Jigsaw Puzzle Tips

Jigsaw Puzzle Plans, Tips, and Clues: An Informatory Document to Become Puzzle Savvy.

It is good to have some plans for family activities that are economical, conversation friendly, and indoor related for sudden gloomy or rainy days. Jigsaw puzzles are a great alternative to hours of using social media or video games on your mobile phones. But if you guys are brand new to jigsaw puzzles here is our guide to some jigsaw puzzle tips and clues to help you assemble puzzles .

Before You Start Your Puzzle

1. Choose an exciting puzzle

Sometimes we are pulled and magnetised to the 6000 piece jigsaw puzzles when our skill level might actually be around 500 pieces puzzles only. And that is alright ,Build up your skill and nack level first before going to expert level puzzles.

2. Have a Finish plan

What do you plan to do with your puzzle after you finish it ? If it’s going to be scattered and put back in the box, you require no planning but if you are going to glue and frame your puzzle here are some tips.
If you do want to glue and mount the puzzle , learn about gluing jigsaw puzzles on our Puzzle Sticker page.

3. Choose a good workspace

Workspaces that have any other functions (like a dining room table that you have) are fine if you have a piece of cardboard or any other type of portable surfaces that will allow you to move the puzzle from one place to another.
Make sure your workspace is big enough to have the full size of the jigsaw puzzle. The 1000 piece puzzles are usually around 50x70 cms, for example, so you'll need at least a 3-5 feet working space to have room for the whole puzzle and loose pieces you're working on outside the edges of the puzzle.

Starting your adventure

1. Flip all pieces upwards towards your eye

Having all your pieces facing the same way can be tiring, but it makes it easy working with the full puzzle the whole time, and it’ll make the next steps quicker and easier.

2. Find and sort all the edge pieces

Constructing your border gives you a concluded space that you will work inside as you build the jigsaw puzzle. Yes, this strategy only works for standard jigsaw puzzles that do have edges around the corner.

3. Sort by the color

From here you can build noticeable sections of the puzzle. For most puzzles, this part will be pretty easy and nice because you can tell the difference between different colors or different areas of the puzzle by what color you see on the pieces.
Pieces that have no dominant or bright color should go in a miscellaneous pile that you will turn to when you’ve done your main color sort piles.

4. Special pieces of a puzzle

Some pieces will be part of really unique parts of the puzzle because it has text on it or a color that is only in one spot of the whole puzzle . Keep those separate and build on them as you want. You might also find puzzle pieces that are shaped a lot uniquely from the rest of the pieces - keep these separate because it will be easy to spot where it fits as you start assembling the puzzle.

Middle-to-end Work needed

1. Pay some attention to the shape

Jigsaw puzzle pieces come in many shapes with “knobs and holes.” Sometimes it is really obvious which pieces won’t fit together always, and sometimes it will look like it should but it doesn’t fit at all. As you get familiar with these shapes, you’ll be able to visualize the negative space and recognize more quickly and swiftly what will fit together and what won’t fit together.
If you want to sort even more, you can organize your pieces by colour and shape. If you were doing a puzzle with an orange sky, for instance, you’d continue separating all your orange pieces into piles of “2 holes” or “2 knobs.” You’d then go searching for matching partners by visualizing the negative space in your mind.

2. Work on mini sections at a time

Instead of trying to work on the entire puzzle at a go, it can be really helpful to work on small parts so that you’re accomplishing sections. This will help you be motivated and you’ll have a visual record of your progress at all times.
Put these finished sections of the puzzle where they would be in the puzzle, even if it’s not connected to the pieces in the edge. You may connect to the edge sooner than you would think, and visualizing the space around these sections may make it walk in the park for you to find the pieces that will surround it.

3. Never give up

When you are tired or bored of your beautiful puzzle, take a small break. Your puzzle should be very fun, and sometimes too much time on one single problem can take you away from that interest. A fresh look at it after some time may help you see things you missed.
Once you’re finished with your lovely puzzle, congratulate and pat yourself! Think about challenging yourself with a more and more difficult puzzle next time, maybe start working up to that 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle you’d been waiting to do. Practice with jigsaw puzzles will develop your skills even quicker and make it sharper.