How to assemble a puzzle of 3000 pieces. How to collect puzzles: tips for beginners

DatsoPic 2.0 2009 by Andrey Datso

Collecting puzzles is a very interesting and entertaining hobby. Isn't it great to create a whole picture from many disparate pieces? But sometimes the number of these very pieces makes you shudder and it seems that they cannot be put together. Check out our simple tips on how to do puzzles the right way and why being addicted to jigsaw puzzles is so rewarding.

These wonderful pieces

jigsaw puzzle called a puzzle game, a mosaic that needs to be assembled by arranging the fragments of the picture in the correct order. The prototype of the first puzzle appeared in the 18th century. Moreover, in Russia in the first half of the XIX century. there was a game "Harvest" - the so-called old Russian "puzzle".

Puzzles are considered not too expensive toys, but very helpful . For example, picking up puzzles develops imagination, figurative and logical thinking, and memory. Collecting a puzzle, a person learns to distinguish fragments by shape, image, size. In addition, the passion for puzzles develops fine motor skills of the hands.

Which puzzle to choose?

So, you were inspired and decided to try to collect puzzles by all means. Now you need to think about how difficult the puzzle you want to choose. The simplest little puzzle consists of 54 pieces. Generally, puzzles from 54 to 260 elements are designed for children . They usually feature cartoons or fairy tale characters. Such puzzles are very useful for the development of the child.

Puzzles containing over 260 items designed for adults. These puzzles depict geographical places, sights different countries, animals, flowers or fruits. There are puzzles with very large quantity fragments - from 6000. Such puzzles are usually purchased by collectors. They depict ancient geographical maps, scenes from the Bible or paintings by famous artists.

Puzzles are three-dimensional (from which you can assemble a three-dimensional picture, for example, a puzzle in the shape of a heart or a ball) and two-dimensional (flat paintings). There are also "soft" puzzles designed for children.

Puzzles for children

Puzzles are made of super thick cardboard. High quality image printing. Gift box with carrying handle.

Puzzle size - 50 x 40 cm. Number of elements - 208. Age - from 6 years.

Children's puzzle from the French company Janod -

• cheerful, funny and informative children's drawings - more than 40 types for boys and girls, as well as wooden puzzles for kids;
• from simple to complex - 16-24-36-39-54-100-208 elements;
• from small to large - 20x20, 50x40, 50x50, 92x62, 53x116, etc.;
• toddlers and older children - from 1 year to 9 years;
• desktop classic puzzles and modern floor carpets for the nursery;

How to assemble puzzles correctly?

Now that the treasured box is on your table, pour out all its contents onto paper or cardboard. It's best not to dump the fragments just on the floor or table - in addition to the risk of losing a piece, you may lose the opportunity to transfer your work to another place.

So, puzzles on the table. Have you chosen a picture from 500, 1000 puzzles, or maybe more? Now from a mountain of pieces sort those that will make up the frame of the future picture and its corners . Pieces for the frame are smooth on one side, and for the corners - on two.

From these selected fragments we make up the "rim" of the picture, guided by the image on the box. Ready? It may not be possible to immediately find all the pieces of the frame, do not despair, you can find them later.

Now you need sort all snippets by topic . For example, in one direction we put pieces of the castle, in the other - the sky, in the third - flowers, in the fourth - the sea. This will make it easier to assemble the picture.

Further connecting fragments . You can start from the bottom of the picture, from the sides, from the top, or lay out the image in the center. Do as you please. The main thing is to connect as many fragments as possible. Let there be only two of them, but they carry more information than one, and then they will definitely come in handy. Sometimes a fragment is simply matched to the shape, when, for example, you collect the sky, where all the pieces are the same color.

Enjoying Creativity

Voila! The picture assembled by your hands is ready. You feel relieved, or maybe sad. What to do now? From the assembled puzzle, you can create a real picture by sticking all the fragments on cardboard. Then insert it into a frame under glass or make a frame yourself and hang your masterpiece on the wall so that the result of your work will please both you and your guests. And you can disassemble the puzzle and put it back in the box, where it will wait for the next creative impulse.

Putting together puzzles - the process is painstaking and laborious. Sometimes this or that picture takes from several days to a week. But doesn’t the time spent pay off with joy from creativity, from unhurried creation? Do not rush to live, do not rush to assemble the puzzle, show maximum attention and concentration. And you will succeed!

