Puzzle Party!

To celebrate my 54th birthday back in March, I threw myself a jigsaw puzzle party. It was awesome. I printed the photos right away, but I'd been waiting to scrap them until I could get my hands on puzzle patterned paper. As soon as it showed up, I made this page. 

Puzzle Party (affiliate link)

I've been doing modern scrapbooking for 25+ years and this is the first time EVER that I used up all of the letter Zs on a sticker sheet before running out of any other letter! Using one Z is really rare for me and running out of them - ever, let alone first! - is unheard of. Like most people, I tend to run out of the vowels and letters like S, T, and R. Anyway, that was a fun first for me. 

Puzzle Piece Crafts

There are some people who don't mind if a puzzle is missing pieces (Karen Puzzles famously doesn't care), but it bothers me. If I open a brand new puzzle and there are pieces missing, I contact the manufacturer for a replacement. If I get a used puzzle with missing pieces, the remaining pieces become a craft supply. There are a lot of fun things you can make with puzzle pieces. Here are 7 of my favorite ideas.  

Puzzle Piece Crafts for Kids

Puzzle Piece Monarch : Create a beautiful monarch butterfly from a puzzle piece! You can use the same idea for any species of butterfly.

Puzzle Piece Alien: Start with puzzle pieces, paint, googly eyes, and wires, then let your imagination go wild as you imagine what aliens look like!

Twisteezwire Girl with Flowers: You can make all sorts of cool sculptures using Twisteezwire and puzzle pieces. My girl is holding flowers, but she could just as easily be holding anything else!

Puzzle Piece Ladybug, Crab, Bug, and Spider: Fashion the cutest ladybug ever out of a puzzle piece, beads, and wire. This link has instructions for a crab, bug, and spider as well. 

Puzzle Piece Flower Bouquet: I love this cheery bouquet of flowers, made from puzzle pieces, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, and pom poms. It's so pretty!

Puzzle Piece Reindeer Ornament: My son and I made these ornaments when he was 6. They're still one of my favorites. They look so cute on the Christmas tree each year!

Puzzle Piece Minions: When I made my puzzle piece minions, I experimented to see if I could make them from a bunch of different piece shapes. Some work better than others, but I think they're especially fun all together like this. 

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Click here to find a few more puzzle piece crafts I've made, as well as all of my other puzzle content. Enjoy!

Puzzle Piece Flower Bouquet

Puzzle pieces make beautiful flowers. This is a fun craft for your guests to make during a puzzle themed party, or you can make them ahead of time as decoration. Affiliate links below. 

Puzzle Piece Flower Bouquet

Materials: 

• old puzzle pieces
• Folk Art gesso
• Folk Art acrylic paint
• colored pencil
• yellow pom poms
• craft glue
• green pipe cleaners
• wire cutters
• tissue paper (green)
• microtip scissors
• small vase

Steps: 

Paint a coat of gesso on to the puzzle pieces. When it is dry, add a coat of acrylic paint. Use a colored pencil to add lines that mimic the veins and ridges of petals. Then glue a pom pom in the center of the flower. 

Twist the pipe cleaners to form leaves. I made two leaves with stems and two without. I recommend making all the leaves with stems, as you can always cut them off later. Add a coat of glue to each leaf and lay it on top of tissue paper. 

When the glue is dry, cut around each leaf. Twist the stems of the flowers together. 

Twist the stems of the leaves around the flower stems. (I did that with the two I had, then glued a third leaf in place. I didn't use the fourth leaf.) Arrange the flowers in the vase. 

I love how my puzzle piece bouquet turned out! It's going on display next to my Lego flowers. 

Jigsaw Puzzle Trivia

One of the games we played during my puzzle-themed birthday party was Jigsaw Puzzle Trivia. We played it Four Corners style, meaning that each corner of the room was designed A, B, C, or D. After I read each question, everyone had to move to the corner they thought was the right answer. Not only is it fun seeing how everyone answers each question, but it gives the contestants a chance to second-guess their answer and join the majority, intentionally move to an answer no one else has given, or stay with their first guess (usually the correct strategy). Play along below and let me know in the comments how many you got right!

