"Harry Potter and the Puzzle of Magical Pages"

[Scrolling Days]

I took this challenge on starting in April. Over that span, I've had very little cutting time, but I enjoyed working on it when I could, and just finished a few nights ago.

"Harry Potter and the Puzzle of Magical Pages" is really a homage to all of the great books written by J. K Rowling. They are very important to me, since not only did I enjoy them, but the kids absolutely fell in love with them when they were old enough to do so. It has been such a fun part of their lives the past few years, I have been thinking about making them a Harry Potter themed puzzle for quite some time, and at long last, here it is.

The puzzle was cut from 1/4" cherry ply, and is double-layered. It is approximately 12" x 18", consists of 518 pieces, and has 95 Potter themed Figurals! To add some magical flare, I inset some Swvarksi crystals into various appropriate areas.

The artwork itself is made up of the cover art from each of the books, and a 1/4" frame, which is covered with a white cardstock, separates each of them. A fun element of the puzzle is that each of the Figurals relate to events which happened in that particular book. Therefore, based on how knowledgeable the assembler is of Potter lore, they can figure out where many of the pieces go.

The two "side windows" of the puzzle were created by using text taken directly from the books. The first, on the left, contains the introduction to the series found on the inside cover of Book 1. The second, on the right, takes us to the very end of the saga, and contains the final words of the epilogue in Book 7.









I made a nice sturdy box for the puzzle, clad in Gryffindor colors, of course!!





The inside of the box is lined with Harry Potter themed fabric, showing off the four House Crests (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin).

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So, let the adventure begin!!

Spoiler Alert: My daughter has made me promise that before posting pictures of this puzzle, that I warn of possible spoilers. Since I'll be presenting the puzzle in a book by book format, if you have not yet read the books and plan to do so, you might want to look elsewhere, or maybe visit that Jim Moss guy over in the intarsia section, LOL. I apologize in advance for all the pictures, but it's really the only way I can talk my way through the puzzle.

The entirety of the puzzle was cut in my traditional style, with a mixture of round and butterfly interlocks. The exception was the two text windows, which were cut in a swirl style to create more of a magical/whimsical element.





The Figurals which found their ways into the text windows include stars and magical runes.

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Book 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone





The featured Figurals in this book include the giant Hagrid, the Hogwarts Express, as it pulls away from Platform 9 3/4 to take the kids off to school, the Sorting Hat, Hedwig the owl and Harry playing Quidditch for the first time. There is also a lightning bolt Figural....in fact there are seven of them in the puzzle. Why seven? Why because it's the most magical number in the universe, of course!!





Many of the Figurals in the puzzle are positioned in such a way that they pick up color elements from the artwork to highlight their features, such as the black of Hagrid's beard, and the folds in the Sorting Hat, seen below. I like to call this technique "Figural Painting," and you'll see quite a few examples of it throughout.

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Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets





Here, Figurals show Harry dangling from the Weasley's flying car, as he tries to catch the Hogwart's Express, Fawkes the phoenix, and the gruesomely large and hungry Aragog the spider. A central element of this window of the puzzle is Harry's battle with the basilisk. Here, the beast is poised to strike, as Harry bravely holds the sword of Gryffindor.





A fun surprise is that the Basilisk, a huge snake-like creature, is actually a large complex Figural, made up of 12 individual pieces. In essence, he (or she?) is a puzzle within the puzzle!

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Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban





Another feature I heavily used in this puzzle, was the use of multiple Figurals which interact with each other to create a scene. Such can be seen in the central portion of this window, where Harry casts a stag Patronus from his wand, to banish away the evil Dementor which is trying to devour his soul. Near the bottom, Sirius (in his animagus dog form) can be spotted, and he better watch out, because Professor Lupin is not far away, in his wolf form. Near the top of the frame, Harry's nasty aunt has been inflated like a blimp (with some help from Harry's wand) and quickly floats up toward the clouds. Harry can also be spotted gloriously riding atop the hippogriff Buckbeak.

