How to Create a Scrambled Puzzle

Scrambled puzzles come in two varieties. The first is a picture-scramble puzzle, featuring an image that's divided into several sections and then mixed around. This differs from a jigsaw puzzle in that each piece is identical in shape. The second variety is a word-scramble puzzle, which takes a word and mixes up the letters. The player must then unscramble the word, which is usually part of a longer list of words about a similar topic. You can create your own picture or word scrambles using images and text of your choosing.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Pictures
• Ruler
• Paper
• Pencil
• Scissors

Suggest Edits

1. Picture Scramble

   • 1
     Locate the picture you'd like to use in the scramble puzzle. You can find images online and print them out, or use photos found in a magazine or from your own personal collection.
   • 2
     Flip the picture over so you can see the back. Using a ruler, measure the length and width of the picture. For example, if you printed out the picture, it might measure 8 inches by 11 inches.
   • 3
     Place the ruler on the left side of the picture and draw a mark on the picture at 1-inch intervals. Repeat this process on the top of the picture.
   • 4
     Draw a horizontal line across the back of the picture at each interval on the side of the picture, and a vertical line down the picture at each interval at the top. You'll see a grid of squares or rectangles form.
   • 5
     Write the numeral "1" in the top-left space of the grid you've drawn; write the numeral "2" in the space to the right of that. Continue writing numbers across the grid; when you get to the right side, move down one row and continue your sequence of numbers until all spaces are numbered. For example, a grid of 50 spaces would have the number "1" in the top-left corner and each number after until the number "50" in the bottom-right corner.
   • 6
     Cut along the lines of your grid to create the scramble pieces. Flip the pieces over so you see the side with part of the picture on it.
   • 7
     Arrange the pieces together to create one scrambled picture puzzle. Attempt to rearrange the pieces to create the proper image without turning them over to see their placement.

   Word Scramble

   • 1
     Write down a list of words on a sheet of paper. The words should fall under a common theme, such as movie titles or sports teams. For example, a list of words centered around Christmas can contain "Santa Claus," "presents," "tree" and "reindeer."
   • 2
     Mix up the letters in each word and write them down next to the real word. If the starting word was "reindeer," the scrambled word might be "eneridre." Don't capitalize any letters in the scrambled word.
   • 3
     Create two-word scrambles by keeping the number of letters correct in each word but scrambling the letters themselves between both words (e.g., "Santa Claus" would be written as "atcas snalu").
   • 4
     Type up the scrambled words on your computer and print out several copies. Give one copy to each player and see who can unscramble the words in the fastest time.