Repurposed Puzzle Pieces

I am not sure how it happened, but we lost the puzzle frame that our wooden puzzle pieces went into during transport from one house to another. It seems with puzzles that we always misplace something! I hated to throw away all the nice chunky wooden puzzle pieces so this is what I came up with...

I started with an extra piece of wood I had laying around. All I had to purchase was a dowel rod. My dowel rod was 3/16". Therefore, I drilled five holes that were 3/16" in the board.

I sanded the corners of my board and the ends of the dowel rods. I spray painted it all red. I then cut the dowel rod into 6" pieces. I used a little wood glue on the bottom and secured them into the five holes drilled in the board.

As for the puzzle pieces, I drilled a 7/32" hole in each piece. The difference in size allowed them to slide easily on and off the dowel rod.

It turned into a fun new version of an old puzzle that could be compiled in many different ways.

It is also ready to add new puzzle pieces to when we run into the same lost puzzle situation again!