HALFWAY THROUGH THE GIANT PUZZLE (24,000 Piece Puzzle – Part 3 of 6)

Check out part 4 Here

Hello, everybody welcome to section two of the 24 000 piece puzzle. It is february 28th, it’s a sunday and i’m so excited to finally get started on the next section. So before i do anything else, there’s one thing that i really need to do and that is to finally refold the poster so that i can actually see section two. You know section one i just kind of eyeballed, where the edge of it was, and i could just see it on there. But now that section two goes over a fold.

I need to fold it in half and then into fourths, so that i can actually see what i’m going to be working on [, Music, ], all right. There we go now. We have section two so because i didn’t fold it until right now. I didn’t actually know like what exactly i was going to be working on, so let me take a look and make my game plan, so i think i’m going to start with the tiger. I’Ll, definitely sort him out.

That’S a very distinct pattern. Also, the moon and the building and the lighthouse all of these hot air balloons should be pretty distinct. The galaxy should be pretty distinct. These last few animals on the side and then yeah underwater, should be pretty distinct kind of separating the water from all of the undersea life, similar to what i did in the first section. Looking at this, i actually think it’s going to be way easier than the first section, because there are fewer different elements to be working with.

So you know here we had this big group of fish which, as i said, was pretty difficult. We have all these animals kind of all, grouped together, whereas on the second section everything is a little bit more separated out. So the main thing i’m going to do differently from the first section is i’m going to spend a lot more time on the sorting and i’m not going to do it all in one. Go! Here’S the thing with sorting this many pieces for every single piece that you look at you have to you know, recognize the color the pattern and make a decision about which bucket you’re putting it into for some of them.

That’S very easy! You know if it’s a really bright color a really distinct pattern, but when you have to make that decision six thousand times in a row, you know it wasn’t. It was both the physical fatigue of sitting in one place for three hours at a time, but also the mental fatigue of making that many decisions so quickly, one right after the other and so last time. I really only separated into a couple different buckets at first and then, as i went, i had to keep re-sorting and re-sorting there’s a lot more sorting in the middle, whereas this time i’m going to spread the initial sorting out over a couple of days. Just do a little bit at a time and then sort it into more different categories from the beginning.

So a few more things to note um, i already put together the edge along there. So that’s one edge already in place and now that i basically have one edge done. There are going to be way fewer edge pieces to middle pieces, like the ratio will be a little different. So again, i’m assuming the edge is gon na go together really quickly, and i still have my mystery piece from the first section: here’s actually what i’m gon na do. I’M gon na take a little piece of blue tape and i’m gon na just stick it right.

On the front of this piece, and that way i’ll just just in case it like gets mixed in, i already almost accidentally mixed it in with all of these, but now i’ll know that this is the mystery piece and when i put it in place, i will Definitely keep you updated all right. I think that’s everything, let’s start sorting. So when i was doing the sorting there were two main methods that i used. The first was to pull a bunch of pieces towards me, turn them all over and then sort them into the different piles and then the second way was to just dig through the entire pile of pieces pulling pieces from a certain category, as i saw them. I actually think the second method worked better for me, since i could move a lot more pieces at once and it just felt more efficient, but either way if you’re sorting this many pieces, you’ll definitely want to make sure that you sort all of them before you Start putting anything together, it’s tempting to just get started right away, but trust me it’ll just be frustrating to try to put pieces together.

If you don’t have everything that you need to work with, since i wasn’t worried about sorting everything quickly like in a single afternoon. This time i definitely went slower here is some footage in real time not sped up. So you can see just how slow it went at times, but i definitely think that slowing down helped me get the pieces sorted more accurately and into more specific categories right from the beginning: [, Music ]. Oh, my god, it’s puzzle day, i’m so excited [, Music, ]. Well, the sorting is done and i’ve actually started working on the puzzle already.

So it is thursday march 4th it’s about 9 30 in the morning and i’m planning to spend all day working on the puzzle. I’M really sorry. If you can hear background noise, apparently today is also the day that the construction, a few doors down, is pouring all of their concrete. So there’s been an endless line of trucks outside. While i was waiting for it to quiet down a little, i put together the moon.