1. When was the first known jigsaw puzzle made?

A. 1766
B. 1801
C. 1860
D. 1906

2. Where were jigsaw puzzles invented?

A. England
B. France
C. United States
D. Germany

3. Jigsaw puzzles originated as educational devices to teach what subject?

A. history
B. etiquette
C. religion
D. geography

4. The name “jigsaw puzzle” was first used in 1906. What were they called before that?

A. partitions
B. enigmas
C. dissections
D. multitudes

5. What is the word for the study of puzzles?

A. Puzzology
B. Enigmatology
C. Fragmology
D. Praxology

6. Approximately how many jigsaw puzzles are sold each year?

A. 1.8 million
B. 180 million
C. 1.8 billion
D. 180 billion

7. The most expensive puzzle ever sold has 467 handcrafted wood pieces. What was its price?

A. $14,000
B. $27,000
C. $39,000
D. $52,000

8. When is International Puzzle Day?

A. January 29

B. April 4

C. July 27

D. November 17

9. The largest commercially available puzzle has 60,000 pieces and is 8x29 feet. Where is it sold?

A. at the Ravensburger factory store

B. exclusively at independent puzzle and game stores

C. online only, through Puzzle.com

D. Costco

10. How many pieces does the largest jigsaw puzzle ever made have?

A. 79,232

B. 227,232

C. 403,232

D. 551,232

1. A - The first known jigsaw puzzle was made in 1766 by a man named John Spilsbury.

2. A - Jigsaw puzzles were invented in England. 

3. D - Spilsbury, a cartographer, invented jigsaw puzzles as educational devices to teach geography. 

4. C - Spilsbury named his creations "dissections."  

5. B - Enigmatology is the study of puzzles. 

6. C - Approximately 1.8 billion puzzles are sold annually. 

7. B - A 467-piece, hand-cut wood puzzle sold for $27,000, making it the most expensive ever sold. 

8. A - International Puzzle Day is celebrated on January 29. 

9. D - You can buy an 8x29 foot puzzle with 60,000 pieces for $349 at Costco. 

10. D - The largest puzzle ever made has 551,232 pieces. 1600 college students in Ho Chi Mihn City put it together. 

Jigsaw Puzzle Party

I threw myself a birthday party on Saturday. The theme was one of my favorite things: jigsaw puzzles!

To make my party hat, I started by coloring old puzzle pieces with Apple Barrel paint pens (affiliate links here and below). When they were dry, I coiled Twisteezwire in corresponding colors around each piece, then threaded the wire into a blue party hat. I secured the ends with masking tape. I used a Sharpie to write 54 on another puzzle piece and glued it to the front of the hat. 

Here's what the party invitation looked like. I had so much fun designing it! (I used PicMonkey, of course.)

I wore my puzzle piece necklace. It's from Springbok. I got mine for free awhile back for joining their loyalty club. I don't know that they do that anymore; probably not, since they're selling it now. 

So what do you do at a puzzle party? Puzzles, of course! We solved a neon 80's themed puzzle and a chocolate mystery puzzle. 

We made crafts using puzzle pieces. 

We played Puzzle Trivia (I'll share that tomorrow). And we played multiple rounds of Puzzle Chess. 

If you're not familiar with Puzzle Chess, I highly recommend it! We used a 48-piece puzzle; you can play with a puzzle up to about 100 pieces. Someone who is not competing completes the border and turns all the pieces face up. The contestants sit across from each other with a chess clock beside the puzzle. Start the clock, then the first player puts in a piece and hits the clock. The second player does the same. When the last piece goes in, the person with the least amount of time on their clock is the winner. It's really fun!

