DIY Modern Wood Puzzle Frame Tutorial

November 12, 2021

My daughters and I have recently got into making puzzles together, and wow there are some beautiful puzzles available in this day and age! I remember when I was little and puzzles were always kind of old fashioned, although fun to piece together. But not nowadays. You can find a puzzle for any style and today I will show you how you can transform it into home decor.

DIY Modern Puzzle Frame

We found this cute Christmas scene puzzle and loved it so much we just couldn’t break it down after we had completed it. I thought it would make a beautiful piece of Christmas art, and asked my husband to help me frame it, and we loved the results and thought we would share our simple tutorial for framing your own puzzles at home!

this is a photo of a white living room with a Santa pillow on a couch and a shelf decorated for christmas with a modern framed puzzle

What you will need to create your own Modern Wooden Frame for a Puzzle

Creating your own modern wooden puzzle frame is really simple and you just need a couple things to create a beautiful simple frame to show off your puzzle.

Completed puzzle of choice (I will share some of my favourites at the bottom of this post)
Hardboard (or something equivalent) to use as backing
Spray adhesive
Piece of Pre-finished Maple, or hardwood of your choice
Table saw
Mitre Saw
Mineral oil or cutting board oil
CA Glue

Shop Puzzles

Click any of the photos below to shop some beautiful puzzles that would make great art for your home!

this is a photo of a Christmas puzzle framed sitting on a floating wooden shelf with decor surrounding it.

Video for making your own modern puzzle frame

Steps for making a modern wooden puzzle frame

First you will need to glue your puzzle down to your hardboard. Measure your hardboard to fit your puzzle and cut using a table saw.

I wanted the puzzle to stay matte on the front and not have a glossy finish so Jade only sprayed the back of the puzzle with spray adhesive. Liberally spray both the back of the puzzle and the hardboard then let sit for the required time recommended on your adhesive can for the glue to get tacky.

Jade then took the particle board and pressed it on to the back of the puzzle, pressing down firmly all over to make sure every piece was well adhered to the particle board.

Making the Frame

To make the frame we used rough cut maple and planed it down, however if you do not have a planer you can use pre surfaced maple or any other hard wood of your choice.

Jade cut the maple into 4 stripes 3/4 wide and 5/8 deep for a more modern finish to the frame. Of course you could decided to make your frame thicker or thinner, its definitely up to your personal preference.

After the edges were cut to size, Jade used his table saw to cut grooves into each edge strip for the puzzle/hardboard to slide into. I wanted to frame to sit close to the puzzle so he cut the grooves in nearer to the front of the strip then the back.

Lastly he used his mitre saw to cut 45 degree angles on the ends of each strip of wood and we applied mineral oil to each piece before assembling and let dry.

Once the mineral oil was dried, Jade glued the two side pieces to the bottom piece using the CA glue on the corners. He then was able to easily slide the puzzle in through the grooves and attach the top piece last with more Ca glue on only the corner pieces.

this is a photo of CA glue used for making a DIY modern wood picture frame for a puzzle.

this is a photo of a man sliding a puzzle into a handmade frame

And thats it! The framed puzzle can now be attached to the wall with command strips or rested on a shelf, like I have shown below. You could also rest it on a nail if you have enough frame behind the puzzle to catch or attach a picture hanging piece to the back.

I love command strips and use them for EVERYTHING so this would be my preferred method if I ever do decided to hang ours on the wall.