I absolutely love doing puzzles. I did not get into it until I was in my 30s but since then, I have done way too many to count. My favorites are 1000 pieces or more. The more challenging, the better. If they are too easy, I get bored. Although, I must admit, I have done some that were so hard, I gave up (think lots of the same color throughout). I have a puzzling technique that I must keep to every time as well.
Doing puzzles as a family can bring so much joy. When my boys were very little, we did the wooden puzzles to get them started and interested. As they got older, we would get the thick, large-piece puzzles with less than 100 pieces. They still love doing those kind together. Because there are so many different kinds of puzzles, we will never run out of different designs.
I recently bought a smaller, square table just for puzzling. It has been a dream of mine for years. I always had to do puzzles on our dining room table. It was difficult to eat as a family with puzzle pieces spread all around. Not to mention the pieces that accidentally got shoved off of the table while eating and the dog chewed them up. Not a very fun experience.
My puzzle table is set up in our living room where we can sit as a family and do them together. My husband can watch football or a cooking show or we can listen to music as we work. Our current puzzle (my husband gave it to me for Christmas) has people on it and those are the hardest, in my opinion. But, my boys come over and help match pieces with me and it has given me momentum to keep going.
My technique for doing puzzles is a little OCD. My in-laws (who also love doing puzzles and we often trade our favorites as we finish them) think I am a little….nuts. Ha! I am okay with it because my technique gets the puzzle done the way I want it done. The first order of business when beginning a new puzzle is to find all of the edge pieces and the four corners. I put the entire edge together before moving on to the center parts. My current puzzle has one edge piece that I cannot find. It is driving me up the wall.
After finding and putting together the entire edge, I move on to the center. I look for areas that are more simple. For instance, a certain colored house or a Christmas tree with funny ornaments. I like to try to make sections with pieces I think go there. Sometimes I am wrong. I have a cousin who goes through every piece and arranges them ahead of time by sides (how many have out pieces and in pieces…whatever they are called) and by color in those categories. I do not go that far but it sure has helped her in doing puzzles.
Puzzling with your family can be lots of fun. I used to get upset when my boys put pieces in the wrong places but I have since let that go. It’s all in good fun and it teaches them how to solve problems by trying different things until they get it right. It can also teach patience if you have a particularly difficult puzzle. Grab some puzzles and get started. They come in many sizes and different amounts of pieces. Your children will have fun if it’s a puzzle they are very interested in.
