My youngest daughter loves puzzles. For her 5th birthday (this past December) a friend gave her a beautiful, but very difficult puzzle. It has 750 pieces, and no straight edges. The puzzle has a fancy, almost lacey edge. She's tried several times over the last several months to put the puzzle together, but has never been successful. Part of the problem is we just have one table, so everything must be put away for meals. I've often wished we had a puzzle table so we could leave it up for a few days and work on it here and there.
Last week my daughter asked me to help her with the puzzle. We worked on it for a while, but before long it was time to put it away. I got the idea to separate the pieces into their own baggies. All the pieces of Snow White went into a baggie, the bunnies went into a baggie, the gray squirrel and brown and blue raccoon went into a baggie, the blue birds had a baggie, and the purple birds had a baggie. Part of the problem was the bunnies fur is the same color as Snow White's skin, and the raccoon's blue mask and rings were the same color as Snow White's dark blue hair. So some pieces got put into the wrong baggies, but for the most part we got it separated. All of the background was just left loose in the bottom of the box. At that point we put the puzzle away for the rest of the day.
Last Thursday my daughter again asked me to help her with her puzzle. It was almost lunch time, so I told her we'd work on it after lunch. My husband was meeting a friend for lunch that day, so as soon as we were finished eating my girls got to work on the puzzle while I cleaned up the kitchen. When I was finished I sat down at the table and worked with them. Having the different sections separated really helped, but it was still a long process. When my husband came home we recruited his help on the puzzle. After a while the girls grew tired of working on the puzzle; but I was hooked. We were making progress, and I couldn't stop! A little after 5:00 our oldest asked, "So... what's for supper?" Supper? Time had flown so fast while working on that puzzle that supper completely slipped our minds! At that time it was too late to fix what we had planned, plus we didn't want to put the puzzle away. We were making so much progress! I suggested we eat out someplace cheap, then go to the store and look for something to put the puzzle onto, so we could continue working on it without taking up the table. We had a coupon for McDonalds, so we all got into the car and went out to eat. Then we drove across the street to Walgreens and looked for some poster board. What we found was even better... a large sheet of foam board, like what you would use for mounting posters. We bought that and headed home. My husband and I got right back to work on the puzzle. We very carefully transftered it to the foam board, and continued working. After a while my husband decided he needed a break, so it was down to just me. I couldn't stop! My back ached from being hunched over the table for so long, but I just couldn't stop! I did take a short break around 7:00 to get my girls' baths ready, and another quick break around 8:00 to put them to bed. But then I was right back at the puzzle. Around 9:30 my husband said he was going to bed. I told him goodnight, and continued working on the puzzle. I guess I was obsessed with finishing it! At 10:00 I decided I'd just work another 15 minutes... then before I knew it I heard the clock chime 11:00. Where had the time gone? I knew at that point I needed to call it a night, if I was ever going to get up the next morning.
The next morning I moved the puzzle to our bed, then brought it back out after breakfast. It's a good thing we are finished with school for the summer so I had the time to work on the puzzle. I was going to finish this puzzle, no matter what it took! :-) I knew there would be some missing pieces. The puzzle has been all over our apartment... the dining room, the living room, the girls' room... so I knew after 7 months the puzzle would be missing some pieces. I was just hoping it wouldn't be missing too many pieces, and that they would turn up.
I moved the puzzle at lunch time, and at that point it was almost finished! My husband helped me after lunch. It was so cool to see the pieces taking shape! We decided we'd let our youngest daughter put in the last piece, since this was her puzzle. And our oldest daughter could put in the second to last piece. Finally it came time to finish the puzzle! We were missing three pieces, but other than those three, the last two pieces were ready to be put in. Our girls put those two pieces into the puzzle, and we all sat back and admired the beautiful puzzle. I decided at that time that I will never ever take this puzzle apart! It is not going back into the box! *lol*
We did a lot of searching for those missing puzzle pieces. My husband did find one of them, so now we are down to just two missing pieces. We went through all the other puzzle boxes, and although we did find some puzzle pieces in the wrong box, these two particular pieces have not yet turned up. We are hoping to move this Fall, so I'm guessing they will turn up at that time, if not before. Although I'm really hoping we find the missing pieces sooner than that! When it's complete I want to get some puzzle glue so we can glue the puzzle together. Then we can hang it on the girls' wall. There are several pieces that are supposed to come out to create an even more decorative border, but I won't remove them until we have the puzzle completed. Hopefully one of these days I will have a completed picture to show you. But until then, here is our puzzle.
Read more...
