FERGUS – The giant puzzle effort at a local toy store has returned to Fergus.
At Brighten Up Toys and Games on Tower Street, the public is invited to help solve a giant 40,320 piece puzzle, 22 feet by six feet, during regular hours. This puzzle consists of 10 hand drawn scenes from Disney films including Snow White, Fantasia, Cinderella and more.
The store at 735 Tower St. is already home to two massive puzzles displayed on the walls — a 33,600 piece puzzle of wildlife in 2016 and a 42,000 piece one featuring landmarks from around the world in 2019 — but this will be the first one under the new ownership and name.
“We couldn’t do them during COVID, having multiple people touching the same thing wasn’t really something that would have flown very well prior to this year,” said Stephanie Bailey, who owns the store with her husband.
Bailey explained these giant puzzles get a lot of attention at the store from people who are intrigued by the thought of how one would even tackle such a large puzzle and where it could even be put. This provides an opportunity for those who would like to try it.
This latest puzzle was started at the end of January, which is promoted as puzzle month by puzzle maker Ravensburger.
“Puzzle month in January just sort of promotes the idea of unplugging and getting to sit down together and work on something like a puzzle,” Bailey said.
“It’s just fun to have something fun for the community to work on in the winter when it’s not the nicest out.”
Bailey sees it as a nice social gathering point too with people who come in fairly consistently to catch up with each other.
More than 400 people had worked on the previous two puzzles and this is expected again over the construction period.
That puzzle building time might take some time. In a little over a month since it began, the puzzle on the table as of March 2 was still the first of 10 sections.
Bailey expected a time frame of up to 16 weeks, late spring, before the puzzle is finished and hung on the wall in the store.
No sign-up is required to take part and the public is welcome to drop-in on the puzzle during store hours. Bailey said there may be occasional periods when the puzzle isn’t available because they’re in the process of changing between sections of the puzzle.
More information and store hours can be found here.