So let me just talk about the sorting and explain what we have, as you saw in the first video. The sorting for the first section took three hours, but this time i tried to sort into more different buckets and like take my time so for this one. It took almost five hours over the course of three days, but i’m hoping that spending a little extra time on the sorting is going to shave a little bit of time off of the puzzling. So we’ll see how that works out. I already put together the lighthouse.

The other day, because i just couldn’t wait to get started, then we also have the edge pieces, the hot air balloons, the animals and the like grass and land, the tiger, the fish and the coral, the underwater, the water line, the above water and the sky. I probably should not have used my smallest box for this guy, because there are a lot of pieces in here that i will have to go through and re-sort later on, but we’re not quite there yet so today, i’m definitely gon na get the edge done. I think i can get the tiger done and then i’m gon na start working on the animals and the land and just try to get a lot of this part in the middle done. This time. I think i’m gon na work from the middle up to the sky and then finish with the underwater.

I definitely feel much more optimistic going into this one now that i’ve already done a section that is this size, so i kind of know what i’m getting into i’m, not quite as overwhelmed. I’M just really excited to get started so enough talking. Let’S start puzzling, [, Music ], so [, Music, ], so [, Music ]. So one thing that i wanted to show you guys is that when i’m, you know doing the sorting, if there’s one small, very distinct section like this little purple, fish, sometimes i’ll just go ahead and put it together. As i find the pieces, as you might be, able to tell the initial sorting is my least favorite part of the entire puzzling process.

So, by doing this, i get to do at least a little bit of actually doing the puzzle, while in the midst of all of the sorting, so there we go, i can just put her right into place. This goes somewhere around there, and now we have a little quarter already in place: [ Music, ], [, Music, ], [ Applause, ], [, Music, ], [, Music, ], [, Music, ], [, Music ], all right. So it is about 1 30 and i have had a little secret goal all day and i just reached it. I really wanted to get a section together that reached all the way across the puzzle from one side all the way to the other side, and i did it look at how fast this is coming along. So i started pulling these pieces, which is this rock here with the like splash of water on it, but i’m getting a little bored of that part.

The nice thing about doing a puzzle. That’S this big is that if you get tired of one section, there’s so much else to work on, so i think i’m going to go work on the hot air balloons. I think that’ll be really fun and we’ll just see how much of that i get done. This afternoon also, how have i been working on this for so long now, and i only just noticed that there’s a little fish um flying through the air, he got a lot of height if he uh jumped out of this water. I think that this is my new favorite character on this entire puzzle.

What should we name? Him suggest a name in the comments [ Music ], so i just did a bunch of work putting together the hot air balloons. It’S looking really good and i realized that our little mystery piece here has a little bit of a hot air balloon on it. So would you look at this hang on? Where was it?

I just saw it: where is it there? It is. Would you look at this, so it is indeed from the second part, and it just got mixed in with the first bag. So we’ll see if that happens again with all of the pieces, i have left [ Music ] all right, so it is just after 4. 30 – and i think that’s pretty good progress for the first day i mean compared to the first day of the previous section.

I got so much done. I love this puzzle so much. I love it so much good morning. Everybody. It is about 8 a.

. On friday, the 5th and i have already uh watched the finale of wandavision, which is clearly the first thing that needed to be on the list today. But now it’s time to get back to the puzzle. So today, i’m going to try to focus a lot on the sky and get a lot of that finished. I’Ve been doing a lot of sorting off cameras right here.

Are the birds, this big eagle that guy, so i think those will be the first ones. I do since that’s quite a lot of pieces. Next, we’ve got the rainbow and then we’ve got pieces with butterflies. Here i started working on these red toucans, but i am missing a lot of pieces and then these are blue pieces with like something on it. Where i haven’t quite identified, what it is, they’re all uh, pretty small.

Next we have the pieces with stars on them and then a little bit of the galaxy and then finally, we have all of the blue pieces that are just basically solid blue uh. These will be the last pieces that i put in so here’s what we’re going for today wish me luck. Let’S see how much i can do: [ Music, ] videos, [, Music, ], [, Music, ], so [, Music ], all right. It is about 1 pm and i think i’m actually gon na take a little break, maybe i’ll work on it this afternoon. Maybe not.

I have done a lot of puzzling over the last two days, so let me show you where we’re at so the top half of the puzzle is coming along. So well, look at that. So remember all of the sky pieces that we had this morning. All that is left is some star pieces, some galaxy pieces and then some pieces with little bits on them that i still have not identified and then, of course, the box of solid pieces, which i just need a break from the sky. I really need a break.

