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How to make a personalised puzzle for your kids

So, the kids have been stuck at home for quite a while now. They’re starting to bounce off the walls, there are toy cars in every corner of the house, you’re considering building a shrine to their teachers… But don’t panic, we’ve got just the thing to help keep them occupied (and quiet!): Puzzles! And personalised puzzles at that.

From choosing the photo to piecing it back together, a personalised puzzle is a great way to keep those tiny hands busy and away from the TV remote. But don’t be puzzled, here’s our easy guide to help you create a fun custom-made jigsaw that they’ll love.

Creating a puzzle dos and don’ts

?Do select the photo with your kids. They’ll love going through photos and deciding which one they want to turn into a puzzle, and they’ll have even more fun assembling it. And more fun means more free time for you!
?Do choose a bright picture with lots of colours and details. This is not the time for a minimalist black and white photo!

?Don’t pick a photo where a third or more of the photo consists of a single element, like the sky, the ocean, or a single coloured background for example, or you might end up with quite a hard jigsaw to make for a 5 year old. To avoid that, you can zoom on the main element of your photo, as long as it doesn’t appear too pixelated in our creation studio.
?Don’t select a photo with a very strong colour filter or you might end up with a lot of pieces looking relatively similar.

Create a personalised Jigsaw

How many jigsaw pieces for a child?

49 pieces ············· Up to 5 years old
100 pieces ··········· Age 5-7
200 pieces ··········· Age 8-10
500 pieces ··········· Age 10+
1000 pieces ········· For very, very patient young teens and parents!
2000 pieces ········· For when you want to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy without being interrupted by your three munchkins.

What kind of image for my jigsaw?

So, now that you know how many pieces you need, it’s time to choose which picture to turn into a puzzle. Most kids love to see themselves, so you can’t really go wrong with a photo of them with you or with their siblings. A photo of an animal (theirs if they have one) is always a good option as well.

And if you (understandably) never managed to snap a nice photo of a giraffe, a unicorn or a lion, head to Unsplash.com for copyright free, ready-to-download photos of animals.
Here are some nice giraffes, penguins, cats, and birds!

You can also create a jigsaw based on a picture of one of their favourite TV characters, superheroes, or football players, or, to give them a sense of pride, create a puzzle of a photo of one of their own colourful drawings!

If you want to make the puzzle a teaching experience, you can also make your own puzzle of a fun Alphabet like the one below that you can download here for free. There are also lots more fun drawings available on Free Vectors!

The benefits of puzzle

Making a puzzle is a learning and playing experience for kids – it’s a fun activity that helps develop their brain in many ways. It improves their thought processes and their problem-solving skills by teaching them to work by trial and error. It also develops their short-term memory and, more importantly, their spatial reasoning which ultimately helps them put concepts into concrete ideas. That can be useful whether they’re playing sports or doing mathematics, chemistry or physics. It’s pretty much the first step for your daughter or son to become an astronaut! Last but not least, giving your kid a puzzle to make might just give you that 30 minute power nap you’ve been looking for all day!

Create a custom-made Jigsaw

Tags : puzzle