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Fascinating Jigsaw Puzzle Stories

Until you start looking, you might not know that there is a whole world out there of people who love a good jigsaw puzzle and who are, in one way or another, engaged in this puzzling pastime! What follows are some interesting and often moving stories about people and their passionate hobby of working jigsaw puzzles.

Once you have read these amazing true-life stories, and you decide you want to do a puzzle, don't forget to check out my other puzzling pages, Are You Puzzled by Jigsaw Puzzles, Fall For Halloween Puzzles and Looking For Christmas Jigsaw Puzzles as well as my eBay store, Treasures By Brenda, for more puzzle information and a great source of jigsaw puzzles.

Remember, too, to use the star rating system shown above to rate this page and to send me feedback letting me know what I can do to make it better. Together we can make this puzzle page an entertaining place to visit!

A Puzzling Story

Ted Howard's Love Letter Jigsaw Puzzle Takes 15 Years To Solve! 

A story of love and dedication.

Finally, more than 15 years later, a husband has reconstructed the love letters he sent to his wife. Mollie Howard shredded the letters that Ted Howard wrote into more than 2,000 pieces after she caught someone else reading them.

In 1993, Mr. Howard began rebuilding the letters. (A real puzzle if ever there was one!) He spent five hours per month for 15 years working this puzzle.

Mr. Howard said, "I still miss Mollie terribly but having the memories helps me through. The letters brought back so many good times."

He is writing a book with the stories contained in the letters so that they will not be forgotten and it will be called, A Week At Stanton. He wrote the letters as he travelled throughout Europe as a farmhand in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Holland in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

"It was love at first sight. No two ways about it. I was at a village feast (fair) and this girl jumped off the carousel and came careering into me. It turned out to be Mollie. That was July 19th, 1948."

They married in 1955 when Mollie was 18 and Ted was 23 and went on to have three children and six grandchildren. Those grandchildren will be lucky to have this romantic story in print -- maybe one of those letters should be made into an actual jigsaw puzzle!

Child's Play? No Way!

Gemberly Tan-Cagalingan Solves The World's Largest Puzzle 

That means 24,000 pieces!

People love this puzzle! Around the world, addicted jigsaw puzzle fans want to solve it. 'Life' is the world's biggest puzzle at 24,000 pieces. When finished, it measures approximately 168.5 inches x 61.8 inches.

Life, The Greatest Puzzle was created especially by Royce B. McClure of New Zealand. Mr. McClure has had over a hundred puzzles published. To create this one, he used his years of experience in designing puzzles. He strived to make sure that the challenge of this puzzle was equivalent to the pleasure it gave.

Mr. McClure's artwork came from paintings that were airbrush works done between 1990 and 2006. This puzzle has variety, activity, color, beauty, drama -- the makings of Life. Much will not be seen until it is assembled and it will surprise puzzlers as they work it through.

If you thought that solving jigsaw puzzles was child's play, think again! At 24,000 pieces, this puzzle was no easy task! However, it was not a match for Filipino Gemberly Tan-Cagalingan. She earned the title of The First Asian who finished the largest jigsaw puzzle in the world -- "Life."

Ms. Tan-Cagalingan opened the puzzle and found that it was separated into four individual plastic bags. Some people solve each bag and then put the four sections together but she did not want to take that approach. She believed that doing so would be like solving four different, smaller puzzles so she put the contents of the four bags together before she started.

Ms. Tan started doing puzzles when she was 11 and is 26 now. She had done 200 to 300 puzzles (up to 3,000 pieces) prior to tackling this mammoth puzzle. She would love the opportunity, if time allows, to do a bigger puzzle in the future.

Her completion time for Life, The World's Largest Puzzle? 233 hours and 5 minutes. To buy Life, The Greatest Puzzle from Amazon click here.



Life, The Greatest Puzzle (24000 pc puzzle)

Finally, The World's Largest Jigsaw Puzzle on Video 

Now that you have read about it, here is a chance to have a really good look at it. Not only is it the world's largest puzzle but it is beautiful, too!

By the way, this puzzle is available for sale through my lens Are You Puzzled by Jigsaw Puzzles.

 

The World's Largest Jigsaw Puzzle

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Easy Ways To Increase Your Intelligence 

Jigsaw Puzzles boost intelligence

Genes account for 80 percent of your IQ and education follows. Take continuing education courses. Learn one new thing every day! Hobbies such as reading, crossword puzzles logic puzzles and (you guessed it) JIGSAW PUZZLES are all excellent. So whenever you are working that jigsaw puzzle, you are increasing your intelligence!

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Jigsaw Strategy

"A person's jigsaw strategy closely reflects both their personality and level of skill."

-- Dr Hilary Johnson, University of Bath

Jigsaw Puzzle Solving Style Reveals Your Personality 

Jigsaw style - are you hoarder, border obsessive or opportunist?

Have you ever experienced 'jigsaw rage?' Researchers at the University of Bath studied this issue and discovered that people have different approaches to puzzling and that, when there are two different approaches, there can be trouble.

What sort of trouble you say? Well how about when your brother hides the last piece in order to be the winner? How about when your spouse does not allow you to touch 'her' part of the puzzle. How about when you withhold the extra pieces and refuse to allow your partner to touch them?

University of Bath researchers used jigsaw puzzlers to study how people collaborate. They had individuals work on a 120-piece jigsaw puzzle, either alone or in a group.

They discovered categories of puzzlers including hoarders, border obsessives and opportunists.

