The Fixer...

When I was a kid, and anything needed untangling, my mother always recruited me.  She had poor eyesight, and she and my dad were both over forty when I was born, so my young eyes were a distinct advantage. Necklace chains.  Knitting yarn.  Fishing line.  Once we were visiting a cousin of hers when I was a young teen.  My mother noticed a puka shell plant hanger lying on a side table and asked about it.  Her cousin, embarrassed, admitted it was completely tangled, and should have been thrown away long before.  My mother told her I would untangle it.  The pressure was on.  It was quite the chore, but before we left a couple of hours later it was a usable plant hanger once again.  Ugly, but usable.  :)

There were other things I fixed (repaired) as well.  Broken ceramics. Picture frames.  My parents lived through the Great Depression, so everything was repaired if at all possible.  It was a challenge to figure out the best way to do things, and I enjoyed it.

So here's my latest fix.  Remember this?

 I was so disappointed that there were three missing pieces.  So ever since the last piece went in, I've been contemplating how I could camouflage the empty spots.  Today I decided to tackle it and make our dining room table usable once again.

I gathered some supplies.  

• Top left:  Some tagboard, scissors, exacto knife, and glue.  
• Bottom left: I took a sheet of paper and slid it under the puzzle and traced the empty spots.  
• Top right: I carefully removed a 6- to 8-piece section near each of the empty spot that seemed to have similar colors/patterns.  (I used Post-It tape on the back of these sections to hold them together during the process.  It was safely and easily removed when I was ready to reinsert them into the puzzle.)
• Bottom right: I made color copies of the puzzle sections.

I cut the missing pieces out of tagboard (twice each as it took two layers of tagboard to equal the thickness of the puzzle pieces).  I fitted these new pieces into the empty spaces by shaving off edges where needed.  I traced these onto the color copies, cut out, and glued together to complete the new pieces.

Et voila!

My plan is to apply Mod-Podge to the front and back of the puzzle, and frame it to bring out anually with the autumn decorations.  The tagboard is not acid free, so those pieces may discolor over time, but I don't foresee it being considered an heirloom, so I can live with the risk.  :)