In between it all, we grazed. I love charcuterie boards for parties. They're so much fun to put together and everyone can grab what they like. Check out the puzzle piece candies!

I used the Celebrate It! Puzzle Piece silicone mold, sold by Michaels. I'm so frustrated that they don't sell it anymore, because it is AWESOME. As you can see, the finished candies actually interlock properly like puzzle pieces should. To make the candies, I prepared Wilton Candy Melts and added a drop of different LorAnn flavorings to each of the different colors before molding them. I didn't match the colors with the flavors logically (for example, purple was green apple), which left my guests a bit -ahem- puzzled.  

I had such a good time at the party! Thanks to my friends for helping make it so fun. If you're a jigsaw puzzle fanatic, I highly recommend throwing a puzzle-themed party of your own. 

Bongo at Puzzmo.com

I have a new favorite game. It's called Bongo and it's a Puzzmo game. 

I've been playing since it debuted in November and I'm hooked. Bongo is essentially a single-player Scrabble-type game: the goal is to fit 25 letters into five 5-letter spaces in order to score the most points. Unlike in Scrabble where obscure words can win you the game, with Bongo you get bonus points for using common words. There are many, many solutions to each day's puzzle, so you can try again and again to try to improve your score.

 

The 25 letters in each day's puzzle come from 5 words with a common theme. They don't tell you those words, although if you happen to enter one, it will turn purple. It's fun to try to figure out the words and the theme, separate from the main goal of getting the highest score. Anyone can submit words for Bongo, based on something personal or special. There was a rabbit-themed Bongo in December, as well as one based on sweets. I enjoyed the one about activities to do on a train. After giving it some thought, I submitted a set of words based on my favorite hobby, scrapbooking. 

They want eight words (of which they choose five), so this is my list: 

SCRAP

PAPER

PHOTO

GLUES

ALBUM

NOTES

DECOR

ADORN

It would be so exciting to see my words as a Bongo puzzle and fun to share my love of scrapbooking with a broader audience. Fingers crossed they pick my theme!

Subpar Parks

I've been doing a lot of jigsaw puzzles lately, on my doctor's orders. (Best prescription ever!) Along with proper rest, healthy eating, and exercise, puzzles help with the brain fog that is associated with cancer treatment. Jigsaw puzzles have many other benefits, including reducing stress, improving short-term memory, and preventing cognitive decline. And not just for cancer patients. Everyone, including children, can benefit cognitively, emotionally, and physically from regularly solving jigsaw puzzles. 

My friend Kathy recently sent me the Subpar Parks puzzle. If you're not familiar with Subpar Parks, you're definitely missing out. Artist Amber Share has illustrated the actual 1-star reviews tourists have left after visiting each of the National Parks. They are hilarious. 

Subpar Parks is also a book. (Affiliate links here and below.) In addition to the illustrated reviews of each park, it has information about the history and features of the National Parks.  

I've been to quite a few of our country's National Parks. I'm a fan. I give the concept of National Parks 5 stars. They are, without a doubt, America'a Best Idea. 

That said, I don't love them all equally. Each park has many 5-star qualities about it, but I definitely think some parks are better than others. I thoroughly enjoyed Gateway Arch, but I don't think anyone could argue that it is better than Yosemite, for example, even at its most crowded. Hot Springs was really neat, but I preferred Acadia. I wouldn't have loved it nearly so much in the winter. I had a fantastic time at Congaree, but an even better time at Badlands... even though it was 105° when we were there. 

Obviously, there are a lot of factors that can impact how much someone enjoys a visit. I can see how crowds, high prices, bad weather, a closed visitor center, aggressive insects, and other factors could completely ruin a park for someone, but I have a hard time seeing how anyone could then leave a 1-star review. I'm glad they did, though. Not only are they really funny, but presumably the authors will not be returning, and that's one fewer miserable person there the next time I visit a National Park.