Hoarders will shield parts of the finished puzzles or hide the picture on the lid from others.

Border obsessives must complete the border before they move on to the rest of the puzzle. They often dominate groups -- controlling decisions and behaviors.

Opportunists sort piles by criteria. They use different ways to solve the puzzle - from the top to the bottom, from a major part of the picture, etc. Opportunists did better when completing a puzzle alone.

Puzzlers altered their approach when they were asked to work in a group, especially if the person they worked with was of a different personality style.

The strategy you use to solve your puzzle likely is indicative of your personality and level of skill although in a lesser way than the extremes shown during puzzle solving.

What Type of Jigsaw Puzzler Are You? 

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Life Is Like A Box of Jigsaw...Or Is It? 

Musings over the contrast between life and jigsaw puzzles...

Life is like a box of jigsaw...
Eventually it looks like something.



 

This Puzzle called Life

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President George Bush's Favorite Jigsaw Puzzles 

Artwork by British painter Howard Robinson

President George Bush is apparently a fan of jigsaw puzzles. His puzzle of choice? Puzzles depicting the artwork of British painter Howard Robinson.

He enjoys Mr. Robinson's puzzles so much that First Lady Laura Bush had Mr. Robinson paint the President's dogs, Miss Beazley and Barney, for his 60th birthday.

Mr. Robinson explained, "never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the President of the United States of America would be sitting in Camp David doing one of my puzzles."

Celebrate German Jigsaw Puzzle Day on September 28th 

Town of Ravensburg (think Ravensburger puzzles) claims the world's largest puzzle!


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This year, the townsfolk in Ravensburg joined together to put together the world's largest jigsaw puzzle with more than one million pieces! 15,000 people participated assembling 1,141,800 pieces in five hours. They would up covering a 6,500 squre foot or 600 square meter piece of town square. 4,000 smaller puzzles were assembled and then joined to create this very large puzzle.

The claim has been submitted to the Guiness Book of World Records but has not been approved yet. (October 2, 2008.)

 

Town Lays Claim to World's Largest Puzzle

 

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"Your brain is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets."

Can You Work Jigsaw Puzzles Like Ryan Divine, 5 Time Tri-State Puzzle Champion Does In This Video? 

Ryan Divine demonstrates why he is the 5 time Tri-State Jigsaw Puzzle Champion in the music video for our Maldroid's third single "You Can Have It All."

 

Maldroid - You Can Have It All

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Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle Maker shows his Unique Craft on ABC 

New England master craftsman makes handcrafted, one-of-a-kind wooden jigsaw puzzles using personal Photos, graphics, and fine art. He is only one of three people who produce jigsaw puzzles by hand in the United States. Each puzzle is 100 percent handmade to order in sizes ranging from 4" x 6" up to 42 inches x 58 inches with as few as three pieces to as many as 5000 plus puzzle pieces.

 

Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle Maker shows his Unique Craft on ABC Mor

 

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My Other Jigsaw Puzzle Lenses 

Include a lot more information, great puzzle sources, lots of Halloween and Christmas jigsaw puzzles as well as a few pages dedicated to Melissa and Doug Puzzles.

Whatever your interest in puzzles, read on for more fascinating facts about the world of jigsaw puzzles!

Read More Stories From the World of Jigsaw Puzzles 

The World's Largest Jigsaw Puzzle Official Site
The World's Largest Jigsaw Puzzle site which includes more fantastic photos and the Hall of Fame of people who completed the puzzle first.
How to Successfully Mount Your Large Puzzle
This link will take you direct to successful steps for mounting very large puzzles.

Your Jigsaw Puzzle Comments Wanted Here! 

Now that you have read these interesting puzzling stories, and you have decided you want to do a puzzle, don't forget to check out my other jigsaw puzzle page, Are You Puzzled by Jigsaw Puzzles, and my eBay store, Treasures By Brenda, for more puzzle information and a great source of puzzles.

And, oh yes, here's the spot to let me know what you thought of this puzzling page! I'd be grateful, too, if you would take a quick trip back up to the top of this page and use the star system to rate it.

Happy Puzzling!
Brenda

candyw wrote...

Wow did not know that you could find out your personality playing puzzles.. very interesting... cool lens

ReplyPosted April 24, 2009

Evelyn_Saenz wrote...

I love putting jigsaw puzzles together and I definitely believe that the edges must be put together first.

ReplyPosted March 31, 2009

Trioman wrote...

Well designed lens on a very interesting topic...everyone would secretly want to complete a jigsaw puzzle!

ReplyPosted January 29, 2009

RolandTumble wrote...

I love jigsaw puzzles--the harder, the better. There's one series out there that doesn't have borders (even the actual edges are cut as if there's another row), and have three extra pieces packed in each box. Fiendish.

the hardest puzzle I ever worked, though, was 1000 pieces of a photo of a pile of popcorn....

ReplyPosted January 26, 2009

 
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Squidoo Lens Review 



On Monday, August 8th, 2008 I was thrilled to have this page reviewed on Squidoo Lens Reviews.

Mimi's Review follows:

"If you love jigsaw puzzles, or are curious about them, you'll be interested to read the stories Treasures-By-Brenda has on her Welcome to Jigsaw Puzzle Country lens. I learned quite a bit of information here. For one thing, I thought my husband was the only one in the world who got competitive with doing jigsaw puzzles. "I'll out-puzzle you any day, kid," he'll say, as we put one together. When he learns there's such a thing as puzzle championships, I don't know what's he's going to do!"
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