Looking for a unique way to gift a photo or your favorite coastal artwork? This DIY puzzle is a fantastic and fun project! It’s the perfect size to add to a gift basket, stocking, or your own coffee table. Want to see how it’s made? Let’s get started!

Supplies for Your DIY Puzzle

Supplies needed for a DIY puzzle with the cricut maker

Here are the materials you’ll need for this DIY coastal holiday puzzle:

Cricut Maker 3
Ink Jet Color Printer
Scissors
Cricut Printable Vinyl
Cricut Chipboard
Cricut Brayer
Cricut Knife Blade
Masking Tape
Cricut StrongGrip Mat
Hot Glue Gun
Photo or Artwork

Step 1: Select Your Art or Photo!

We are using this fun Whimsical Ornaments downloadable pattern by Saltsy, but you can use any design or photo you want.

Step 2: Open Cricut Design Space

Once you’ve opened Cricut Design Space, you’ll click ‘images’. Search ‘puzzle’ and then narrow your search by the chipboard material. Select your design and add it to your canvas. Then, click ‘upload’ and select or upload your artwork or photo.

Resize your image and puzzle to your liking and be sure that the size will fit on your printable vinyl and that your photo is larger than the puzzle design. When everything looks how you want it, click ‘make’!

Cricut design space screenshot of diy puzzle

Cricut design space screenshot of round diy puzzle with coastal artwork

Step 3: Print the Design

Make sure that you load the paper correctly in your tray.

Saltsy whimsical ornaments artwork shown coming out of printer

Step 4: Prepare the Puzzle Base

Place a piece of chipboard onto your StrongGrip mat and secure each edge with masking tape. Load it into the Cricut and let it cut out the base of your puzzle.

Step 5: Check Your Cuts

Check to see that the piece has been completely cut through before unloading the design. Remove it from the mat and discard the remaining chipboard and tape.

Circular base of DIY puzzle after being cut by the cricut maker 3

Step 6: Prep Another Piece of Chipboard

Prepare another piece of chipboard to make your puzzle! After trimming your vinyl down, line up the design and adhere the vinyl with your brayer. TIP: You can use the cut out from your base board to ensure the design will line up correctly.

saltsy whimsical ornaments artwork for diy puzzle, placing on chipboard

Step 7: Cut Out Your DIY Puzzle

Watch the magic as your Cricut creates your puzzle! Check that the pieces have been thoroughly cut through before unloading the design.

Coastal ornaments artwork after cricut maker 3 has cut it into a puzzle

Step 8: Affix to the Base

Glue the outer piece of your puzzle frame to the base. We chose hot glue for this, but any strong glue will work.

Step 9: Enjoy Your DIY Coastal Holiday Puzzle!

Viola! Your puzzle is complete!

Tip on Which Vinyl to Use for Your DIY Puzzle

Cricut offers different colors of printable vinyl and in this post we tested two different options, Transparent (left photo) and White (right photo). For this artwork, the transparent option showed much more of the chipboard color and dulled the design a bit. But, the transparent option has more of a gloss to it. In the end, we preferred the white option for this art to create a bright, clean look. Be sure to select the option that is best for your art!