State Birds Puzzle and Thoughts about State Birds

Trevor and I recently finished a puzzle featuring the state birds and state flowers of all 50 states. 

 

The puzzle, which is by Galison (affiliate link), is beautiful and very high-quality. 

It is also quite challenging. I'm still not great at estimating how difficult a puzzle will be, and this one was harder than I thought. Turns out, there are a lot of brownish birds. Not to mention, there are a lot of repeated birds. Of the 50 states, 7 of them have a cardinal as their state bird. Which brings me to my main topic for today's post: I wish each state had a unique state bird. 

The California Valley Quail is ours and I think it's perfect for the job of state bird. It's native to California, found in most parts of the states, abundant, and easily recognizable. We get baby quail in our yard all the time and they are the cutest things ever. But most convincingly, the California Valley Quail has the state name in its name! The California Valley Quail is an outstanding choice for California's state bird.

The Birdist makes a case for the California Condor being California's state bird and I'd be fine with that too. (Maybe we need a state bird and a state raptor.) I would be less fine with the California Gull. While, like the Quail, it is native to California, found across the state, abundant, easily recognizable, and has the word "California" in it, it is not universally loved here. Gulls are crop pests and can be particularly detrimental to the cherry harvest. They hang out in parking lots and other urban locations (as well as landfills). They are famous for begging for food (or just blatantly stealing it) at beaches, parks, outdoor restaurants, or anywhere else people eat. Not quite the way California wants to present itself. 

And yet... the California Gull IS the state bird. Just not of California. It is the state bird of Utah. Utah holds the unique distinction of being the only state to choose a state bird named for a different state. (Rhode Island and South Carolina both have birds named for their states. Maryland's bird, the Baltimore Oriole, shares its name with a major city in the state.) Utah does have a good reason for choosing the California Gull as their state bird, but still. 

Back to The Birdist. I laughed out loud (and startled Brayden) about Florida. I'm still snickering about the state beverage. A tip of the hat to you, sir. 

For the 30 states who share their state bird with at least one other state, All About Birds used eBird to propose alternatives. I love what they've come up with. Each state deserves a unique state bird. All 50 managed to choose different state flowers; there's no reason it shouldn't be the same for other state symbols.

How to Glue a Puzzle

I love jigsaw puzzles and have done hundreds (and hundreds) in my lifetime. I never glued one together. Until now!

 

I believe puzzles are meant to kept and solved again, or passed on and enjoyed and solved by others. So why did I finally glue this one together? There are several reasons, but the initial push to give it a try was that Plaid sent me a bottle of their Mod Podge Puzzle Saver (affiliate link here and below). As a Plaid Ambassador, I'm not obligated to use what they send me, but since 2024 is all about learning I wanted to give it a go. 

Once I decided I wanted to glue a puzzle together, the next step was choosing which one. That was easy. I got Trevor this 140-piece bald eagle puzzle by Puzzle A-Round when he was about 7. Even then, it was too easy for him... but he liked the design too much to pass it along to someone else. His bedroom is decorated with raptors of all sorts, with a heavy emphasis on eagles (particularly since he became an Eagle Scout). So after sitting in a box in his room for 10 years, this puzzle will now hang on his bedroom wall. 

Gluing this puzzle together couldn't have been easier and I'm happy to have this puzzle out of the box and displayed where Trevor will enjoy it. 

How to Glue a Puzzle

Materials: 

• completed puzzle
• parchment paper
• Mod Podge Puzzle Saver
• foam brush
• Command Photo Hangers

Steps: 

Put the completed puzzle face up on a piece of parchment paper. Apply a thin coat of Puzzle Saver all over the front of the puzzle, using the foam brush to work it into the spaces between the pieces. Let the glue dry for at least 20 minutes. 

Turn the puzzle over and repeat the process, adding a thin coat of Puzzle Saver to the back of the puzzle. Be sure to work it into the cracks. When that is dry, attach one or more Photo Hangers to the back of the puzzle, depending on its size and weight. Then hang your puzzle and enjoy! 

