How to Make a Jigsaw Puzzle Advent Calendar

Hi everyone welcome back to karen puzzles and happy holidays. Today, i’m going to show you how to make a jigsaw puzzle advent calendar out of any puzzle that you already own. This is a really fun and festive project, and, depending on how you do it, you don’t really have to buy anything new. So the puzzle that i’m going to be using today is called christmas carolers. It is from the brand gallison.

The artwork is by louise cunningham, and this video is not sponsored um. This puzzle was not even gifted to me. I literally just went on amazon and bought this, because i wanted something really bright and colorful and festive to use as an example. So if you do want to get the same puzzle, i will have the link right down below the first step to this project is to assemble the puzzle: [ Music ], all right that was such a fun puzzle to put together. So our next step, if we want to turn this into an advent calendar, is to break up the puzzle into 24 sections so for the easy mode count.

How many pieces are on each edge of the puzzle and then divide it up into 24 rectangles [, Music ], and these don’t all have to be exactly the same. Size you’ll probably have to adjust them a little bit or for the hard mode. You can divide the puzzle up into completely random shapes, [, Music ]. You can have a totally different amount of pieces in each section and just make the craziest shapes you can imagine that will definitely make it extra difficult. So for this example, i’m going to go with the easier route and just use the rectangles rather than the random shapes.

The next thing you’ll need are 24 individual bags. I’M using these little clear bags that i have left over from another project, but you could totally use normal ziploc sandwich bags or if you don’t want to use individual bags, you could even use a container with dividers for separate compartments. So i’m just going to decorate my bags with washi tape and these letters that i printed on sticker paper. I just happen to already have a lot of craft supplies, but of course you can decorate yours. However, you like the important thing, is just to make sure that each bag is labeled with a number [ Music ].

So once you have all of the bags decorated, we need to fill them up with all of the pieces again for the easy mode. You can keep them in order so that you’re building out the puzzle sort of row by row or for the hard mode, which is what i’m going to do. You can mix up the sections so that you get a different random section every day. I think that adds a nice little twist to it, so that, in addition to putting together each individual section, you also have to figure out how the sections combine together: [, Music, ], [, Music, ], [, Music, ], and how cute did that turn out so you’ll. Just open one bag each day of december leading up to christmas and then, by the time it’s christmas, you’ll have a completed puzzle now.

I did accidentally end up with an extra piece, so one of these bags is missing a piece um. I would recommend that you are a little more careful than i was when putting your bags together, although i mean you could make it extra challenging by just pulling out random pieces from all over the puzzle and then making that one of the bags and another tip In order to avoid doing the same puzzle twice you and a friend could each make one of these and then swap and then, as you put together, each section you’re doing a brand new puzzle, and i used the puzzle box itself to hold all of the bags. But you could definitely use like a shoe box, something that doesn’t have the puzzle image on it, and then you would have no idea what the images that you’re putting together until you start doing it section by section. You could even do this with multiple puzzles, like maybe two 500 piece puzzles, and then you have sections belonging to two separate puzzles and you have to assemble them. I don’t know just thinking out loud here.

I think that could also be fun. However, i do want to caution you on one thing: you might be tempted to skip the first step and, just put you know, 40 random pieces into each bag, rather than separating them out into sections first, and i wouldn’t actually recommend doing it. That way, as you saw in the video where i did a thousand piece puzzle – 100 random pieces at a time, you really can’t get a lot done until you have at least half of the pieces on the board. So if you’re doing that for your entire advent calendar, the first half of december just wouldn’t be very fun because you wouldn’t be able to put in very many pieces, whereas if you do it this way, you know that you have a section where all of the Pieces connect to each other, so it’ll just be a little more fun to actually work on a section of the puzzle every day, so just for fun. I think i’m going to do the puzzle again, but do it advent calendar style and check back in and let you know how it goes doing it that way: [ Music, ], [ Applause, ], [, Music, ], all right.

So i just finished the puzzle for a second time this time doing it the advent calendar type of way it took an hour and 20 minutes, which is definitely less time than you know. The first time that i put it together. All of these white sections were definitely easier once it was broken up into sections. I do have one missing piece and i was checking the floor, but then i checked the bags and it was actually just left in one of the bags. So let me put that back into place also, that white piece that had gotten separated it turns out.

It was in section 12. So it’s just – i don’t know one of these in here, but that was actually so fun and it is so easy to divide any puzzle that you like into small sections like this. So i hope you liked this jigsaw. Puzzle advent calendar idea, um. This is not a new idea.

This is not anything that i came up with. Lots of people have done this before so, if you’ve ever made one. I would love to know down in the comments if you have any additional tips for making it as fun as possible, and then i also just wanted to mention that there are puzzle companies that have started releasing their own advent calendars. Where all of this work is already done for you, you saw in my previous video, i showed the new york puzzle company’s jigsaw, puzzle advent calendar where you do a separate 100 piece puzzle every day and then there’s actually a blog post. I saw from chronica’s puzzlers, where they compiled all of the jigsaw puzzle, advent calendars that are out there for this year.

There are even two on there that were released by gallison’s the company that made this puzzle that i just did so i’ll link. All of that right down below i’m also going to link my dad’s book if you’re looking for a really unique christmas present this year, i don’t know how much more unique you can get than a book about the history of anvils as you’ve. Seen in some of my previous videos, my dad has one of the largest anvil collections in the world and he has the largest collection of fisher and norris anvils. So last year he wrote a book about the history of the company and their anvils and pretty much all of the information is compiled for the first time in this book. This is the only place that you can get the complete history of the company and even if you’re, not into anvils and blacksmithing, it’s still just a really interesting story that intertwines with american history.

So if you want to help support my dad’s collection – and you know my family, getting this book is a great way to do it, i’m going to have the link to get one right down below, so i hope you all had a great thanksgiving and a great Start to the holiday season do we need a code word for this video? I feel like it’s not going to be as long as some of my other videos um how about december. That’S a fun code word for an advent, calendar video, so happy puzzling and i will see you all in the next one.