I have done so much yesterday and today so before i get back to that, i think i’m going to work on um, the top of the water. All of those ripples try to fill in. You know this part of the puzzle and then i think i need to start sorting through all of the fish pieces, because i think a lot of the pieces that i’m looking for that are in the sky, like a lot of the galaxy pieces, especially are mixed. In here, so i think once i start sorting, these it’ll be easier to find the pieces that i was looking for up there and look how fun this is like an entire separate puzzle like that’s one puzzle, and then this is a completely different puzzle. So we’ll see when i get back to it, probably in a few days or so i i need a break, i need a little bit of a break.

Oh my god, nobody tell my to-do list that i’m working on the puzzle again today. I do have other things to do with my life, but it is just such a beautiful day out. The light is so nice in here i just went grocery shopping, so i have all my favorite snacks, so i feel like it would be a waste of a great day if i didn’t work on the puzzle. So today, i’m going to tackle the water line, which are all of these pieces that have just been sitting out here from the beginning and then also all of the water which is all of these pieces. And i feel like that’s only going to take about.

Maybe two or three hours so plenty of time, the rest of the day to get other things done: [, Music, ], [, Music, ]. Well, there we go that took literally exactly two hours like to the minute and you know i’m having such a nice time. It is so beautiful out. I think i might get started on some of these underwater pieces at least sorting them and then we’ll see how it goes this afternoon. [, Music, ] all right, so i just finished doing my first round of sorting for the underwater pieces.

This isn’t all of the pieces. There are still plenty over there, but you know we have a few good sections going, but this pile of pieces is my absolute favorite, because these are all of the pieces that had been missing from the top of the puzzle. So this is my favorite favorite time in the entire puzzle, we’re about to fill in a ton of empty spots up there, [ Music, ], so [, Music, ], [, Music, ], um, so oops. It is now 4 p.m, and i once again spent all day working on the puzzle i swear.

I like should not be trusted with my own schedule. When there’s a puzzle around, i really thought i was gon na get other things done today, but i just couldn’t stop look how good it’s looking. So i basically finished the sky. I wasn’t planning on doing that today, but there it is, i mean. Obviously, there are still a few pieces missing throughout, but for the most part, the top half like, maybe two thirds of the puzzle, is basically finished.

All that’s left is this underwater part which i’ve already started sorting so yeah. I think it’s coming along really. Well. It’S definitely easier than the first part. I can confirm [, Music ], all right.

It is a brand new day and i am getting started early today. It is just after 8 a.m. On tuesday, the 9th – and i think i can finish the puzzle today. I know that it looks like i still have quite a lot left, but i’ve already done a lot of the sorting.

So i think all of those are going to go together really quickly and, as we saw in the first section, you know the closer you get to the end, the faster and faster it goes. So i’m going to spend all day on this and i think i’ll have it done by the end of the day. I’M gon na stop talking so that i can actually start working on it so that we can make that happen. [, Music, ], so [, Music ] all right. It is 11 40

I’M about to stop for lunch, and here you can see what i’ve done this morning.

Let me hop up on the chair. To give you a better look, i think that’s pretty good, i’m definitely making progress. I just arranged all of these yellow fish pieces by by type, so that’s what i’m gon na work on after i have lunch yesterday i was filming a different puzzle. Video and i just worked straight through lunch. I didn’t eat until, like 3 30 p,
M, so i’m not gon na do that today, i’m gon na have lunch and i don’t know it might be a little ambitious to think that i can finish it today.

Um i’ll probably do another four hours this afternoon. So we’ll see we’ll just see. You know. I’M not making any promises but yeah time to sit on the couch for a little bit. My back hurts [ Music ].

So once again, as i’ve been working, i’ve been collecting all of these pieces that go up into the top of the puzzle. So this is going to be so satisfying. Are you ready to see all of these pieces go in all at once: [, Music, ], [, Music, ], [, Music, ] all right! So it’s about five o’clock – and i didn’t finish it today, but i got quite a lot done and i’m pretty confident that it will now only be one more day. So here is how it is looking um.

