Change a Picture Into a Puzzle

Change a Picture Into a Puzzle

Change a Picture Into a Puzzle : Multi-thousand tips to make your life easier.

Making puzzles is a great, fun activity for kids, especially when the puzzle features a picture they feel connected to. If you would like to make your own puzzle to solve, just follow a few easy steps.

1. Begin by taking a photo, or finding one online, that you would like to turn into a puzzle. Enlarge the photo to a decent portrait size and print it. The better the quality of the photo and the printing, the better your finished puzzle will look.
2. Buy a large piece of cardboard or Bristol board and cut it into a rectangle the same size as your picture. Using a glue stick, spread glue over the entire surface of both the back of your picture and the cardboard. It is very important to cover both surfaces completely, because you will be cutting the puzzle into small pieces, and any surface left unglued will cause your puzzle to fall apart.
3. Trace your puzzle shapes on the back of the cardboard or Bristol board in pencil, so you do not draw on the picture side. You can draw any shapes you want: jigsaw puzzle shapes, or shapes like stars and squares. Make sure all your shapes touch one another and run to the edge of the picture, unless you would like to have a frame and fill in the spaces. The most important part is that you can be as creative and as crazy as you like!
4. You can easily adjust the difficulty of your puzzle in a few different ways. By making the shapes smaller or bigger, you determine your puzzle's level of difficulty. Many small pieces will be difficult to solve, while several big ones should be relatively easy.
5. When you have drawn all your outlines, take a pair of scissors and cut out all the pieces. Or use an Exacto knife to cut. Kids, be careful: Exacto knives should only be used by your parents, and they are extremely sharp and dangerous if you don't know what you are doing!
6. Finally, scatter your pieces around and challenge a friend to see if they can discover what your puzzle is!

Required Tools:

• A picture
• Scissors (or Exacto knife)
• Bristol board/cardboard
• Glue

Caution:

• Make sure you completely cover your picture in glue, or else your puzzle will fall to pieces.
• Be extra careful when working with sharp objects such as scissors or Exacto knives!

Quick Tips:

• Be creative; making crazy shapes is a lot of fun!
• Print high-quality, large photos for the best results, and use high-quality Bristol board or cardboard.