Make Your Custom Jigsaw Puzzle
Jigsaw puzzles come in various sizes, with the most challenging puzzles usually containing about 1,000 pieces.
Take, for example, the custom picture jigsaw puzzles from MakeYourPuzzles. They can be ordered in five different sizes, with our beginner puzzles starting at forty-eight large pieces and our advanced puzzles boasting 1,000 pieces that are about half the size of a beginner’s puzzle pieces.
Putting 1,000 Puzzle Pieces Into Perspective
If 1,000 pieces sounds like a lot, consider the two months a retired physician in California spent putting together a 60,000-piece puzzle that was an eight-foot by twenty-nine-foot map of the world. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, a group of students in Vietnam finished a puzzle with more than 550,000 pieces, and a 66,000-square-foot puzzle was also completed in Dubai. Now, those are large puzzles!
How Long Does It Take to Finish a Large Puzzle?
Doing a jigsaw puzzle is not about racing to the finish–it’s about taking your time to noodle over it with your friends and family. It is also about using this time to relax and having some fun putting it together.
We understand that time is precious and there is always going to be someone who needs to know how much time they should carve out of their life to do a large puzzle. For these busy bees, the answer will depend on their skill level, experience, dedication, and interest in solving a new puzzle. If the person finds working on the puzzle engaging, they will probably work harder to put the pieces together. It also helps if you have others at your side to help out; two expert solvers will likely get a large done before three or four beginners can.
Of course, the difficulty of the image will also contribute to the time it takes to finish. A picture of your dog jumping into a pool with a bunch of kids cheering him on will be easier than an image of a black sky filled with stars.
Now that we’ve qualified our answer, the consensus is that a 1,000-piece puzzle will usually take about three to four hours to do in one sitting. If you do it in intervals (which requires your brain to reset each time you come back), you need to tack on some extra time.
Strategies for Solving a Large Puzzle
Every puzzle is different, and the techniques you use to solve it can vary. That said, here are a few things you can do to make working on a large puzzle more enjoyable:
- Make sure you have a surface large enough to fit the dimensions printed on the puzzle box. This space should be available for the amount of time you think you will need to finish the puzzle.
- Take the time to turn all the pieces face up before you start putting them together.
- Sort the pieces by colors and patterns so that the pieces most likely to fit together are near each other.
When it’s time to dig in, start by assembling the outer edges to create the outline of the puzzle. Use the picture on the box for clues about where the objects belong. Choose an area of interest and focus your puzzling attention there.
If you get frustrated or the pieces just aren’t coming together for whatever reason, take a break. You’ll be surprised how a fresh set of eyes can pick out pieces right away that fit together.
