New On My Office Walls

It turns out that gluing and mounting a gigantic puzzle isn't nearly as tough as you'd think it would be. Up until a week ago I'd never glued any puzzle, gigantic or otherwise, so before I risked ruining my 8,000 piece School of Athens I decided to try gluing and mounting a smaller one.

I settled on a 1,500 piece map of Middle Earth that I'd done once before. I chose it because it's both a pretty cool picture that would look good on my wall if the gluing worked out and because I didn't care that much about ruining it. For some reason I don't really like doing puzzles of maps so while I wasn't going to be too broken up if the project went down in flames. It took a couple days to put together and then came the moment of truth. I opened up the first jar of puzzle glue and started to spread it on. It was so thick and white that I could barely see the picture after I was done. I was thinking, "This should dry clear, right?"

Thankfully it did. I did another coat, used craft glue to put it on foam board, trimmed the edges of the foam board, and the result was fantastic!


Next up was the big one. I had to order more glue since I'd only bought two bottles, the map took over one bottle, and the other puzzle is five times bigger. The glue I used this time I worked even better. It took only one coat for most of the puzzle and then a second around the edges. I mounted it on two 60x40 sheets of foam board, trimmed the edges and used a heck of a lot of 3M mounting tape to get it on the wall.

I don't think I really appreciated just how HUGE this thing was till I got it on the wall. It looks great in the office and I'm really happy I decided to glue it.




I did one more puzzle once all that was done. This one is 2,000 pieces. I'd done it once before and thought it would look good in my office. Unlike The School of Athens, it's by no means great artwork but it's still a fun picture.


My new sword also arrived in the mail this week. It's a replica of the William Wallace sword from Braveheart. It was being sold at Boot Camp and it has Wild at Heart inscribed on the blade. I mounted it using a magnetic sword mount which makes the sword look like it's floating on the wall. Very cool.


Next up I'm doing a 2,000 piece puzzle of Monet's Starry Night. Annie thought it would look good in our bedroom. Then, in a few months I'm hoping to start on this one. It's 14 feet by 5 feet and 24,000 pieces.