A Slightly Different Photo Puzzle

A Valentine's Day present, a wedding gift, a little something for your best friend's birthday, a surprise, or simply for your own four walls: With a puzzle you can do much more than merely assemble it.

Here we show you two great ideas for a creative wall design with puzzles.

Find a lovely picture, whether it's with your partner, a photo of the bride and groom, a snapshot with your best friend, or a family portrait . When selecting your photo, keep in mind that the subject of the photo must be in the lower half --that is, all persons should be under the centerline. This works best with photos in portrait format. The top part of the photo should be less important to the overall picture: this could be the sky, a wall, or landscape.

First, order your photo puzzle with 50- (20x30 cm) or 196-peices (30x45 cm). You could even order a 500-, 1000 or 1500-piece jigsaw puzzle for a very impressive gift - you would need large picture frame for this.

You will also need:

• craft glue
• a single coloured sheet of paper the same size as your puzzle
• a coloured or silver touch-up pencil.

How to do it:

1. Assemble the pieces of the lower half of the puzzle so that the people in the photo look good. The border of the pieces shouldn’t be perfectly straight; let it slope and curve.

2. Glue the assembled part of your picture on the sheet of paper.

3. Use the rest of the puzzle pieces to create a heart. The pieces can be pasted across each other in any direction — the size of the heart determines its contours, whether delicate or more angular.

4. Optional: You can also embellish your artwork with a caption. For example, this fitting saying: “Love is like a puzzle, hard to piece together, but beautiful when all the right pieces are put together.” Further such phrases can be found here.

5. Frame it and you’re done. It’s best not to use the glass of the frame—the heart will be thick and creates a cool three-dimensional effect.

Alternatively, you can glue the puzzle on a canvas or some other firm surface and present it with a self-made frame or no frame at all.

Here you’ll fashion a picture frame from your photo puzzle. Inside the frame there will then be room for a photo or graphic. You will need a simple picture frame, a photo puzzle, and craft glue.

For your puzzle, preferably find a picture with a lot of tiny details: flowers, buttons, and other tiny objects fit beautifully. Avoid photos of people or large objects with few contrasting colors.

Depending on how big you want your frame to be, you can choose between a 50-, 196-, 500-, 1000-, or even a 1500-piece puzzle. The smaller puzzle will suffice for frames up to 20x30 cm, and this also easily permits the design of two frames for a 10x15 cm or 13x18 cm picture. For larger frames, you naturally need more puzzle pieces.

How to do it:

1. Have all your crafting materials, a photo or picture in the right format for the frame, and the unassembled puzzle pieces ready.

2. Beginning at the corners, glue the puzzle pieces on the frame. Be careful not to lay the pieces too straight; let them overlap in different directions and you’ll achieve a particularly lovely effect.

3. Continue until the frame is covered all the way around. You will need to take a break about halfway through in order to allow the first of the glue to dry.

4. Present your photo in the handcrafted frame and you’re done.