all get to meet the bread or something like that. We were always doing fun adventures.

Claire Waite Brown: 6:29

That also sounds like it's very enjoyable. You're doing it with the other kids, presumably other parents. So you've got this whole rather large part of your life and the community that surrounds that. And I'm thinking about when the children grow up, they're going to move on from that and not need you or want you to be doing quite so much stuff. So were you aware of how that was going to affect your life? Moving on to a next stage, the

Monica Marlatt: 6:57

empty Nestor stage, was very hard for me. I don't think we talk about it enough. I really wasn't prepared for it. People will go, oh, you're going to love it. You're going to have your own time. You can read books and sleep in, and you can go vacation. But that's not what I found. I was very sad. I missed my kids dearly and they have successful careers. I didn't want to burden them with my blue. So I was, like, telling myself I had to turn myself around because it's not going to change. They're not coming back. I have to figure this out. So I thought that what I liked to do before I had kids, and there were a few things. Oh, I like to puzzle and I like swimming and being a little bit more social. So that's what I did. I started to puzzle and I still like puzzling. I just forgot that I liked puzzling. So in the spare time, I would puzzle and it really just exploded. My kids suggested that because I was building so many puzzles, I should start an Instagram account. I didn't know what that was. I'm older. I was like, what is that? So I looked into that and I started an Instagram account and following other people that did puzzles, we were all taking the same pictures of the same puzzle. It was very boring. And I was like, I have to come up with a different way to present my puzzles on my Instagram. And. And that's where I really got creative. And I am still having fun doing it. I take my puzzles out. So if it's a beach, I go out to my local beach, I hold the puzzle and I'm sitting in a nice chair with my feet in the sand and I take a nice picture. That's fun. My husband helps me. We get out, we walk all around the city. I live in a big city. I'm from Toronto. There's lots of beautiful art installations, which I really love. So I'm always gravitating to a puzzle that I oh, I can take that puz this location and we can take a nice picture. So we're exploring our city all over again, which is a lot of fun, and we're seeing lots of nice art. Like, my city has so many art projects here, so I love that. But then what I also started to do was I saw people do stop motion reels and that looked fun. So I spent a lot of time doing tutorials. I figured out how to do it, and with a lot of puzzles, I'll do a stop motion reel. And that became very popular on my account and I became very popular on Instagram. I have over 17,000 people following me because of the creative ways I present my puzzle. And I'm just like, oh, I just love that people like that.

Claire Waite Brown: 9:35

And do you show yourself as well? Is your personality getting across on these reels and things?

Monica Marlatt: 9:44

Yes. Anyone that wants to be popular on one of these platforms, if it's YouTube, TikTok or Instagram, you have to be a person. There should be a face behind it. Like, my advice is it becomes more real, it's more organic. You should always present yourself in your content. Not all the time, but people want to know that it's not fake, it's not a brand doing it. They want to know that there's a real person behind, behind it. So I didn't do it at the beginning, but now I do quite regularly. And I actually have my husband doing it too. He doesn't like it so much. But we both present ourselves on our Instagram platform and I feel doing that, I have a family. Funny enough in doing that. I went grocery shopping once and I had somebody recognize me and like, do you do puzzles? And I was like, well, yeah, I do. It was out of Costco. And she goes, I follow you. And I'm like, oh, my goodness, that's hilarious. Yeah.

Claire Waite Brown: 10:45

Two things that perhaps people wouldn't think would naturally go together because you think of puzzles as solo individual, then you're doing the modern technology of the content creation, the inventive ideas around it, and also showing your face, being sociable. They don't sound like they should go together. And also, I wonder about the audiences, whether we might be cliched or thinking in stereotypes. When we think about the audiences that like puzzling, what do you think about those few points?