Thoughts on my 2000-Piece Favorite Foods Puzzle

Remember this? 

It's the design I made for my 2000-piece custom puzzle by PuzzleYou, featuring all of my favorite foods. It makes me so happy looking at it. 

I've never done a 2000-piece puzzle before, and after accidentally creating a really difficult 1000-piece custom puzzle, I was really cautious designing this one. I don't enjoy solid-color or similarly-textured puzzles where you have to try every piece in every position, so I wanted my puzzle to have a lot of variety in color and texture. So how did it turn out? 

Awesome. 

(The poor color in this photo is due to bad light. The puzzle is more vibrant.)

It was difficult because 2000 is a lot of pieces, but it was never frustrating. I was always able to make progress. I started with the outer border, which was the easiest part by far. The next easiest were the red objects and the blue backgrounds. After that, the black borders were a lifesaver. 

I decided I could treat myself to whatever food I assembled first. At this point, I thought it was going to be the ice cream, donuts, or beet salad, but it ended up being the lemon souffle. (I haven't had one yet.) The most difficult ended up being the pizza, pasta, and the eggs benedict. The pizza was particularly vexing, as it was very easy to identify the pieces, but hard to properly connect them. 

I spent about two weeks on the puzzle, working on it in sessions ranging from 5 minutes to 2 hours. I loved every minute. The quality is superb and I'm very happy with the design. As I was working, it struck me how valuable puzzles are as a way to train your eye as an artist. What do I mean? When you look at one puzzle piece, you're seeing isolated colors and textures without the surrounding meaning. These colors and textures might not match what you expect them to be. 

Take a look at the four puzzle pieces across the top of this image. They are each part of a food or drink (as opposed to a plate or background) and are in the same orientation that they appear in the puzzle. Based on the colors and textures, can you guess what food each is? 

If you knew that the first one was a hamburger, I'm really impressed. For the longest time, I assumed it was part of a cocktail. Now that I know where it goes, it's obvious that it's tomato, onion, and cheese. 
 

The second one isn't a loaf of bread, nor a waffle. It's a donut. 

Surely this is a hamburger patty? Or bread? Nope. It's ice cream. 

For the longest time, I couldn't find the last piece for the cocktails. How hard could it be to find a red piece? Very hard, when I'd sorted it definitively with the rhubarb, where it did not belong. 

After doing this puzzle, I am confident that I would be able to draw or paint any of these foods better than before. There's no question that this puzzle helped train my eyes to see the actual color and textures, rather than the ones I might logically expect. Plus it's so much fun! I highly recommend a custom puzzle from PuzzleYou. My coupon code has expired, but even without it, you'll find the prices are very reasonable. Enjoy!

2000 Piece Custom Puzzle by PuzzleYou

I have a new puzzle and I'm sooo excited! This is my second custom puzzle from PuzzleYou. At 2000 pieces, it's twice as big as the one I made to celebrate visiting all 50 states. The beauty of a custom puzzle is that you can use literally any design you want. I went with a food theme this time, inspired by this scrapbook layout. 

I love the quality of PuzzleYou puzzles. The pieces are thick and sturdy and they interlock nicely. I'm so excited to dive in and get solving! In case you are wondering... no, there will be no attempts at speed puzzling this time. I'll be sticking to 500 piece puzzles for that. 

Here's a closer look at the image I used for this puzzle. I designed it very intentionally, in hopes of creating a beautiful puzzle with enough color and texture differentiation that it wouldn't be frustratingly difficult. Fingers crossed!

