Heather Ainsley
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Everyone has a hobby. Some activity or pastime that makes us feel grounded, relaxed or at peace as we sink into it and let it entertain us in our free time. For some people, it is painting; for others it is hiking. For Lynn Stafford and her son, Brannan, it's puzzles. For them, there are hours of joy and satisfaction to be found in the various shapes, the minuscule pieces that together make up a whole.
Their love of puzzles began when Brannan was quite young, Lynn remembers, describing a wooden puzzle of the cut out shapes of the United States that her son, at the age of about four had become so proficient in solving that he often would turn the puzzle over to its blank side and solve it that way.
“He got very good at learning most of the states with that puzzle, actually,” said Lynn. “And that got me started with puzzles.” She and her son work puzzles all the time, but one puzzle in particular has been described as a real treasure for the puzzle-loving duo. Hanging in the living room, mounted on a large piece of foam board, is a massive, 7,500 piece puzzle of various endangered animals species on a topographical map of the world. This puzzle, they said, took the Stafford family 10 years to complete.
They originally found the puzzle in The Museum Shop in Tallahassee. Intrigued by its impressive size, Lynn inquired about the puzzle and found it was being offered for sale for $79.99. Unable to imagine spending so much money on a puzzle of all things, Lynn left the shop that day without it. But some time later, the shop moved, and placed the puzzle on sale for just $19.99, and it was then that the Staffords brought home the puzzle that would soon consume many hours, and become quite the test of both patience and dedication.
The family did not start the puzzle right away, and in fact, had it for several years without cracking it open to begin piecing it together. It wasn't until 2006 that Brannan and his mother began the arduous yet enjoyable task of tackling this colossal puzzle. “Some advice for puzzle-lovers out there,” says Lynn, with a twinkle of amusement, “is that if your puzzle comes in multiple bags in the box- don't open all of them at once and mix the pieces together!” Indeed, the 7,500 pieces of the puzzle were divided into two bags, undoubtably intended to be completed one half at a time, but Lynn and Brannan, unaware, combined all the pieces together to begin sorting into colors, an action that they later laughingly admitted was a mistake.
Years of experience prepared the Staffords well to solve this puzzle, and their system was simple, yet effective. They used the kitchen table as a solving space, covering it with a clear plastic vinyl sheet to protect it from collecting dust when they weren't working on it and enabling the family to use the table. The many puzzle pieces were separated into color groups on multiple cookie sheets that could be stacked conveniently for storage when not in use. This allowed them to build the puzzle in sections, although, progress on such a massive puzzle was slow-going.
“You could be working on the puzzle for an hour and only find one or two pieces that fit together,” Lynn stated, while Brannan nodded in agreement. “In fact, you'd be lucky to find pieces that fit together at all, there were just so many.”
While years of experience had prepared Lynn and Brannan for this intricate project, one thing that no amount of experience could have prepared them for was that the puzzle did not accurately replicate the image on the box. The image on the box, intended to be used as a guide, was missing several animals along the bottom edge. The presence of several “extra” groups of penguins and marine animals on the actual puzzle pieces made completion of the bottom glacier quite a confusing ordeal. The box showed about seven different animals or clear groups of animals spaced out evenly along the bottom of the image, while the completed puzzle shows about 14 different animals and groupings along the same area. This, Lynn said, was easily the most difficult aspect of the puzzle, although it did not prevent the pair from eventually completing the puzzle. “When we got down to the final few pieces, we were really worried that we had, over the years, lost a piece or two,” remembered Lynn. “It had been such a long time, and there was even a couple of years where we didn't even touch it. So it was a real sigh of relief that followed putting the final piece in, when the puzzle was finally finished!”
Once the puzzle was complete, the next matter to contend with was how to mount such a large puzzle so that it could be hung on the wall. Lynn recalls it being quite the task to figure out the most effective way of mounting the puzzle without ruining it. “At first we thought about mounting it on plywood,” she said, “But that would be really heavy, and we thought about what that would be like to hang on the wall. We eventually settled on an insulation foam sheet, which was much lighter, but was too wide to fit in my car, so we had to cut about eight inches off the edge of it to make it fit and still had to drive home with the hatch open!”
A factor that people don't usually consider when building puzzles that will then be mounted on the wall is that to mount a puzzle, you need to glue the mount to the back of the finished piece, but after completion, the puzzle is face up, so gluing anything to the back of the puzzle requires the whole thing to be lifted and flipped on its other side, exposing the back to be glued. And when the puzzle in question is three feet wide and eight and a half feet long, flipping it to expose the back seems to be an impossible task. Determined, the Staffords spread puzzle glue across the face of the puzzle to give it stability and once it was dry recruited the help of friends.
“It took four people to flip, and we had to do it quickly!” Lynn remembers, “Once it was flipped over, we glued newsprint paper to the back to give it a little more stability.” The final part of the process was tricky, as Lynn had to maneuver the foam board evenly over the puzzle, lining up the paper with the large board by herself. She remembers the struggle, as the glue created a time-limit to be applied and situated before it dried, and it was difficult to line up by herself. Once secured, the puzzle was mounted on the walls with brackets, where it rests today, overlooking the living room as a stately conversation starter for anyone who enters.
While she and her son still enjoy spending quality time together working puzzles, Lynn admits that these days she only works puzzles she wants to mount and hang around her home. Some puzzles she has mounted and ready to hang feature beautiful scenery of gardenscapes and animals, contributing to a cozy cottage theme in her home.
When she isn't busy working on a puzzle, Lynn enjoys cross-stitching, and has several beautiful projects framed and hanging around her home. “It is my dream to complete a quilt, one of these days,” Lynn mused as she showed some of her handiwork. “I just don't have the time for full quilts.” The cross stitching became a hobby years ago when the family was involved in homeschooling. “We used to do read-alouds, where the kids would read aloud from books of history or literature. When I wasn't reading, I'd cross stitch as I listened.” Her familiarity with the craft is evident in the beautiful patterns and designs she has created that now hang delicately around the home.
When asked if she and her son would ever attempt another massive puzzle like this, Lynn pondered for a moment before responding. “I might...” She mused, and her son Brannan chimed in good-naturedly, “That means yes!”
“I would have to find a place to hang it!” She replied, laughing. “I've never seen another one so big, although I have never looked – I just don't have the room right now.”
For now, the pair is content to focus on smaller puzzles, although Brannan has become so proficient at puzzle-solving that he can complete a 1,000 piece puzzle in 24 hours, so long as there is little interference from their cat, Bandit, who likes to help out when no one is watching.