DIY Craft Stick Picture Puzzle Tutorial

Here is another quick and easy project that's been floating around on Pinterest. You can take any photo, printed image or wording and turn it into a simple puzzle for young toddlers. Gabby is two and just starting to figure out how to "solve" a jigsaw puzzle. She definitely likes seeing our faces and being able to play with the sticks.

Materials Needed:

• Photo or Any Printed Image or Wording
• Wide Craft Sticks ($2 for a pack of 60 at Target or $0.03/stick)
• Any Craft Glue or Double Sided Tape
• Exacto Knife or Scissors

Total Cost of Project: Under $0.25 for the craft sticks. Photo was printed using a free coupon from Shutterfly. I already had glue, tape and an Exacto knife on hand.

My supplies ready to go:

Use a craft glue stick and run it all over the back of the photo, then use double sided tape along the top and bottom just to reinforce it (this is optional because the glue stick seems to hold the photo just fine). Line the craft sticks side by side then lay down the photo on top. Press and smooth the photo on the sticks. Use an exacto knife to cut between the sticks using the grooves of the sticks as a guide. 

If you don't have an exacto knife, you can pre-cut the photo or image using scissors based on the stick's width, then glue. You may not be able to lay out the photo very straight on the sticks but it will work too. 

The finished project: I ended up tossing the far right section of the picture since the original picture wasn't centered anyways.

Craft sticks are so versatile. You can use them to build houses, make puppet sticks or use them to count. This could also be an interesting way to do a greeting card or write messages. So many things you can do.