Discovered in a Livejournal

I know these as Hanjie, but I’ve also heard them called Paint by Numbers and Paint by Sudoku. They’re a Japanese logic puzzle, in which you use number clues to shade in squares on a grid, until you end up with a picture in the end.

I am absolutely addicted to them, so in the spirit of sharing, I’ve created some new ones with a Professionals theme. If you haven’t tried these before, read on for a tutorial…

( How to play Hanjie like a Pro )

Now if you’re ready to try some Hanjie on your own, or if you are already familiar with how the game is played, I have a variety of puzzles in PDF form for you to print out.

( Onto the Hanjie! )

ETA: The numbers are always read in order from left to right. So a row with 2, 1, 3, will always have two shaded squares, followed by one shaded square, followed by three shaded squares. And an unknown number of white squares between them, depending on the length of the row.
Thanks to msmoat for pointing this out! :-)

This day you will be haunted by three posts...

Every Christmas the YMCA gave us kids toys. There was one bag for girls, and one for boys, and we’d line up in front of our respective bags in order to pick our present – thoughtfully addressed to “Girl, age 4-6,” or “Boy, age 4-6.”

The agony transcended description. Would the present be a tolerably entertaining Betsy Wetsy doll, or would it be a dried up watercolour set with half the paints fallen out of their little cups? I snuck into the boys’ line once, but did I get a cap gun? No, I got Playdoh! It was an early lesson on Life’s intrinsic unfairness.

However, this year’s Christmas grab bag is different. Help yourself! Take whatever appeals! There’s enough for everyone. It’s what I think Christmas grab bags should be...

( Icons for every occasion! )