Apr 07

One of my wishes in the wishlist was to complete a big, big puzzle. I've been dreaming about this for quite some time. But constantly something did not grow together: there was no suitable place where to collect; the picture that I liked was only 1000 details; then the price of the puzzle you liked was too high; I just didn't like the pictures. In general, everything is difficult:)))

Initially, I wanted a puzzle with 5,000 pieces, but I heard a lot of talk that the assembly would take half a year, or even more, so I lowered the bar to 3,000 pieces. Because I wanted the puzzle to hang on the wall before we left this house. And very, by the way, in vain! Should have taken 5000.

In February, as they say, the puzzle came together :) There is enough space in the house to assemble the puzzle, suddenly I came across a picture on eBay that I liked very much and it ended up with the right amount details, so unexpectedly dad paid for everything as a gift on March 8 :)

The puzzle from eBay flew very quickly! Whoever is in the subject understands what cool emotions you experience when you tear open the package and pour fresh little parts into the box that smell deliciously like cardboard. When I saw this mountain of details, I thought it was great that there are 3000 of them, not 5000. It's good that I took less :)

In the store (in Big C and Tesco they sell) I bought 8 plastic sheets in the stationery department. I don't even know what they are for. For modeling, perhaps, or drawing. I planned to glue 4 sheets together with adhesive tape and assemble a puzzle on the floor on them, and 4 more sheets were needed to cover the half-assembled picture from the Shaman. She attracted him like a magnet! Plus, he appreciated the plastic sheets, he liked to lie on them.

A start! The shaman helps with might and main :) He is generally a “well done” awesome guy helped me, especially at the end. Well, you yourself will see this “help” soon.

I would like to say a huge thank you to John Spilsbury for the idea! If anyone does not know, then this is the person who invented the puzzles. John Spilsbury lived in 18th century London. He traded geographical maps on which children studied. To make the learning process more exciting, he glued the map onto a wooden base and cut it along the borders of the kingdoms. That is how the first puzzle appeared. Exact date not known. By various information this happened between 1760 and 1764. Spilsbury in his life managed to make about 30 types of different puzzles based on geographical maps. Subsequently, puzzles lost their role exclusively didactic material for schoolchildren and began to be used as separate view puzzles. Initially, only children from wealthy families could afford puzzles. And only in the twentieth century, when the wooden base of the puzzles was replaced with cardboard, the price for them became affordable.

In 1909, the Parker Brothers opened the first factory in the United States to manufacture jigsaw puzzles with fastened parts, which have since become popular throughout the world. To date, there is a puzzle consisting of 32,000 elements. This is the biggest puzzle in the world so far. I would love to collect one!!! *smiley with glowing eyes* I saw a box of such a puzzle on YouTube - it's huge! I can imagine how heavy it is!

Here it is this puzzle from Ravensburger for 32,000 pieces. Not good beautiful picture, as for me.

On collecting puzzles, championships are held, online competitions are arranged. For the first time, the championship in collecting puzzles for speed was organized in 1992, in New York, by American Will Shorts. Since then, it has been held annually in different cities and countries. In 2008 this championship was held in Minsk. In 2014 it will be held in London. In Russia, similar championships speed picking puzzles began to be carried out only in 2010. I hope we will get to the World Championship soon.

There is even an international Spilsbury award, which is given to people who have made a significant contribution to the development of the popularity of puzzles. So, in 2007, the American Ann Williams received this award for writing two books on the history of puzzles and a number of articles on the influence of puzzles on popular culture.

To date, the highest quality puzzles are Ravensburger, Clementoni, Educa, Castroland and Trefl. My puzzle is from Educa and I'm happy with it :)

A couple of days after I started to assemble the puzzle, I got sick. But the desire to collect was so unbearable that I took one plastic sheet, selected the white parts and climbed into bed with all this stuff. I was frightened that the one-color sky is a cruel tin with which I will have to suffer even more. In the end, the sky was the easiest thing for me in this picture. I assembled it in a few hours, lying in bed with a high fever :)

By the way, it was sooo uncomfortable to assemble on the floor. The back was terribly tired. Therefore, I divided the picture approximately in half and transferred it to the table. Sitting at the table, collecting has become much more convenient and faster :)

I remembered something. My very first big puzzle, with 1000 pieces, was bought for me in Moscow when we were passing through. They just appeared so big on sale and it was a curiosity. I still remember the positive emotions that I experienced. It was a puzzle with Pocahontas, a cartoon that I really liked at that time, and I still like it now, really :) I even found a picture on the Internet !!! This is exactly what my first puzzle looked like :) Only there were no signatures, just a clean picture.

