How do you store your jigsaw puzzles?

[Jux]

I've just realised how many jigsaws (adult) dd has, and want to find a good way to store them where she can still see which is which and get one out, so open fronted.

So how do you do it? On a tight budget too.

Forlorn bump

Put them on a bookcase - that's how they are displayed at the local shop that sells them near me.

Piled upon a bookshelf

On a bookshelf in the dining room like books.

Mine are piled on top of each other in a bookcase.

Thank. They're currently on bookshelves like books, but dh hates it. I was hoping someone might have an ingenious jigsaw-storage-solution.

I wish someone would invent a better surface to complete jigsaw, I use to have those folder things but when you closed them they nearly always used to break the puzzle up. I had a massive jigsaw ages ago, we started it Christmas day afternoon on the dining table at my mum's & spent till the end of January eating our meals on trays.

DD has been given a large felt square with two very fat cardboard rolls. Apparently you can roll the felt round the two rolls with the pieces on it and it doesn't break up too badly. I've not seen it in action as we have a very very large coffee table which she uses for jigsaws (also for cutting fabric, also for wood restoration etc). It does take up a lot of room.

When I was a child, if we did a jigsaw on our kitchen table my mumould coer it with a lightweight table cloth and we would all be very careful!

@Nat6999 put a table cloth over the jigsaw for meal times. That’s what I do. Very slight bumpy so might be precarious with something like a glass of wine but less precarious than a tray anyway!

We would have everyone surrounding the table and 1 2 3 lifting the cloth off at the end of a meal. Also good for long card games and some board games.

That’s so funny Jux. I’m imagining a huge table or a very delicate puzzle!

I just fold the table cloth in on itself.

I have one of those puzzle rolls, they're great! You carefully roll the puzzle up and it doesn't come apart. Or if it does it's only a couple of pieces that are easy enough to put back.

Storage wise I put them on a bookshelf. Why does DH hate it?

You can also get shallow large trays that scoot under the sofa when it being used, and go over a coffee table when being assembled.

Our boxed ones are just on the bookshelf.

Can any

Bloody hell my fat fingers!

Can any

Oh dear lord I'll try again

Can anyone tell me what you do with your puzzles after completion? Seems such a shame to just scrunch it all up in the box again..

This post has inspired me to start doing puzzles again

I take them apart and put them back in the boxes! Then I'll either do them again, or I'll pass them on to someone else.

I did a massively complicated one recently and I am so tempted to store the edges in a bag since it took me days to find them all

I keep my favourites and donate the rest to charity shops. Otherwise I would just have to many. The ones I keep are currently on top of my book case.

To the PP asking what to do puzzles on - I bought some plain white A1 card from Hobbycraft which fits a 1000 piece puzzle and only cost a couple of pounds. It is firm enough to move it off the dining room table with the puzzle on it. I recently completed a 3000 piece puzzle which I had to do directly on the dining room table. I started it in Sept and only just finished in time for Christmas otherwise we would have had to do the tablecloth and eat carefully trick!

To OP - no ingenious storage solutions here unfortunately just several precarious piles in the corner of the dining room!

DD takes a few photos when she finishes then we break it up and put it back in its box for next time. I don't know why dh hates them so much.

They're boxed and on bookshelves at the moment. I was really really hoping that some fab design company had come up with something creative and groovy to store the boxes, and that everyone (but me) on MN knew about it! I don't think there's any way to placate dh over this, atm.

My MiL and I swap puzzles so they are done twice.
At the 2nd making we do them onto card and then clingfilm them ready to donate to the jigsaw festival I am involved in.

@Nat6999 before Christmas I bought the top for a cheap Ikea desk to do puzzles on and it slides under the sofa. It was like £6.

I'd keep them in a cupboard and on top of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom — most have a picture on the edge so you can still see what they are.

Do they have to be kept in the original boxes? I know you’d have to cut the picture from the top of the box (and then possibly fold), but if you didn’t mind this you could store them in gift boxes/decorative boxes/Tupperware or similar on shelves.