Homemade Puzzles

You Will Need:
popsicle sticks
4x6 photos
xacto knife
glue

These are very easy. I made them for my 3-year-old son for his first airplane ride. You will see that mine were made using red and green popsicle sticks. It would have been better to use lots of different colors, but I bought mine at Dollar Tree and they only had Christmas ones.

Step 1: Pick out 4x6 pictures to use. I went through my photo bin (a bin full of photos that I never used) and picked out pictures that had my son in them.

Step 2: Find out how many popsicle sticks you will need for each picture and lay them out.

Step 3: Flip your picture upside down. Put glue on the back of your picture. Try not to put too much glue, but definitely make sure that there is enough that each stick will get some.

Step 4: Put the popsicle sticks on the back of your pictures and let dry.

Step 5: Cut through the picture with your knife and cut each popsicle stick free. If your edges look rough, you can always clean them up with a little sandpaper. Also, if you missed any pieces and your pictures are coming off in places, use some glue to touch this up.

TIP: Try to use pictures that don't have too much detail in them. This makes the puzzle a little easier for toddlers.

TIP: If you only have 1 color of popsicle sticks but want to make more than 1 puzzle, you can do what I did and give each puzzle a number. This way, there's an added game in the beginning of sorting each puzzle by number and then putting the puzzle together.

TIP: If you're using these for travel, you could always attach magnets or velcro to the back to attach to something else so that your puzzle won't slide around at all.