You can use any material you want to make your tangram set, the only requirement being that you can cut or form it into shape. I've seen them made of paper, cardboard, wood, ceramics, glass and metal. Some beautiful examples from China were made of ivory with inlaid and carved ornamentation on the pieces and box.

Whatever you choose to use, you will need a four inch (aprox. twelve cm.) square of it, usually about one eighth of an inch (two mm.) thick for a puzzle this size. You can scale this up or down, the four squares by four squares part is the important thing here.

Draw a one inch (three cm.) grid on the material to make a puzzle the size I like to play with. You then mark off the blue lines as shown below. Cut your material carefully along these blue lines. This will produce the seven tan pieces; five triangles, one square and one rhomboid. Take note that slicing rather than sawing will produce the best result. The wider the cuts, the more the pieces lose along one or more sides, making the piece not quite true. A knife or *thin* saw blade would work just fine for our purpose.

Smooth the pieces and apply your choice of finish. I prefer black tans, but hey, it's your set, use what you like or none at all. 

Jaime Jorge sent me an easy way to fold the cut lines of a tangram set. All you need is a sheet of paper and these pictorial instructions from him. Thanks a lot, Jaime!

Now that you have a set, jump to the puzzle page to try them out. Good luck and have fun with it.