And that's how I remember now, I'm sitting in an armchair, in a fluffy robe the color of a little chicken, in a Moscow apartment with relatives, holding a box of puzzles in my hands, stroking it. Horror, how you want to open the package with parts and start collecting! But I endure. I'm afraid that some element may be lost and the picture will be damaged. But the funny thing is that I'm not the only one interested! Parents too! Especially dad. As a result, he persuaded me to open the package, but I set the condition that he would then count all the details one by one.

In general, we collected this puzzle a little with dad. So it was unusual. Such a thrill! There seemed to be SO many details, just dizzy! And then dad sat and counted every detail, and I carefully watched and controlled that everything was in place and not one was lost. By the way, I just have some kind of phobia, every time I put together a puzzle, I worry that some detail will be missing. Mom sent a photo of how we put together that puzzle then :) So interesting!

I then with this puzzle as soon as not perverted. And for a while I collected, both along the horizontal and vertical lines, and according to the colors. Then she came up with the idea that it is necessary to sing songs from the cartoon in the process of collecting. I learned the words to two Pocahontas songs and then mumbled them under my breath during assembly. And then I decided to assemble the puzzle from the “wrong side”! And collected, and even more than once and for a while. In general, I was as creative as I could to diversify the same type of game :)

Then I got a puzzle for 1000 pieces with a picture from the cartoon "The Lion King" and for 1500 pieces with a photo of some kitten. I also adored them and collected 100500 times different ways. And that's all the big puzzles I've ever had.

But the most beloved and valuable is Pocahontas. It is now kept by my mother in Tambov. I remember it so much that I even wanted to collect it :)

The bottom half is almost done! Hurrah Hurrah!!! I'm sure I'll finish the picture tomorrow. All in joyful anticipation!

And exactly one minute after the previous photo, the Shaman decides to jump on the table, his heavy ass does not jump, his claw falls into the gap between the elements and he pulls ALL half to the floor. All this happened in a second, I did not have time to do anything. AAAA!!! The entire floor in the living room was strewn with details :)

No, I didn't kill the cat after that. What to do if he is so clumsy. I collected all the details in a box and went to bed, with a firm decision tomorrow to assemble the picture completely!

And almost from the very morning of Saturday I sat down at the puzzle. It was like this last night! Almost, almost ready :) I thought about finishing it on the floor, but the Shaman began to play pranks again. He began to run around the picture and once pushed off so much that he moved it from the substrate to the floor !!! I decided to divide the picture again and finish it on the table.

Bottom half. Done!

7 am, Sunday :) I've been collecting the puzzle since Saturday morning. So rushing that you don’t even want to sleep. I would like to finish it as soon as possible :) And how can I fall asleep here when there are just a few details left. The phobia turned on, you need to know for sure that no part was missing after yesterday's crash on the floor.

Ready! Yeeha! :)

Puzzle photo session for Instagram. The shaman is right there!

Image scale. On the pictures it looks much smaller than in reality.

What can I say - it was necessary to take a puzzle for 5000 pieces. Still, 3000 is too easy for me. I assembled it mega quickly without straining at all. Three weeks later, the puzzle was ready, but for one week I did not approach it at all. By the way, I can calculate the approximate net build time.

Every time I sat down to do a puzzle, I turned on the movie. As a result, I watched 34 films in total. If not for the "help" of the cat, then there would be 30 of them. Oh well. The film is approximately 90 minutes long. Accordingly, I completed the puzzle in 3060 minutes, which is 51 hours, which is a little more than 2 days. Lightness, in short.

In this photo, Shaman pretends to be a diligent cat. But actually a second ago, he decided to sharpen his claws on the sky! After my formidable remark, he lay down next to me, but looking straight into my eyes, he continues to pick a brown detail with his claw. Oh, this cat!!!