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Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire





There is quite a abit going on within this window of the puzzle. At the top section, you will find the Goblet of Fire, and Victor Krum, who has turned himself partially into a shark, tryin to swim his way to win it. The Durmstrang's subarine ship has also appeared in the puzzle, arriving just in time for the tournament. Any Potter fan worth his or her pumpkinjuice, will recognize the beetle Figural as Rita Skeeter, in her unregistered animagus form, crawling nearby her devious Quick Quotes Quill. Dark times are certainly approaching, however, as the dark Lord Voldemort can be found rising from his cauldron, preparing to take over the Muggle and wizarding worlds!

At the bottom portion of the section, Harry Potter hides behind a large rock formation, shielding himself from the Hungarian Horntail's fire. If he could only get that egg......"Accio broomstick!!"






These Figurals are also interactive and demonstrate examples of "Figural Painting."

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Book 5: "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"





In this window, you will find groundskeeper Filch, high atop his ladder, pounding another one of Professor Umbridge's endless proclamations onto the inner walls of Hoagwarts. Speaking of the sinister Umbridge.....the last time I saw her, she was being carried away by a centaur in the Forbidden Forest.

Kreecher the house elf can be found lurking about, doubtlessly trying to find Muggles to ridicule. At the bottom of the frame, Hermione scolds the Giant Grawp for handling her a bit too roughly. To the right, you will find one of my favorite characters in the Harry Potter saga, the quirky Luna Lovegood, shown here wearing her lion head hat.







More Figural Painting......the candle flame accents the lion's eye, where as the candlesticks suggest a mane, and the dark areas give the lion a nose.

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Book 6: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"





Near the top of this frame, Professor Slughorn is transfiguring himself out of his disguise as a comfy lounge chair. Meanwhile, Harry gazes into Dumbledore's pensive, to discover important memories from the past, in order to learn more about the dark Horcruxes hiding Voldemort's soul. Ron may be discovered at the top left, hopelessly and rediculously in love after being given a strong love potion.

One of my daughter's favorite events in the story is when Dumbledore casts a large ring of fire to banish off the zombie-like Inferi who are trying to attack him and Harry. This scene is well shown in the Figurals at the bottom of the frame.

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Book 7: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows"





After escaping the vaults of Gringott's, our favorite trio of Ron, Harry and Hermione, ride atop a dragon's back before dropping themelves safely into a lake. The large symbol at the top left will be recognized as that of the Deatly Hallows.

Near the bottom, Dobby the house elf will be found, along with Snape's doe Patronus which is standing atop the forozen lake hding the Sword of Gryffindor. Hopefully Harry will find it! Voldemort's snake Nagini is looking for trouble, and speaking of trouble.....look at all of those Hufflepuff Cups!!! But which is the real one?!

The focus of this frame, however, is the epic ultimate battle between Harry and Lord Voldemort. I have to close my eyes, I can't watch!!!

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Finally, here is the final window featuring the epilogue. Again, the cutting style here was a mystical swirl, and there are Figurals of stars and runes.

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Finally, here is what 95 Figurals looks like! I have to say that designing the Figural concepts took about as long as cutting the puzzle, but I really enjoyed it.......plus I had the help of my own magic wand.....12 inches, canary wood, with a dragon whisker core!

Oh, I almost forgot.....don't look too hard for the 95th Figural. It is the Cloak of Invisibility, and it's, well, invisible.








And speaking of dragons, whatever happened to my friend, Buff?

Here he is......Buff always enjoys a happy ending.

All was well.

[Arcy]

Nicely done! As always, I love the storytelling you infuse into your puzzles.

What is the "double layer" mentioned on the label? And I'd have expected the box to be in Ravenclaw colors. Puzzles seem much more their thing!

--Rob

[Scrolling Days]

Nicely done! As always, I love the storytelling you infuse into your puzzles.

What is the "double layer" mentioned on the label? And I'd have expected the box to be in Ravenclaw colors. Puzzles seem much more their thing!

--Rob

LOL, that's true, RC. My kids are Gryffindor through and through, however, so red and gold were the only options I ever considered.

The "double layer" refers to the frame which divides the puzzle into it's individual windows. You can see on one of the first pics (wher the puzzle is tilted) that the frame makes up a second layer to the puzzle.

[wood-n-things]

Fantabulous as always...Thanks for sharing the story and the great pics...

[Arcy]

Thanks. I see the frames now. I was focusing too hard on the panels!

--Rob