I made the whole thing with PicMonkey's stock photos and collage tool. I created a grid with 25 spaces and black lines separating each, then searched for images of my favorite foods. The foods include: chocolate mousse, pineapple, bread, eggs benedict, raspberry popsicle, rhubarb, pizza with white sauce, popcorn, caprese salad, pasta, a teriyaki rice bowl, waffles, fruity cocktails, chocolate chip cookies, conversation hearts, an ice cream cone (with chocolate chip, mint chip, and chocolate), potstickers, donuts, a cheeseburger, citrus sorbet, cheese fondue, beet salad, hot apple cider, lemon souffle, and cheese. Yum!

I placed the images randomly at first, then rearranged them so they were balanced. I maximized contrast between adjacent spaces. I placed like colors in visual triangles. I separated plates and bowls so that they were scattered evenly. Finally, I zoomed in on each image to minimize large areas of solid color. I loved designing this puzzle!

Custom puzzles make great gifts. Any puzzle fan would love to get a puzzle featuring their favorite photo, a special memory, or a collection of images of their favorite things. Go ahead and make one for yourself as well - you deserve it! The folks from PuzzleYou provided me with this puzzle AND a discount coupon for my readers. To get 15% off everything at PuzzleYou, use the code CindydeRosier15. Hurry though - it's only good until 12/17/2023. Enjoy!

My First Attempt at Speed Puzzling

A few months ago, I discovered the world of speed puzzling. I mentioned it on the blog for the first time in October. In that post, I said: 

"I've never timed myself or even tried to puzzle quickly. Maybe I'm a fast puzzler and I just don't know it! (I'm not.)"

Well, it's time to find out for sure! I selected Springbok's 500-piece round puzzle called Crafty Colors (affiliate link here and below) for my very first attempt at speed puzzling. I really like the design, but that's not why I chose it. I picked it because it's the only 500 piece puzzle I own that I haven't solved before. I intentionally did not study the design or spend any time thinking about the puzzle before jumping in. 

 

I started the timer on my phone, which was my first (of many) mistakes. 

• Mistake #1: I should not have used my phone as a timer. Because of the battery saver, every time I wanted to pause and take a photo, I had to reenter my password, pause, switch to the camera app, take a photo, switch back to the timer, and start the timer. I will be using a dedicated timer next time. 

Almost without exception, speed puzzlers start by sorting the pieces. So that's what I did. It took me 17 minutes and 55 seconds to go from what you see above to what you see below. 

Not only is that a painfully slow sorting time, but I didn't sort intelligently. 

• Mistake #2: I didn't make a plan. Instead of looking at the box for a few seconds to figure out a strategy and what I should be sorting, I just jumped in sorting things. I kept sorting until every piece was right side up and with like pieces. I'm pretty sure I over-sorted (different shades of blues and greens, for example). 
• Mistake #3: I didn't use puzzle trays for each category I sorted. Now I can't move the sorted piles out of the way. 
• Mistake #4: I put my starting pile of pieces in the back left and brought them towards me into groups. It would have been much smarter to put the starting pile near myself and push pieces away from me. That would have left a space for puzzling and it would have saved my back, which I was already feeling after 17 minutes of leaning. 
• Mistake #5: The box is on the puzzle board, taking up valuable real estate. I should have used a puzzle stand or propped it up somewhere. 

Time to get puzzling! I moved the box out of the way, scooted my piles to give myself a small space to work, and jumped in with putting the yellow pieces together. This is how the puzzle looked about 7 minutes later, at 25:26. 

 

At this point, I still hadn't looked at the box. 

• Mistake #6: I didn't take any time to understand the puzzle design. If I had, I would have realized much sooner that the size of (or lack of) white spaces between the colored pencils are important clues to where a piece goes.

Here is my puzzle at 37:06. Incidentally, this is approximately the same time it took the World Jigsaw Puzzle Champion, Alejandro Clemente Leon, to solve a more challenging 500-piece puzzle. That puzzle hasn't been released yet, but I'll be adding it to my wishlist when it is. I'd love to see where I rank among the top 180 puzzlers with recorded times. (Spoiler: I'll be #181). 