Monica Marlatt: 11:24

Well, you know, Instagram is great because they give you a lot of data they call it insights. And you'd be surprised who follows me. It's more younger people that follow me and the people that do the puzzling. Yes, I have people my age follow me, but it's mostly the younger people and the younger people that are doing puzzling now. I get it. Like, puzzling is trending. It is a pop culture thing right now. People puzzling, they're doing it because work, they're on the computer all the time. Okay. They're consumed with their social media platforms. They want to get offline, they want to disconnect. What a great way to disconnect is with a puzzle. Mind you, the flip side of that, there is a big online community presence where people puzzle socially online. Like, we can all join in a zoom room or whatever platform, and we all puzzle the same puzzle and we're from all over the world. So you're sort of puzzling by yourself, but you're still connected online and you're puzzling with a group. So it sort of goes both ways. But yes, younger people are really puzzling. And what they're doing with puzzling is there's a new trend called speed puzzling. So they race each other, and when I say race each other, they go to competitions. And they start off locally. It could be at a library, it could be at a pub. Then they go to their state or national, and then it goes all the way to globals where they have international speed puzzling competition. And people come from all over the world. You can puzzle as a solo, as pairs and as a group. And you would not believe the number I'm talking. Thousands of people come. Thousands. They can't even do it for a weekend because there's so many people that come. There's different heats that they do. It's streamed online live on YouTube. It's crazy, but that's what puzzling has become now. It is a competition. I'm a casual puzzler. I just chill. It's calming for me. But that is why we have such a large demographics of young people doing puzzling now, because they've elevated it. They're speed puzzling.

Claire Waite Brown: 13:31

Well, I never. That is another new thing I've learned today.

Monica Marlatt: 13:36

Okay, good. Amazing.

Claire Waite Brown: 13:39

You've taken this a bit further as well. Tell me about the cruises.

Monica Marlatt: 13:43

Oh, that's wonderful. My husband and I, we are traveling a lot because we're empty nesters. And I would always bring a puzzle on our cruise because we have extended sea days. So you're on sea for about five days. There are things to do but, you know, I can only read so many books, so I do a puzzle. Whenever we puzzle, people always stop by. And some people join us, some people just like to chat. But then an idea came to my head, and I said, you know what? I have so many connections with different puzzle brands now, just because I am a puzzle influencer, I bet you I could get a whole bunch of puzzles and we could make this, like an activity to do for a few hours for different passengers. They can come, they can puzzle with their own, and they can do their own puzzle. Yes, there are community puzzles on a cruise ship, but not everybody likes to puzzle with people. Sometimes there's missing pieces. Sometimes people are puzzle hogs and they don't want to puzzle with you. They'll make it uncomfortable. Sometimes you don't like those other people. So this is a way that they can puzzle and do their own thing. And I can introduce them to way more than the standard jigsaw puzzle. I bring plastic puzzles across, acrylic puzzles, wood puzzles, shape puzzles, irregular piece puzzles. They have no idea of all the different puzzle brands that are available. I bring 30 to 40 different puzzle brands, and they're like, they can barely name one puzzle brand. So they're very, very excited. The cruise ship I work with is Royal Caribbean. Took a little while to find the right person, the right connection, but I didn't give up. I have made that connection. We do anywhere between two to four puzzle cruises a year. And it's just a lot of fun. Like, I get to puzzle and I get to travel. It's just a win, win.

Claire Waite Brown: 15:31

And I was interested in the different types of puzzles, as you started to mention there. And as an influencer, I'm assuming that you probably get brands sending you stuff as well.

Monica Marlatt: 15:42

Yes. So it started more when the pandemic happened. People lost their jobs. They were trying to reinvent how can I make some money? They were pivoting, and puzzles were really trending because we were. It was on lockdown. Everyone was at home. So they make some puzzles. Unfortunately, they couldn't get their puzzles in stores because the stores were closed. So they reached out to people that had a following on Instagram. And I had a small following at that time, like maybe two, 3,000 followers. And they'd say, hey, can we send you a puzzle? Please post about it. And I'd be like, okay. So that's how I started getting puzzles sent to me. Now, puzzle brands always reach out to me when they come out with new releases or something. They'll say, can we send You a few. Would you post about it or would you take them on your cruise? And I'm like, yes, yes, that's fine. But when the pandemic happened, instead of, let's say there were 10 or 12 puzzle brands, all of a sudden we had what's called boutique puzzle brands come out. These puzzles, little family run businesses, they only had five or six images. They were really nice quality, nice packaging. I can easily say there's probably 120 puzzle brands now. It opened the eyes to puzzlers like myself that it's not just this one regular puzzle brand. They work with artists, illustrators. They've come up with different textures of puzzles. It's just been wonderful to get to experience different puzzles. Like your cork puzzles. Wood. Oh, my God. There's probably 30 different wood puzzle brands and they all use different woods. Some of them are hand cut, some are laser cut. They're just amazing. And I, I feel very blessed to receive some of these puzzles because they get very expensive. I don't make money when I post, but I do receive a free puzzle. And if I'm not spending money, I'm happy.

