Hi everyone! I don’t know about you, but we have a lot of puzzles. And they all come in various sized boxes.
The kind where the edges split and then you have to tape them back together.
And then when you put them in a ‘puzzle area’ they come apart anyway.
So you have puzzle pieces all over the place.
Lost.
You know…puzzles.
Well today I’m here to help you eliminate puzzle chaos!
I love puzzles, they’re great educational tools, but I have to confess that I hate the stray puzzle pieces that inevitably end up laying around here and there. So I set out on a mission to organize our puzzles.
I was loitering in our local craft store and ran upon these 5×7 plastic photo cases. They looked like something handy, then it dawned on me that they would be a great way to store our puzzles!
So if you’re interested in taking this venture with me, grab yourself a few of these sweet little cases, some scissors, some packing tape, and all of your puzzles and let’s get started!
Here’s what our puzzle mess looked like before…and no this isn’t all of them, I just didn’t want to scare you right off the bat.
Step 1: Place your puzzle pieces into the box just to make sure they even fit first.
If they do, cut off the top image from your puzzle box. You will want this to identify the puzzle, and also to have as a reference when working the puzzle. Tape it into the inside of the box using clear packing tape. When you close the box you can see the puzzle image clearly.
These boxes have snaps on the sides, so they’re nice and thin. Plus if you use them they’re uniform and stack well. One thing to check is the clips on the ends though. Some of the boxes didn’t clip well, so you’ll want to make sure you get ones that snap good. Otherwise…puzzle pieces galore and we can’t have that now can we!
For our larger puzzles I found this bigger clear container. It was at the container store and the handles actually snap the lid into place. They’re also great for stacking. We use them for our larger wooden puzzles. this keeps the pieces from going all over.
Finally we stacked all of our puzzles nicely into one of my Ikea bins, and put it back on our shelves.
I had a couple bins left over and decided to use them for some of our preschool manipulatives. They’re great for this purpose too!
And voila’ that’s our new puzzle solution.
I hope it helps relieve you of some of those annoying stray puzzle pieces and brings a little organization to the chaos!
I love this idea but I just check Joann’s site and those boxes are around $4! I’m pretty sure I didn’t spend that much on most of the puzzles! I’m sure they go on sale all the time so I’ll be watching. Can anybody find a cheaper source??
I just bought them at the Container Store for $1.99 ea. The 4×6 ones are $1.49. On sale until beginning of Sept.
hth,
Laura
Thank you so much for this idea. I can’t wait to use it for the puzzles that I have. These will take up less room. Are the containers big enough to hold playing cards too? I think I will have to get some and see. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you SO much Erica!!! My daughter is a puzzle fiend and we have so many puzzles its embarrassing. I was just wondering what we could do with ours.
Wonderful idea!!! I wonder about games, too. I’d definitly invest in some for board/card games too! Watch for sales and coupons I know hobby lobby and Joannes have awesome coupons and sales. Patience definatly pays off!!!!
I told my husband. “This is why I follow this lady, she’s a genius!” and he agreed and has always been impressed by your ideas. You’re an inspiration! XO
I love this! I was just organizing our classroom puzzles and wanted to throw them all out! This brings hope to my world : )
Great ideia!!
Certainly I will do it here at home with my kid’s puzzles.
I found these today at The Container Store for $1.99 each (sale price).
In Australia we are not blessed with the big discount stores that you have in the US but I found a very similar solution for our puzzles. For a photo, see http://angathome.com/2013/10/01/how-do-you-store-childrens-jigsaw-puzzles/
Please post the name and size of the Container store plastic boxes for wooden puzzles. I couldn’t find them and I am a desperate Grammy . Thanks!
I just used the small photo ones so I think they’re 3×5 and I got a few bigger ones for our larger puzzles too.