Jigsaw puzzle fans

[LeafOnTheWind]

I used to do jigsaw puzzles all the time as a kid. I got bored once and put 4 of my 1000 piece puzzles in one box and worked on all 4 at the same time. Since college and having cats I mostly did online versions. But I missed actually physically working on the puzzles. I found 3 puzzles that would be a challenge and hoped would cheer me up. This year hasn't started out too well and I just wanted to feel like a kid again I think.

3000 piece puzzle of Japan - I worked on this 4-6 hours a day. I thought it would be a bigger challenge than it was but there is so much texture in this puzzle it was easy to sort out small sections. The hardest parts were the black/dark pieces and the cherry blossoms because they all look the same.
Day 1 - Color/texture sorting
Day 2 - https://i.postimg.cc/XNHfSbZp/20240306-220245-2.jpg
Day 3 - https://i.postimg.cc/zB4hLkGL/20240307-194504.jpg
Day 4 - https://i.postimg.cc/NF3JcGmT/20240311-184733.jpg
Day 5 - Completed
Day 6 - Tomorrow I will be putting the puzzle away.

Trying to decide which one of the following two I will work on next. I need to get some foam board and make a board big enough to do the 5000 piece Pokemon puzzle so I may end up with Hogwarts castle next. I think the castle will be a lot harder than Japan or Pokemon. There are a lot of similar colors. Not sure how much I will be able to rely on color and textures to sort.

3000 piece Hogwarts castle
5000 piece Pokemon There is a 1000 piece version of this puzzle but once I saw this one I had to go with the challenge. This will be the most pieces I've worked on ever.

I was a little bit worried about how Millie would act around a puzzle because prior furry pets would have torn them to shreds. She is an angel and leaves it completely alone. I still cover them up to be safe but she hasn't shown any interest in sitting on them or messing with them.

 

[myhoneyhoney]

Wow! That puzzle is beautiful.

My kids and I (college age kiddos) do puzzles. We only have 1000 piece ones though. We are doing all the Disney Thomas Kinkade ones. We are also collecting the Ravensburger Disney puzzles for the future.

Do you have a certain designer you like? Do you have a favorite puzzle retailer?

 

[MacMadame]

I am still doing them online. I like https://www.jigsawexplorer.com/ and I also have Jigsawscapes on my phone. The problem with phone ones is that the screen is SO SMALL so I only do those when I'm away from home and killing time.

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

Do you have a certain designer you like? Do you have a favorite puzzle retailer?

I usually just go with the pictures that look interesting to me. No particular favorite.

 

[Lynn226]

I love jigsaw puzzles. It's been a long time since I've done one online or in person.

 

[made_in_canada]

I started doing puzzles during the pandemic and now do at least one a month. I tend to ignore everyone and everything until I’m done so I have to be careful when I start Only 1000 piece puzzles though. And I hate doing puzzles with a lot of sky.

 

[MacMadame]

How many of us puzzle fans also like Lego? I think of Lego as 3D puzzles.

 

[tony]

How many of us puzzle fans also like Lego? I think of Lego as 3D puzzles.

I have somewhere around 250 Lego sets now. The entire Architecture line minus one that was only sold in Singapore, pretty much all of the Harry Potter sets since the new wave in 2018, the Super Mario sets, and a lot of Ideas/Icons.

While people on Reddit were arguing over my color-coordinated books, I explained the whole reason I made the change is because I previously had Lego sets on some of the shelves breaking up the flow of books, and wanted to make it all more cohesive.

Here are some of them. I don't love the fact that some got almost hidden in the back, but I also don't have a 5BR house for a Lego-only room https://imgur.com/a/IAPxUz7

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

Orlando Bloom was profiled somewhere showing off his Lego room. I only know this because someone made a Twitter that if he lost his Lego room he would be "Legoless". I laughed.


Puzzles I would love to try but will never pay that much money:

Disney Moments (40,320 pieces)
Mickey Mouse Through the Years (40,320 pieces)
Wild Life Puzzle (33,600 pieces)
Bookshelf (4,000 pieces)

 

[MacMadame]

Bookshelf (4,000 pieces)

Tony needs this one.

@tony your collection rivals Half Asleep Chris' Here's just one set he had built: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo_svJo9XkA

 

[Aussie Willy]

I would love to have more time to do puzzles. I have three of them that I bought during Covid that are sitting there not completed. I stick to 1,000 piece puzzles.

Unfortunately I have lost pieces due to cats playing on the table. Then I find them under furniture. I lent a couple of my puzzles to a friend for her son who is on the spectrum. When the final piece was missing he freaked out.

Has anyone done one of those 40,000 piece puzzles? Who has a place big enough to fit one in their home.

 

[A.H.Black]

Orlando Bloom was profiled somewhere showing off his Lego room. I only know this because someone made a Twitter that if he lost his Lego room he would be "Legoless". I laughed.


Puzzles I would love to try but will never pay that much money:

Disney Moments (40,320 pieces)
Mickey Mouse Through the Years (40,320 pieces)
Wild Life Puzzle (33,600 pieces)
Bookshelf (4,000 pieces)

Other than the 4,000 piece one, I would never have the room. I have about 40 puzzles stacked and ready to do. I kind of got out of the habit when I had some health issues that wouldn't allow me to lean over that much. I will get back to them.

