Puzzling it Out

It’s Monday and that means it’s time for another Guest Post. This week’s guest poster is All Jigsaw Puzzles with an article about different ways to solve your Jigsaw Puzzles. Enjoy!

How to put a jigsaw puzzle together (they are more ways than you think)

How frustrating it is to trying to do a jigsaw puzzle when you've been having a go at one for hours. There are handy tips regular puzzlers use to make assembling a jigsaw feel less of a chore.

The most popular way is where edge pieces are put together first but the danger there is simply boredom. You could initially spend time assembling blues skies and green grasses, and with little reward.

86 year-old Mrs Jean Mitchell moved into a residential home in Hertfordshire recently. She was determined to carry on doing jigsaw puzzles. She had often enjoyed doing them to pass the time when she lived on her own following her husband’s death over 10 years ago.

As her eye sight has gotten slowly worse she has found she is not able to do the 1000 piece jigsaws like she used to but has managed to persuade others in her new home to take part. Rather than doing the edges first, as she always has done, she divides the pieces by colours. It works and even others with poor eye sight in the home are able to distinguish colours whilst still enjoying the challenge of assembling a jigsaw puzzle.

It means, as Mrs Mitchell, has found that people of all abilities or dexterity can be part of the “jigsaw puzzle team”.

Other techniques

Another successful way is choosing parts of the jigsaw puzzle to assemble. Like with large tasks it's often preferable to break them up into smaller areas. By doing little areas you get instant rewards. To begin with pick out colours and other distinctive parts such as landmarks- use the box lid as a guide if that helps.

When 34 year old Christopher Turner set a challenge for his family that would appeal to all ages nobody could quite believe their eyes. He borrowed a 36 piece Disney puzzle from his six-year-old daughter. The challenge was to complete the puzzle as quickly as possible in timed conditions. Easy. Whilst most members of the family went for the traditional technique of doing edges first, Christopher went to the middle and assembled pieces outwards.

Explaining his success - he beat everyone else by a least one minute - Christopher said he was simply matching up recognizable sections of the puzzle and then linking them up afterwards. He demonstrated this technique worked when he improved on his time for further rounds. Later, in between his daughter wanting her puzzle back, others’ times also became quicker but crucially it made the jigsaw puzzle far more enjoyable to do.

As Mrs. Jean Mitchell and Christopher Turner have found, jigsaws can be enjoyed by any ages. With so many modern day distractions, doing jigsaws for many offers a chance to focus on one task. This in turns leads to greater concentration and wellbeing.

Take into account jigsaws helping improve manual dexterity and communication, and you’re on to a winner however you wish to assemble your jigsaw puzzles. As we are HUGE proponents of Jigsaws Puzzles not only for their health benefits, but for the simple pleasure they bring to enthusiasts. Please check out our website for our huge selection of rare and hard to find Jigsaw Puzzles and Jigsaw Accessories to make your jigsaw experience easier.

This post was submitted by Alan MacLachlan of All Jigsaw Puzzles. The links found throughout this document are intended to bring value to those who are enthusiasts. For more information on Alan, check out the Jigsaw Puzzles Site.

 

Open Mic Monday

Don’t forget if you would like to be a part of open mic monday don’t hesitate to contact me. See you all soon for more reviews and opinions, until then, have fun gaming.

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