Claire Waite Brown: 17:39

Yeah, I understand. I wanted to talk about space here because I often speak with other guests and they say I need space for my canvas or I need space for my potter's wheel. And you're talking about people sending you puzzles. You're talking about taking puzzles to the cruises. Where do these puzzles live when you're not on the cruise ship, et cetera.

Monica Marlatt: 18:04

Oh, people don't realize. My husband and I, we sold our beautiful home. All right? I had a 3,000 square foot home. I mean, a thousand square foot home. Now in a condo, there is no space. Okay? It's in the closet, it's under the bed. We have two bathrooms. One's in the bathtub with the shower curtain hiding it. Like they're everywhere. All right? A puzzle comes in, a puzzle has to go out. I donate a lot of my puzzles. I sell some of my puzzles, but I'm always being creative. Where can we put this? Like, I, you know, I'm hiding them when they come so my husband doesn't see because it goes, we have no more room. Why do we have more puzzles here? So I hide, I Waite till it goes out before I bring them in for our cruise. Puzzles. There are a lot of puzzles. I bring over 200 puzzles in two large suitcases. What I do with those ones, I literally repackage them. They're not in their boxes. I put them in a Ziploc bag. I Photocopy, laminate, the insert photo. I label both, so I match them up. So those have been reduced in size by a lot. That works for me. But as for the puzzles in their boxes, I know when I look at some puzzle influencers, they're in a beautiful home. They have a private puzzle room, all right? And they have shelves and shelves of puzzles. It looks great, but at the same time, I like that my puzzles are being turned around and other people are building them just to put it on a shelf. It's like a book book. It's only been read once. Let other people read the book. Let other people do the puzzle. As for our puzzle reels, that's another great thing. I only have a small living room. It's a living room, kitchen and dining room. That's what a condo is. When we do a deconstruct, a stop motion, we literally move everything out. I'll probably do three just because it's just so much effort. My husband's 75 years old and we're moving this big sofa back and forth each time we move everything out. And then we set up, you know, a little table and the lights and everything. I'll do two videos. Then we move everything back like it is a whole day of production. And I do that maybe every other week, but there is no space. We just have to be creative and use with what we have, and we do it. It works. It's fine. I never come across to anyone that I'm a professional, that I have a studio. I don't. I do sometimes a behind the scene, I go, you're looking at my living room. Okay, We've moved the carpet. We've done everything. People can do it. Don't be intimidated just because you live in a small space. If I could do it, you can do it.

Claire Waite Brown: 20:42

It's reality, isn't it? It's realistic.

Monica Marlatt: 20:46

It is.

Claire Waite Brown: 20:48

I wondered about other kind of benefits. Do you feel that as well as community and having this joy and enjoyment in your life, do you feel other benefits come into your life through tapping into this creative side of you? Through getting back into puzzling?

Monica Marlatt: 21:09

Puzzling is great for me. It's very relaxing. It's like your Zen moment when we have all this busyness, all this noise around us. Puzzling calms me down. I really like it. I as for my age, puzzling is great because I'm learning new things. Okay? If a puzzle isn't challenging, you know, that's nice, but it should be challenging. You know, you should push yourself. It's the Same if you're doing a sudoku or a crossword puzzle. It should be hard. You know, you want to stimulate your brain. So puzzling is really good about that. But what I do with my stop motion reels and I'm learning new technology, I'm learning a language. And as we're older, we should always be learning something new. You could be learning new recipes, learning how to cook. You can learn a language, you can learn a musical instrument, but we should never stop learning. And I find I'm learning something new with the technology. So for me, that's very good. The other thing when we're older is there are two things you should always be learning. And we need to be social. It's so easy to isolate yourself and read a book, do a puzzle, watch TV at night. It's very easy just to fall into our routine and, you know, maybe catch up with a neighbor or your family on a phone call, whatever. That's not good enough. We need to get out. We need to be social. Say you want to learn pickleball. Hey, now you're learning something and you're being social. You want to join a book club, you want to join a walking club to be social. So the puzzle community is very social. I mentioned that there's a huge online community that counts. You know, you're interacting with different people. Yes, it's virtually, but it's great. People are doing their speed puzzling competitions, they're getting out, they're meeting new people. That's what we need to do as we get older. Two things, being social and learning new things. And the puzzle provides me with that.

