Okay, so I’ve been trying to spice up my routine, and I thought, “Why not try a crossword puzzle?” But not just any crossword – I stumbled upon this idea of a “kitchen mess” themed one. Sounded kinda fun, right? So, here’s how it all went down.

First, I googled around a bit, trying to find a pre-made “kitchen mess crossword”. No luck. Lots of regular crosswords, cooking-themed ones, but nothing about the glorious mess that is my kitchen after a baking spree. Fine, I thought, I’ll just make my own!
DIY Crossword Time
I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil – old school, I know. Started brainstorming words. This was surprisingly hard! I mean, “mess” is easy, but what else? I jotted down things like:
- spilled
- flour
- crumbs
- sticky
- dishes
- splatter
- stains
Then came the tricky part – fitting them together! I drew a wonky grid (definitely not a perfect square) and started filling in words, erasing, and re-writing them a bunch of times. It was a mess, ironically. Some words just wouldn’t cooperate! Like, where do you even fit “whisk”?!
After a solid hour of fiddling, I had… something. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a crossword! A very lopsided, kitchen-mess-themed crossword. Clue writing? Another adventure. I tried to be clever, like “The aftermath of pancake making” for “sticky,” but honestly, some of them were pretty lame. “White powder everywhere?” Yeah, that’s “flour,” genius.
Finally, I tested it out on my roommate. They got most of it, after some serious head-scratching and a few hints. Success! (Sort of.)

All and all, it was fun. My final product wasn’t super polished.