You can see that i got pretty much all of this down at the bottom finished. It’S really just this kind of purple tubular plant in the center that i’ll need to get started on next time and then all of this at the top, which is all the like kind of blue underwater pieces and then i’ll be done. That’S literally all that’s left. So i’m not sure exactly when i’ll get back to finish it up, but hopefully soon i’ll have one more day of working on the puzzle and then i’ll finish it [, Music, ] all right everyone. So i it is um the next day from the last clips that i filmed and i kind of sort of decided to keep working on the puzzle because i’m irresponsible and cannot resist a puzzle.

So i finished this purple section this morning. I also filled in pretty much all of those last little empty spots that were down here, so that is completely finished and up here, um there’s pretty much. There’S like a few little pieces up there that i still need to find. But everything else is, you know, completely filled in and actually this piece that i had pulled down for this little dolphin section. I think that might be one of these pieces up here yay, it fits oh and i think i might spot the other piece you are seeing this puzzling happen.

This is in real time. I swear. I did not plan this, oh my god. Okay, so now the top of the puzzle is completely finished. What i’m gon na do next is fill in all of these kind of light blue pieces which go right underneath the water line here and then all that’s left is um.

Some random pieces there and then this box of pieces, which is only two puzzle pieces deep, so not that many i’ll just separate these by shape because they’re all kind of similar textures and then fill in the rest of this underwater section and then i’ll be done. So this time i am actually sure that i will indeed finish it today: [ Music, ], [, Music ]. All right this is it we’re in the home stretch. This is everything that is left and you can see that i organized all of the pieces by shape. So, as i put pieces in i’ll be moving them from the box onto the paper, so that they’re easier to see it’s about 10.

40. Now, so i think i should finish it this morning: [ Music ]! Here we go the last four pieces. This is it one two three and oh, my god, oh my god, four, the last piece and it is finished. It is about 12 50.

So that was about four hours that i spent on it today to finish it up. I have so many thoughts. I’M gon na add up all my times. Give you all the stats, but i’ll do that another day, because it just started raining and it’s really dark out. So you know i feel like.

I need better light to show you the final product. These are the things i have to worry about when doing puzzles these days. Oh my god, wait. Wait, wait, wait! Wait!

I filmed that whole thing and then i looked back at the puzzle. I didn’t even realize i was missing a piece. Oh no! Okay. I’M gon na check the floor.

Um brb all right all right, never mind false alarm. It’S all good! I’M literally lying on the floor under my table right now, so here we go okay for real this time. This is the real final piece and there it is. Okay for real this time now it’s finished.

I hope i mean i’ll double check. I think that’s it. I think. That’S everything all right. I just ran my hand over the entire thing and i think we’re good honestly.

I wasn’t that worried about it because, as we saw with that um galaxy piece, the pieces could be mixed up between the bags. So if i was missing a piece, it might just be in a different bag. So here is that extra piece from the first bag, as you see it, fits in perfectly and i don’t have a duplicate. So i think i can remove the tape now and okay now for real i’ll, be back another day to give you all of my final thoughts, [ Music ]. Well, i did it part two is officially finished.

Let’S take a look at the final stats. I know that that’s what you’re all here for so in total, it took me just under 36 hours, which is almost 10 hours less than the first section i’ll put a few more charts on the screen here, all a courtesy of my sister and her spreadsheet wizardry. This is the part where the charts are really starting to get interesting, because we can compare the times between the first two sections, so why was it so much faster? Well. I definitely think that spending more time on the sorting and sorting into more categories, uh definitely helped, and also i mean just like what i said at the beginning.

This section just has a lot of very different to very separated elements, so it’s just an easier image to put together as a puzzle also now that i’m 12 000 pieces into this, i’m getting more familiar with the little quirks of the puzzle, like you keep having These sections, where there’s like a double piece and then kind of a wavy piece, so now i know to expect those and yeah i’m just more familiar with the piece shapes. I did notice this time, though, that there were more times that i had a piece in place and then later realized that it was wrong and i had to rearrange some things not enough to be frustrating, but enough times that i noticed it. I don’t know exactly why, maybe because it didn’t happen very much in the first section, so i wasn’t paying as much attention to like double checking each piece in this section, but i mean clearly i sorted it all out in the end and all of the pieces Are here it seems like in this bag? Nothing got mixed up, so i have already um started, looking ahead and taking a little peek at the next two sections, and i definitely think that this is going to be the easiest one. I think the next two sections are both going to be much more difficult, but i will get into exactly why once we get to those videos also, i think that next time i just need to like clear an entire week to do nothing but work on the Puzzle as you’ve seen um trying to work the puzzle into my normal schedule is not working for me.

