Texas woman completes 40,000-piece puzzle that honors several classic Disney movies

By KTRK staff

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    CYPRESS, Texas (KTRK) — It took her nearly four years, but this avid puzzle fan finished a magical feat: a 40,000-piece puzzle that honored Disney classics.

In February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Emily Seidel, 29, from Cypress, started the puzzle.

“Since as long as I can remember, I have been (doing puzzles),” Seidel said.

Seidel told ABC13 that she started to look for something more challenging as the puzzles she was already working on became boring. So boring, in fact, she began to do them upside down.

“I had run out of puzzles to do. I was borrowing them from coworkers and friends, buying them from thrift stores, and started doing them upside down and realized I needed to get something bigger that would take up more time, and this one did that.

And that it did. The puzzle measures about 20 feet long and is about 6 feet wide. It depicts several popular Disney classics, such as “Beauty and the Beast”, “Cinderella”, “The Little Mermaid”, and “Bambi”, to name a few.

But how was it constructed? Seidel did each Disney scene puzzle individually and connected them. She also says this took work, as a few puzzles tested her.

“Fantasia – took about seven months on its own. It was rough and challenging, ” Seidel said. “Cinderella was interesting.”

Seidel did most of the leg work herself, but her father helped her and prepped the initial placing of each puzzle.

“My dad measured out how big each scene would be. He cut out a base so I could put the set together or stack them up,” she said.

However, there are more challenging puzzles Seidel wants to do, so what’s next for her?

“There’s a bigger one called Around The World – it’s 42,000 pieces, so I’ll try that challenge next,” she said.

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