I don't usually do any of those "Works For Me Wednesday" posts or anything like that because usually I don't have anything to creative to report. I mainly steal ideas from others who post helpful tips, LOL. But when I was thinking about the problem of storing board games, which I alluded to in my
board games post , I realized that I have come up with a way to store those annoying toddler puzzles. They come in the same flimsy boxes that board games do, and when you have a bunch of little hands getting them down and putting them back up over many years, the boxes do not hold up.
The first step is to cut out the picture on the front of the box. I try to include how many pieces are supposed to be in the puzzle as well. Then you put the puzzle together and turn all the pieces over. Write the same letter or number on the back of each piece, and write that same character on the back of the big picture. This particular Winnie-the-Pooh puzzle shown here has the letter "W" on the back of all the pieces. This stands for "waking up", which reminds me of what puzzle it is (Tigger and Piglet have apparently awoken Pooh by standing outside his window and calling him--some friends!). You can use numbers too, which is what our church does. This simple trick prevents you from having to work each and every 24 piece puzzle you own when your 2-year old decides it would be fun to dump out every puzzle onto the floor and throw all the pieces around, thoroughly mixing them up. Theoretically, of course. My children are under the utmost supervision at all points of the day, so this sort of thing never occurs here. Never.
Once you have your puzzle pictures cut out and all your pieces labeled, then you put each puzzle in its own Ziploc bag.
Then you find a handy-sized box conveniently located in your garage (or if you can't find anything, feel free to come search my garage, LOL), and you put all your bags in there.
Then you simply put your box of puzzles on a shelf, in our case, on top of coloring books because even though we have 3 sets of double bookshelves on our study, we have run out of space. No more scrunched up boxes with pieces spilling out everywhere getting lost! Now your puzzles can last for 12 years, through 7 kids as well!
The first step is to cut out the picture on the front of the box. I try to include how many pieces are supposed to be in the puzzle as well. Then you put the puzzle together and turn all the pieces over. Write the same letter or number on the back of each piece, and write that same character on the back of the big picture. This particular Winnie-the-Pooh puzzle shown here has the letter "W" on the back of all the pieces. This stands for "waking up", which reminds me of what puzzle it is (Tigger and Piglet have apparently awoken Pooh by standing outside his window and calling him--some friends!). You can use numbers too, which is what our church does. This simple trick prevents you from having to work each and every 24 piece puzzle you own when your 2-year old decides it would be fun to dump out every puzzle onto the floor and throw all the pieces around, thoroughly mixing them up. Theoretically, of course. My children are under the utmost supervision at all points of the day, so this sort of thing never occurs here. Never.
Once you have your puzzle pictures cut out and all your pieces labeled, then you put each puzzle in its own Ziploc bag. 
Then you find a handy-sized box conveniently located in your garage (or if you can't find anything, feel free to come search my garage, LOL), and you put all your bags in there.
Then you simply put your box of puzzles on a shelf, in our case, on top of coloring books because even though we have 3 sets of double bookshelves on our study, we have run out of space. No more scrunched up boxes with pieces spilling out everywhere getting lost! Now your puzzles can last for 12 years, through 7 kids as well!
2 comments:
I do this same thing with board games except that I have a bigger bin (not sure what the size is but I can measure it) and put the pieces in a baggie, and the board lined up the side. This works for things like Candyland, but not Monopoly. HTH.
Hey, I do the same thing. I always have an assortment of sizes in zip lock bags. I don't think we have any puzzles in boxes -- they pretty much go straight to the bags. LOL
Post a Comment