The original plan was to just kind of work on it a little bit out of time, literally throughout the entire year, but that’s definitely not gon na happen. I mean for this section i literally finished it with only five days of actual puzzling time. I think this puzzle is so fun, so i can work on it for eight hours a day and be perfectly happy. So i think, next time i’m just going to dedicate an entire week and see if i can just knock out the entire thing all at once. So one little thing that i did notice that i just want to bring up is that on that edge that we brought over from the previous section at the bottom, the pieces line up perfectly.

But then, by the time you get to the top, the pieces are slightly off. It’S it’s not too bad, like you really only notice it when you’re right up close looking at them, but i just love little things like that. That show you that this section of the puzzle must have been cut at a slight angle to how the first section of the puzzle was cut. Also, i just wanted to share um. I get a lot of questions asking what i listen to.

While i work on the puzzles and for this section, my soundtrack was the audiobook of the greatest love story ever told by nick offerman and megan mulally, and then once i finished that i also listened to a bunch of episodes of their podcast. And i don’t know if you guys know this, but nick offerman and megan mullally are very into jigsaw, puzzles like they talk about jigsaw, puzzles in the book. They’Ve posted all of these photos of them with their puzzles. So i would just like to consider this an open invitation to nick offerman and megan mullally, who are definitely watching this video. You know anytime, you want to puzzle together anytime, you want to be on this channel with me.

Call me up: let’s do some puzzles all right, so i actually already taped together all of the different sections of the puzzle. Just like i showed in the first video. I got a lot of questions asking if the tape is removable – and i didn’t answer any of them because i don’t actually know so. Let’S try it out all right, i’m peeling off the tape and yeah i mean it takes off a little bit of the cardboard with it. It kind of takes off the very top layer of the cardboard, so you’d have to be really careful peeling it up so that you’re not ripping off too much cardboard.

But if you really wanted to – and you were okay with a little bit of damage to the back of the pieces – it technically is removable. However, i don’t think i’m ever going to be taking this apart. For me, i’m considering this a permanent solution, because eventually i would love to hang this up on a wall, i’m not ever planning on taking it apart and doing it again. There are just too many puzzles in the world. You know i have to leave time for other big puzzles.

So, okay, one more thing in this video. I had an idea for what to do with these taped together sections of the puzzle. I think that this wall behind me is the perfect size to display the two sections that i’ve already put together. So i’m going to use more painters, tape and i’m going to temporarily hang the two sections on the wall behind me. I don’t know if this is gon na work.

This is definitely an experiment, but let’s see how it looks: [, Music, ], [, Music, ], [, Music, ], [, Music, ], [, Music ]. Oh my god, it’s huge. Can you believe that that is only half of this puzzle just for reference? I am about five feet tall and this is like the same height that i am like it’s wider than my wings fan, and this is only half the puzzle. I really did not know.

If that was going to work. I had visions of it all crashing to the floor behind me. While i was filming like putting it up, but i mean there, it is half the puzzle done that is wild. I like i, can’t stop looking at it. I am going to be taking this down because i don’t want to leave tape on the wall for, like you, know weeks and have it damage my walls, but i’m just so excited to finish the last two sections now and then to see it all all together.

All at once – oh my god, it’s gon na be so cool, but anyway, as i come to the halfway point in my giant puzzle, i just wanted to reflect a little bit when i’m filming this. It is basically the exact one year point from when the pandemic started. I remember when it first started. Thinking like oh, i better rush and get my like jigsaw. Puzzle pandemic video done really fast because i want to make sure people can watch it while they’re still in lockdown yeah well one year later, but things are definitely starting to look up.

My parents got vaccinated. A bunch of my friends have gotten vaccinated they’re, saying that by the end of may, like everybody who wants a vaccine will be able to get one. So things are definitely looking up. I can’t wait to be able to go back out into the world again, but you know for now: i’ve got plenty of puzzles to keep me busy all right. So if you watched all the way to the end of this video, your code word is going to be tiger.

I feel like i’m like a weather person. The cold front is coming in from the lighthouse and passing the hot air balloons into the school of fish. What am i saying, i’ve been puzzling for too long all right, happy puzzling, and i will see you all in the next one.