A guide to buying jigsaw puzzles

Have you ever thought about trying your hand at puzzling but just don't know where to start?

Many people think that the bigger the puzzle the harder it will be but this usually isn't the case. The image you are puzzling makes more impact on your enjoyment of the puzzle than the quality or the size or even the amount of pieces in the box.

An image that has thousands of tiny cartoon characters is likely to be far easier to finish than a wide sweeping sky as each small image gives you more lines to match up. However, the hardest image to complete is a photographic image with no brush strokes, no clear definition between colour patches, no easy guide to help you through. A jigsaw of 500 pieces with big swathes of sky is harder than a 2000 piece jigsaw of many little images, it is harder to sort out the colour gradient and you are forced to complete big sections by shape.

There are, however, some people who complete jigsaw puzzles guided by the shape of the piece, and not the colour. Although I have found these people to be the minority there are certainly many puzzlers who tackle a jigsaw many different ways.

If someone asks me for help choosing a jigsaw puzzle I have two basic rules to follow:

1. You must like the image.
2. Make sure it fits well within the space you intend to use.

If the jigsaw is too big for your space you will almost certainly lose pieces trying to organise it and will almost certainly end up putting it away unfinished when you need your space back. But mostly any jigsaw you intend to complete you will end up staring at for an inordinate amount of time. Because of this it is hard, but not impossible, to buy a jigsaw puzzle for another person. In judging the image difficulty check for detail, colour, small images within the image and ensure it is something you'll be happy to look at.

Before you know it you too will be hooked on that feeling of accomplishment you only get when you drop the final piece in place...