Puzzles--The Multi-Piece Kind

[jpskewedthrone]

So, I like puzzles. The kind where you dump the pieces out onto a table, sort out the edge pieces as you turn them all right side up (if they have a "right side" to go up). Every Christmas, I usually get a 1000 piece puzzle and my family puts it together of the few days we're all together around Christmas. Mostly this is something my Mom and I do, although the rest of the family does help. A few years ago, I got a 2000 piece puzzle, and we didn't get it finished, so I took it home myself and finished it on my own. That got the puzzle bug into my system and so I ended up buying this puzzle:





That's right. 5000 pieces. I dumped it out, started the long process of sorting out the pieces, realized that it wouldn't fit on the table I had, and so bought two new tables to put together and put the puzzle on that. I still had to stack the pieces in two layers to get them all on the table. And then I started putting the pieces together.

It took me a year and a half. Of course, I didn't work on the puzzle that entire time. There were months on end where I didn't have time to work on it at all. I mean, I have a day job, and then I do that writing thing on the side, so I reserved only my weekends for puzzle time . . . and then only weekends when I wasn't doing a con, or doing something with my partner, or . . . well, you get the idea.

But I finished the puzzle. Here's the proof:





And now that it's done . . . well, I'll take a picture of it (already done, of course), and then I'll rip it all apart and put it back in the box and, someday, I'll dig it back out again and put it back together.

So, what's next? Well . . . there's this 9000 piece puzzle that I bought a while ago . . .

Comments

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

I'm curious. Why not puzzle glue and hang it up?

(That's what we did when my family finished a puzzle that size. Then it got lost in a move.)

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I did glue up a few puzzles a long time ago (in my teens), but discovered that I wasn't interested in them after that and that I also couldn't enjoy putting them back together again sometime in the future. Once they were glued . . . the love affair was over. *grin*

Besides, this puzzle is like 4 ft by 6 ft, so getting it framed or anything would be costly.

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

I was also going to ask the mod-podge question. The wife and I have done several puzzles with over 1000 pieces. Each one we've glued and framed. It's costly, but it's a nice reminder of things we've worked on together.