12-14-12

12-13-12

12-12-12

Next Project

Winter Friends - 500 Pieces

14x18.  I glued this one for Christmas Decorating :D

11-27

11-26

11-25

Next Project

I only have two of my Christmas puzzle set left, so I decided to do them next.  This is #9.

Under the Palms - 101 Pieces

Just a quick one, for the fun of it.  My Mum bought this at WalMart as a sort of gag gift - told me she'd found a really hard puzzle for me to do XD




16x6 inches.  I forget what company.

Navigator - 1000 Pieces

25 x 18 inches, by PaperCity Puzzles

11-17

11-16

11-15

11-14

I finished this puzzle last week - completely forgot to post about it!
So I'll have a pic a day for the next few days until it's all up :D

10-27

10-25

Next Project and Slowing Down

I won't be posting pics daily for a while as I am working on getting Christmas presents done.

Here is the next project I will be doing, though!

Eiffel Tower - 60 Pieces

'Peugeot' - 1000 Pieces

19 x 29 inches, from the 'Vintages' set by Sure-Lox.

I have two more puzzles from this set and I'm on the look-out for the other three

10-15

10-14

10-13

10-12

'Peugeot' seems to be a French car and bicycle manufacturer.  They are still in business as far as my research could discover.

I will be doing the car next!

10-11

It was actually several days before I got this together; I was busy and almost all of these pieces look exactly alike!  I didn't realize that the edge of the picture on the box was actually part of the puzzle!  Wouldn't have stopped me - it was just a surprise!  I shall do the yellow word next.  I'm going to look it up and see what it means.  A car manufacturing logo, I assume for now.

Next Project

The first of my clearance puzzles.

Colorful Crayons - 500 Pieces

11x18, by Puzzlebug.  All done!  So bright and pretty!  I think this one is going to get glued, which I don't do a lot with smaller puzzles.

10-8

Almost done - going faster and faster as there are fewer pieces.  There are so many unexpected colors, though - like the blue crayons have a bit of a purple line on their wrappers, or the color next to one crayon bleeds over, or the purples and greens and sienna crayons look exactly the same unless there is some of the wrapper showing - things like that.  Makes for an interesting study in light reflection/refraction, if you're into that sort of thing!

10-7

Much better on the colors - still slow on the actual working!

10-6

The flash burned out the very bright, pretty colors - this one is going slowly but it's not frustrating.  Every single piece is different so I can't do my usual sort-by-colors.  Therefore I sorted the whole thing by shape right at the beginning and it's helping a lot.  I wonder if these are Crayola Crayons?

10-5

It's kinda like a rainbow threw up on my table... XD

Next Project

Homemade Lemonade - 500 Pieces

11x18, by Puzzlebug.  A very nice, easy one.

10-2

10-1

Next Project

Hamburger and Hot Dogs - 1000 pieces

18 x 24, by Puzzlebug.  I'm framing this one for a present, but wouldn't it look great in a restaurant?!

9-28

How To, Part Three

Just one more step I left out!

Usually by the time my puzzle looks like this:



I have sorted out all the rest of the pieces by shape - one on one side and one on the other, like so:



If there are more than two shapes, I sort them into groups with a little space between.  Most puzzles with odd shapes actually have six basic shapes.  Then there are puzzles like that Cats! one I did recently, which defies all puzzle standards :P

PS - Taking pictures of your puzzles can be helpful in different ways, like planning what you'll work next, noticing different shades, spotting the pieces you've knocked to the floor...

9-26

9-25

How To, Part Two

Next I find another color - in this case, I found a lot of the relish pieces while I was looking for lettuce pieces.  I sort them all out.



And this brings up another good thing to show - when you have a lot of pieces that look alike, you can usually sort them by shape to make life easier.  For Puzzlebug puzzles like this one, there are two fairly distinct shapes.  I sort the pieces into those two groups.  In this case, longs and shorts.



It makes it much quicker to put together - if you get stuck, you can try each shape until you find the missing piece.  This works really well for plain blue sky!
Soon you will have your part of the puzzle complete...



Which often leads to getting more in the same area done, especially if you're close to other distinctive colors.



And that's basically it. Just keep doing that until all of your puzzle is done. Easy-peasy! Back to progress pics - this puzzle's going down!

How-To, Part One

I have been asked, not so much how to put a puzzle together, but if I do any organizing or anything.  I do, so I thought I'd show you guys with this big puzzle.

I always do the edge pieces (I call it the 'frame') first.



While I'm looking for the edge pieces, I lay most of the others out, right side up, some spread out and some in little piles.



Then I pick a part of the puzzle, near the edge, with a distinct, easy to find color.  For this puzzle, I chose the dark green of the lettuce on the burger.  I spread out all the pieces, and turn the last over if there are any left, and I pick out and put those pieces together as I go, so I don't get bored.



And then it all looks like this:



The frame all together, the pieces all face up, and the puzzle off to a bit of a start.  I'm very lucky to have an unused table big enough for this.  Part Two tomorrow!