Back to my puzzle. I was happily solving with no plan. I worked on whatever pieces were closest to me first, even though they were closest by accident instead of by design. 

• Mistake #7: I didn't tell my family I was doing this. Steve came in to chat, which would ordinarily be completely appropriate and welcome to do while I'm puzzling. I lost some time trying to stop the timer unexpectedly. 

Here's 49:43. 

By this point, I was finally using the clues I would have noticed from the get-go if I'd studied the box. See that row of purple and red pieces along the bottom? They all show part of the sharpened wood of the pencil. Sorting out those would have been smarter than sorting everything only by color. 

• Mistake #8: At this point, it was too dark to continue. I was relying on natural light on a rainy afternoon, in a location with poor artificial light. 

I covered the puzzle (so that I wouldn't peek) and left it until the next day. When I restarted, I propped the box up where I could see it. In just minutes, I put those sharpened edges together. 

This is at 51:37.

By 1:22:11, I had the inside done and only the border remained. I've been pointing out all my mistakes, but I think this is a good time to acknowledge that this was something I did right. I always used to start with the border, but with this puzzle, it's actually the hardest part. Saving it until last was the smartest thing I did with this whole puzzle.  

Once all the pencils were in place, it didn't take long to add their tips - much less time than it would take to put the tips together with all the white in between them. I finished the puzzle at 1:35:16. 

While my time is ridiculously slow, I already know that it will be much faster the next time I solve this same puzzle. And I think what I learned from my first attempt at speed puzzling will help me with different designs as well. And speaking of designs, there were some pros and cons to this one. Topping the pros list: the colors are in distinct areas, in (mostly) rainbow order. There are no tiny details or false fits. The puzzle is high quality, with sturdy pieces that interlock fairly well. Cons: The few pencils that are not in perfect gradient order threw me off.  It was the first time I've ever done a round puzzle. I haven't done a Springbok puzzle since I was a kid; the puzzle cuts are very different than I'm used to. 

I am dying to give this puzzle another try and see if I can beat my time. Stay tuned!

Puzzle Piece Art Two Ways

I've always loved jigsaw puzzles, but until recently I had no idea that competitive speed puzzling was a thing. Like many other puzzle fans, I learned about speed puzzling through the fabulous Karen Puzzles. I recently watched the live broadcast of the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships in Spain, sponsored by Ravensburger (my fave!). I would have loved to have been there in person. As a spectator, that is. I'm not a particularly fast puzzler. On the other hand, I've never timed myself or even tried to puzzle quickly. Maybe I'm a fast puzzler and I just don't know it! (I'm not.)

While watching Worlds, I played with puzzle pieces in my sketchbook and ended up with this spread.

I started with the page on the right (because I'm left-handed). I used puzzle pieces from this fiasco, a single sponge, and Folk Art paint in red, blue, and yellow (affiliate links here and below). I laid out some puzzle pieces on the paper, dipped my sponge in yellow, and pounced over some of the pieces. I repeated the process with red on the other side of the sponge, and blue in the middle. 

My hope is that I would end up with some green and some purple by just using the one sponge. I did get some green, but no purple. When the paint was dry, I outlined the puzzle pieces with a black Apple Barrel paint pen. They aren't perfect, but oh well. 

For the left side, I used red, blue, and yellow paint pens to dot around the now-painted puzzle pieces. 

Once I'd dotted around all of the puzzle pieces, I started extending the dots outward from each. I varied the size of the dots and allowed them to intermingle when two colors met. 

It wasn't until I took this picture that I realized the sun had gone down and I was crafting in the dark. 

I kept adding dots until the page was full. I thought about outlining the puzzle pieces but decided against it. 

The finished spread is not particularly attractive, but that's the beauty of a sketchbook. It's a place to try stuff and experiment. Both pages were fun, but I particularly liked dotting with the Apple Barrel paint pens. I'm really enjoying figuring out different ways to use them.