Like reading, the joy of doing puzzles is in the doing, not in the completing or the sorting - which I find very tedious. Other than the border and turning the pieces right side up, I don't do any sorting. I have done them all sorts of ways - bottom to top, top to bottom, middle to edges, edges to middle, etc. The most challenging is to do them without a picture - I don't do that very often.

 

[LadyM76]

I am almost done working on a Ravensburger Space Odyssey puzzle. It’s 5000 pieces and has been a really fun, challenging puzzle. I enjoy working on puzzles.

 

[smurfy]

I love doing jigsaw puzzles. I have a ton of 1,000 piece and one 1,500 and one 2,000 piece.
I do not like doing the 2,000 - not that it is hard - but I got bored looking at the picture for longer.
I never save them, I put them back in the box and do them again in a year or so.
During covid I found I was bored with ones I have had for over 20-25 years, so gave a bunch to the library and bought some new ones.

 

[myhoneyhoney]

Haaa, I just remembered when I was younger I had a big Little Mermaid puzzle. It was the original VHS cover photo, the one with the peepee castle. One day my Grandma asked me how I was doing with the puzzle and I nonchalantly told her I was working on the peepee.

 

[A.H.Black]

I liked this story. There's also a senior center that did the same one. It almost has to be a school or a library - somewhere where there is enough room to display it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTmohq9KL_o

I think the Dowdle puzzles are fairly easy, but 60,000 pieces are still 60,000 pieces.

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

Live stream links to the USA Jigsaw Nationals 2024

How many knew that speed puzzling was a thing?

Karen Puzzles is a YouTube channel for someone that turned puzzles into her full time job. Seriously. She puts together puzzles for a living. Just a little bit jealous that puzzle companies send her free puzzles to feature in her videos. But will be the first to admit the time to come up with content, video and editing is a lot of work too. She will be recapping the 2024 USA Nationals on her channel.

She also has a video of that 5000 piece Pokemon puzzle I am going to work on.

 

[LadyM76]

I love watching puzzlers on YouTube, especially Karen.

I am almost done with my space puzzle…. Can’t wait to be done. The next puzzle I’m doing is 6000 pieces.

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

@myhoneyhoney

I think I found a puzzle series to follow. My friend works at a Samaritan Center and she told me about a 3000 piece jigsaw puzzle that went out on the shelves. They had 2 of the 3 puzzles from the Ravensburger Karen Puzzles line. I got them for $10 total.

The 3000 piece puzzle
One of the 1000 piece puzzles

I've already finished the 1000 piece puzzle and it's a lot of fun. The puzzle pieces exploding out from the background all have a non-interlocking border from the main puzzle. So in theory you could put something underneath them to make them higher and make a 3D effect of the puzzle.

I will probably buy the third one at some point because these are really pretty gradient color puzzles.

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

The 5000 piece Pokemon puzzle is finished. That is sitting on top of four 20" x 30" poster boards. It's a really big puzzle.

 

[myhoneyhoney]

@LeafOnTheWind I love that 3000 piece Ravensburger. Thanks for the link.

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

I took a chance with an Ebay 2000 piece puzzle because it was really cheap and no additional shipping. I wasn't intending to get anything but it felt like a deal. There are 8 pieces missing. I can still return it but I'm trying to see how replacement puzzle pieces will work.

I took magnified pictures of the picture on the puzzle box and measured the surrounding pieces on the puzzle. Then I resized the images with a free online cm to pixel converter. I put the images in a Word document the size of my poster board and saved it as a pdf. I think I got the sizing right because I put the surrounding puzzle pieces on my poster board and they seem to fit with the same layout in the Word document.

Now I just need to find a printer and print the pdf onto my poster board. Next steps will be cutting up a cereal box or some other food box and figuring out how many layers of cardboard and poster board are the same height as the puzzle pieces. Then I need to trace out the missing piece shape on each layer, Exacto knife it out and then glue the layers together.

I don't expect it to line up perfectly with the other images but I think I can get close enough so you won't really notice from an overall view of the puzzle.

 

[LadyM76]

The 5000 piece Pokemon puzzle is finished. That is sitting on top of four 20" x 30" poster boards. It's a really big puzzle.

What a cool looking puzzle. Might have to get this one when I’m finished with the Educa 6000 piece puzzle I just started.

 

[Simone411]

I am still doing them online. I like https://www.jigsawexplorer.com/ and I also have Jigsawscapes on my phone. The problem with phone ones is that the screen is SO SMALL so I only do those when I'm away from home and killing time.

I use this, too, and totally love it. I found it from the word processor I use called Jarte. It was listed in the help section with a link that said, "Take a break!" lol.

I like it because there's an option where you can use your own photos to make jigsaw puzzles. I've used several pics of the skaters from screenshots I've made especially when it's off season during the summer.

 

[Simone411]

I used to work on jigsaw puzzles at this site, too. Thought I would add it in case anyone was interested.

Jigsaw Planet

Millions of free jigsaw puzzles created by a large community. Create, play, share jigsaw puzzles and compete with other users.

www.jigsawplanet.com