For another whole week, the puzzle just lay on the table, because I was thinking about how to glue it together. But glue it so that it is mobile. So that you can remove it from the wall, take it apart and take it with you to another house. I categorically did not want to turn it over, because I was sure that everything would fall apart, because there was a weak bond between the parts. I decided that I would order newfangled glue on eBay, which is applied over the picture and does not leave marks. But then the picture would cease to be mobile. In short, when I studied all types of puzzle glues, found the best one and went to ebay to order it, it turned out that 3 jars of glue with delivery would cost me the same price as the puzzle!

In the end, it was decided in favor of adhesive tape! I divided the picture into 6 parts. Lenya turned each part over for me with the help of two plastic sheets on which I assembled. Not a single piece fell off, by the way. It feels like he turned puzzles all his life :) I glued each part separately with tape.

Then I connected the joints not very tightly so that you could just tear off the adhesive tape and get 6 pieces of the puzzle that you can take anywhere :)

Lenya glued double-sided tape.

And hung it on the wall :))) It became very cool! And the puzzle finally hid the stains on the wall that were left by the previous tenants and bothered me just as much as they did :)

The wall immediately became complete :) The length of the puzzle is 120 centimeters. I don't know why he looks so small in the photo.

Well, beauty! :)

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A jigsaw puzzle is a jigsaw puzzle that needs to be put together in order to get a drawing. The first puzzles appeared in the 18th century and became quite popular: they could be assembled both alone and big company. In the 20th century, puzzles became primarily children's educational toys aimed at training memory, logical thinking, and imagination. It is not interesting for an adult to collect children's puzzles, but if you make the puzzle huge, consisting of several hundred or more pieces, then it will be difficult for children to cope with it, but for adults it will be a useful and enjoyable pastime.

Puzzles for adults are those that consist of 260 or more elements and depict beautiful pictures, sights from different parts of the world or geographical maps. The largest are mosaics of 6,000 pieces.

How to assemble large puzzles?

It is easy for adults to assemble small puzzles - there are few details, large, with bright and uncomplicated contrasting colors. But large puzzles present a lot of difficulties: there are so many elements that your eyes run wide and it’s hard to imagine where it’s best to start, and many details seem similar to each other.

First you need to find a place to assemble the puzzle - a large table, a piece of floor, a piece of hard cardboard. Make sure that small children or pets do not have access to them, otherwise you will not be able to complete the puzzle.

Pour all the details on the surface, or better - in a wide and flat box so that they are not lost. You need to start collecting a large puzzle by sorting the elements. First, select all the pieces related to the edge of the picture - from them you can assemble a frame, which will become the beginning of the puzzle. When the "rim" is ready, you can start sorting the rest of the elements. Highlight several main parts in the image: for example, the sky, greenery, architecture, water, and so on. Arrange all the details in the selected groups.

Some pieces will be difficult to attribute to any group, they can be put in a separate pile.

Choose one piece and start collecting it. It is desirable that it adjoin the edge of the puzzle, but you can start from the middle if there are any noticeable elements. It is easier to leave monochromatic objects for later, for example, the sky is usually collected at the end, and they start with clearly visible, bright details.

Pieces of the same color have to be selected according to the shape. At first it seems that all the parts are the same, but with experience you will notice that they have grooves and protrusions of different sizes and shapes.

Puzzles can only be learned through practice. The more time you devote to this activity, the better and faster you get to put together a mosaic.

The history of the creation of the jigsaw puzzle

The first Puzzle puzzles appeared in the 18th century, when a certain inventor pasted geographical map on the wooden board and cut it into many small pieces of irregular shape. He did this not out of idle curiosity, but purely for applied purposes: it was tutorial for geography lessons. This idea caught on, and puzzles gradually left the classroom and turned into an exciting pastime for the aristocracy.

Puzzle types

To date, a wide variety of types of puzzles have been created for every taste.

Puzzles exist in several versions: three-dimensional puzzles (three-dimensional objects are assembled from separate pieces) and "flat" puzzles (from individual parts two-dimensional pictures are collected).

For such two-dimensional puzzles, variants of the final result are also possible:

• the form– finished paintings can be rectangular, round, etc.;
• image- it can be a photograph, a drawing, a collage (from photographs or drawings). The collage technique served as inspiration for the creators of puzzles.

This technique was first used by the Cubists. The first collages appeared in 1912 in the workshops of George Braque and Pablo Picasso.