Claire Waite Brown: 23:06

Yeah, you've given already given some really interesting insights. And I'm wondering if you have any other advice, perhaps for parents whose children are almost leaving the nest or just anyone who faces having extra time on their hands or a life change. If you have any advice for how they might prepare or protect themselves from possible disconnection or boredom or loneliness going

Monica Marlatt: 23:39

forward, you got to find a hobby. You have to find something that interests you. Like you're doing these podcasts. Like, this is amazing. You're keeping stimulated. You're meeting new people. Find something that you like. And it could be something that's very popular or trending or something that's very unique. If you want to do pottery or taking up bunka shishu, I. It really doesn't matter, but find something that you like. Like you could start a hiking club. There's just so many things, but it's really just connecting. What is it that I like. And not to isolate yourself. That's the best thing. You might think you have all this time and you'll do all these fun things with your kids. They're not going to want to do that. They have their own life, they have their own friends. They will include you. They're sweet, they're kind, but you will not be with them every day like you used to be. And your co workers, we all outgrow our friends and co workers. You have to find something to fill that space.

Claire Waite Brown: 24:36

Yeah. And I think another thing is when you're trying new things, and I have tried a number of things, is that you don't have to like it. If you try something and it's not right for you, you can still try something else, can't you?

Monica Marlatt: 24:51

You know, that is great because when I was raising my kids, so I remember my eldest, you would put them in every sport, in every club until you find something that fits. Now, my eldest, nothing really ever fit. I think the final thing that fit was the garden club, but she's not a sports person. The other two, they're very sporty and, you know, anything you put them in, they gravitated to and they like. But that first child, she did not like anything. And it was another parent that said, she goes, keep putting them in. Keep being creative. Come up with different ideas. You will find something that they like. And here we are as grown adults, we're doing the same things for ourselves. Keep trying new things. You will find something. You will.

Claire Waite Brown: 25:35

There will be something. And it doesn't have to be the first thing or the second thing or the third thing that you try. We're kind of told we should persevere. And that's often something we're told as children. But in fact, when this is about your pure enjoyment, you don't have to persevere if it's not right for you.

Monica Marlatt: 25:52

That you even tried something that new is great, because now I feel if you're in a conversation with, with somebody, you can say, oh, I. I tried pickleball. It was, you know, the people were really great, but my feet don't move. It's not for me. But now you have some reference when it comes up in a conversation rather than just standing there and nodding your head. So keep trying. And those things that you're doing, they will come out in the conversation. Even when your kids, you're having a conversation with your kids, they'll go, mom, what new things did you try this week? They're the starting point for you guys to have a conversation together and they might laugh at your misadventure and like, well, I can't Waite to see what you do next week, Mom. Great. That's perfect. That's what we want you to do.

Claire Waite Brown: 26:35

That's brilliant. Thank you so much for chatting today, Monica. I've really enjoyed hearing about everything. Tell us how we can connect with you.

Monica Marlatt: 26:48

Well, my name is Puzzled About Everything on Instagram and even if you just did a Google search, you'd come my website and everything else would come out, but it's that easy. Puzzled About Everything. And I am puzzled about everything.

Claire Waite Brown: 27:01

Fantastic.

Monica Marlatt: 27:02

Well, thank you for having me. It was lovely chatting with you and you do wonderful things for our community. And thank you.

Claire Waite Brown: 27:08

Oh, thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, perhaps you'd like to financially contribute to Future episodes at buymeacoffee.com/creativityfound There's a link in the show Notes. If you are listening on a value for value enabled app such as Fountain, TrueFans or Podcast Guru, feel free to send a few sats my way. And if you have no idea of what I'm talking about you, you can find out more by listening to my sister podcast called Podcasting 2.0 in Practice,