Do you have any favorite puzzle accessories that you feel you could not live without? If so, what are they? I would love to know. Here are my top 5 favorite puzzle accessories.

1. All4jig tilting / rotating puzzle board

I got this puzzle board several months ago and now I don’t know how I lived without it! I had been seeing some of their boards featured in You Tube videos from my favorite jigsaw puzzle content creators and was quickly sold on the idea of getting one.

They offer a variety of sizes and finishes — some wood, some plastic, and some freestanding table types. They all look great and I could see each one of them being a potential good fit for me, but for now I’ll just stick with the one I have which is the wood one with the tilting stand / lazy susan. I wanted the biggest one they made (currently for 2000 pieces), and I wanted to try the tilting / rotating variety as well The freestanding puzzle table was also tempting, but I had already ordered mine when I saw those on their website. I think they cap out at 1500 pieces as well. I also kind of wanted the plastic puzzle tray more than the wood as they are lighter weight and easier to take up and down, but the plastic one only went as big as 1500 pieces and I wanted to be able to do a 2000-piece Buffalo puzzle on this one. I’m told a 2000-piece Ravensburger may not quite fit on the board, but I haven’t tried it yet myself. I’m sure they’re right though. Luckily, I have mostly Buffalo 2000-piece puzzles so it should be doable as they’re a little smaller than Ravensburger pieces.

Below is the board when it’s tilted. This makes it incredibly easy to reach the top rows of pieces from my chair. This saves my back and neck a lot of strain while puzzling.

I also have the ability to lay the board flat for when I am first opening a puzzle and starting to sort out edges from the rest of the pieces that I will lay out on my puzzle trays. Once I have the border pieces pulled, then I usually tilt the board back up and put the edge pieces on the board and start.

As long as the pieces are face up, the linen like material covering the board keeps them from sliding around. They will move pretty easily with slight finger pressure to whereever you need them to go. I love that if you want to just have a set of pieces hanging out on the side like shown in the pic above, they won’t slide down.

Here is a link to the All4Jig website so you can browse around to see for yourself all the different puzzle board / table options they offer. https://all4jig.com/collections/puzzle-boards-tables

2. Box top holder

I am the type of puzzler who likes to use either the box top or the poster (if it’s not too big) as I’m assembling puzzles. I will do most smaller, less detailed puzzles without the box image for reference, but I do find in the 1,000 piece and higher counts it’s nice to have the image to reference when needed. I have tried several box top holders, including the cardboard ones that used to come with all White Mountain puzzles, and I found this one has by far been the best I’ve used so far. It is also from All4Jig. It is not only a little taller than the others I’ve used, but it’s also more sturdy, and has a place at the bottom to slide in and hold a poster if you’re working from that rather than the box lid.

3. Plastic cafeteria trays for sorting pieces

I absolutely could not live without my plastic cafeteria trays! I use them every day I puzzle. They are large, stack easily together, and hold a lot of pieces. I can typically lay out most 1000 piece puzzles on 4 or 5 trays depending on how large the pieces are. I try not to overlap the pieces too much, but sometimes there are two layers of pieces on some of the trays. I purchased mine on Amazon. They’re reasonably priced and you can usually get 6 to 12 in a set. I highly recommend getting your trays in either white or another very light color so the pieces will stand out on the trays better. I made the mistake of getting mine in black and it can sometimes be difficult to see the finer details on dark puzzle pieces on these trays.

4. Lint rollers

Now that I have my linen finish tilting puzzle board, I have had to clean all the puzzle dust that accumulates with each puzzle. These lint rollers make it super fast and easy to clean the linen on the puzzle board. And best of all, the sticky sheets peel off very easily when it becomes too dirty to pick up any more puzzle dust. I love having these nearby whenever I finish a puzzle and am ready to start the next one.

5. Plastic chip / dip trays for sorting pieces

Before I got my cafeteria trays, I used dollar store chip / dip trays for sorting pieces like these below. They have 5 or 6 compartmented sections plus the smaller, round “dip” bowl in the center. These are absolutely perfect for sorting pieces by color or when using the letters on the back of some puzzles (a lot of the Chinese puzzle brands have these). I still use these whenever I am sorting by color or “letter” and then once that’s done and I’m ready to work a particular section I will move those pieces onto the trays to lay them out face up in a single layer.

So there you have it. My top five most treasured / used puzzle accessories. Let me know what you can’t puzzle without!