• number of pieces- from a few pieces (children's) to several thousand pieces;
• production material- cardboard, plastic; puzzle surface can be covered special paint that glows in the dark.

Assembling the puzzle

We open the box… They lie, huddled closer to each other, turned over as it suits them, resting… hundreds and thousands of colored pieces. Where the place of each of them, they will never say.

Collecting a single picture from this chaos of particles seems like something out of a fantasy series ...

However, it is not at all difficult to "create peace" from the reigning disorder. systems approach to this global challenge.

First stage

We pour out the details on a smooth surface: cardboard, a drawing board (not on the floor) - in this case, we will always have the opportunity to move our creativity to a convenient corner.

From the total mass, we select pieces for the frame:
- with one smooth edge;
- with two smooth edges - we will place these details in the corners of the future picture, selecting their locations according to the color of the image on the box.

We sort the fragments for the frame by color and, guided by the control picture on the lid, attach them to the "corners".

The frame is ready!

Second phase

We carefully lay out the remaining parts on the prepared surface, sorting them in parallel by color and similar image - this will greatly simplify the assembly task (white to white, small houses to small houses, etc.).

Focusing on the reference image, we begin to lay out individual blocks of the image. They do not have to be immediately attached to the finished frame (you can separately assemble a tree in the center of the picture or part of the clouds in the background).

The main principle of our work is the more parts we can fasten together, the fewer of them will be left alone! After all, even two combined pieces carry more information about their place in the overall picture than one.
So, gradually accumulating image blocks from tens and hundreds of parts, over time we will be able to fasten them together and attach them to the frame.

Third stage

Congratulations! Our mosaic is ready. All the pieces have found their place, and now they exist as a whole! What's next?

Assembled puzzle can:
• place in a special frame under glass and hang on the wall;
• stick it on cardboard or plywood, and make the frame yourself and also hang it somewhere (for example, in the entrance);
• on the front side to cover special glue and use the tips above.
• disassemble into pieces and place in a box until better times.

Which of us in our lives has not assembled a mosaic or the now common name - jigsaw puzzles. This activity will be equally interesting for both young children and their parents, especially if you do these together. Many absolutely do not recognize the mosaic as a way of spending leisure time.

Here I would like to throw a stone into their garden and point out that not every person has enough willpower to complete this lesson, besides, you need to work with your head, because puzzles are different, from 20 to several thousand pieces , from pictures of cartoon characters to beautiful landscapes.

Yes, and knowledge - how to assemble puzzles, comes with time, with experience.

Of course, it is very interesting to explore something for the first time, but a few simple tips clearly will not interfere with you when collecting your first mosaic.

How to quickly assemble a puzzle? To get started, you need to do a very simple thing.

You should find all the corners of the mosaic, and all its parts that are "flat" or "blunt" on one side, in general, the border of the mosaic, and after you carefully (It will be better if you sort it out carefully once, instead of then randomly sort through all the details again and again, looking for the missing detail), it is worth proceeding directly to the collection of the border of the mosaic.

After you do this, you can move on to the next item.

Try to find all the more or less noticeable parts in the drawing being assembled, for example, a tree, or some other meaningful detail that is easy to notice. You should go through all the details again and find everything that even a little bit fits the object you are looking for.

Then, of course, you must try to assemble this part, and until you have put together everything that you have enough strength for. It should be said that the game to collect puzzles is very exciting. And you can completely imperceptibly spend the whole day and even more on it.

Then it is worth moving on to all such other objects, as their significance decreases, and so on to the bitter end. If the method listed does not suit you, then you can try to assemble the drawing with two more methods, moving from the center to the edges, or vice versa. I hope everything is clear here.

If you are not satisfied with these methods, then unfortunately I can not offer anything more. But who knows, suddenly you will invent your own innovative method of how to assemble a mosaic.

And finally, let's say a few words about the puzzles themselves. You should not immediately start collecting thousands of giants, at first a mosaic of 500 pieces will be enough, and so on.

Also remember that puzzles are primarily leisure, which should not be given all your free time. If you feel that you no longer have the strength and desire to do this, then switch to something else.

And with the help of the mosaic you will be able to train not only your will, but also patience, as you will agree, there is nothing simple in assembling a giant from 1000 pieces. Good luck in your endeavors!