Diamond painting

All you want and need to know about diamond painting.

Diamond painting is a craft hobby. Based on painting with numbers, And is created in 2015, A Diamond painting is a canvas in different sizes, most of the time paintings are 40×50 cm or 50×50 in a square, this is also the sizes what I normally paint, The reason for this is that for this sizes you can find a frame easily,

Canvas size

What size should i take? – The size of a diamond painting is maybe the most important thing you should think about when you buy a diamond painting. There are a couple of things that you should consider before you buy your painting,

This are a couple of things you should keep in mind if you are going to buy your painting. What are you going to paint? maybe you don’t think about this when you buy your painting and sure its not what I did when I purchased my first paintings. If you layout have a lot of details it’s better to take a bigger size, because that you use little plastic diamonds, you can not see everything what’s on your photo, to get the most of your details its better to take a bigger size.

Also of your painting have a lot of colors it’s more ideal to take a bigger size canvas. In one square centimeter fit 16 diamonds, 4 diamonds wide and 4 diamonds height, so say in this one centimeter you have on your picture 5 colors it’s difficult to put all your colors in this 16 little diamonds in this case the system will take the color that is the most used on that spot and use that color of diamonds. if you take a bigger canvas you stretch your photo so one centimeter can become maybe around 2 centimeter and then you have 32 diamonds so more place for your colors

Painting with faces

Also if you are painting people, and then in special faces you should take about 20cm per face, So if you have two faces on your painting you should take 40cm for the faces and the parts left, right and in between the faces, so normally will 50 or 60 cm wide do. for example in a square can you take a 50x50cm canvas and if you like a rectangle you could take a 50x40cm (wide-height) or a 50x70cm (wide-height) but that’s completely up to you,

Colors and how do they work?

About the colors that we use in diamond painting, there is not really a lot to tell about this, when you order your diamond painting you will get your canvas with all the diamonds and some tools to work with, most companies give you around 20% more diamonds than what you need. For our paintings it’s like this, The color system that is used called DMC it doesn’t matter where you buy your diamond painting your diamonds always come in DMC color that means that every color is always the same number for example color 310 is Black and it doen’t matter where or when you buy your paintings this 310 will always be black, Often i get this question are the colors always the same with the numbers and the answer is YES. There is only what thing that can happen, diamonds get made with plastic and pigment, it can be that you have a DMC 225 that’s a kind of purple pink, and its possible that color is a bit different, I made around 20 paintings now and it happened me one or two times that a color was a bit different but an 310 is black and an 225 is purple pink always. So keep your leftovers, never trow them away maybe you need them in the future.

Diamonds

The diamonds are plastic beads with a flat bottom and to top has the shape of a diamond there are 2 kinds of diamonds square and round diamonds

diamond sizes square diamonds are 2,5mm and the round diamonds are 2,8mm

How does Diamond painting work?

Oke let us start at the beginning, after you ordered your diamond painting you are waiting til the post will deliver your painting. And now on the table before you, you have your brand new painting and what now.

opening your box or bag

open your box or bag never with a knife or scissor
if in a box, never destroy you box
empty your box or bag careful, during transport your little diamond bags can be opened
control your box or bag if it's completely empty, and put everything on the table

Your box or bag is now empty, and everything is in front of you on the table, normally you have the next items

What you have to do, also when you don’t start to paint directly is counting your diamonds and control if everything is in your packet. it can happen that when you order a painting de seller forget some bags, this can be a miss counting or they forget a whole color, it happen to me ones. The best thing is to contact your seller directly and tell them that you miss some bags, they will sent this to you. When you order on aliexpress it can take a couple of weeks before you get your missing bags. After you counted the diamonds you find also your diamond painting toolkit, here you find the next items

The canvas

And you have your canvas in the size that you ordered. your canvas is a bit bigger than the order. its normal that you have a white border around your painting aria, in the upper corner you find your diamond index here you find your symbol and the color but also your dmc color, it can be that this is different from painting to painting because companies not all using the same software, the symbols are most of the time also different from painting to painting, what do you find more in your canvas? most of the time you can find the name of the painting this is normally a number, also the name of the seller you can find on the top of your painting. and a little picture of your diamond painting self. and of course the size.

The top layer

there are two kinds of top layers what you can find on your painting this also change for seller to seller. there is a paper version of top layer, and a foil version, the paper one can be cut very easy in pieces with a scissors or a sharp knife (If you use a hobby knife be carful that you don’t push to hard so you don’t cut your canvas) , the foil version is a bit harder to cut. Personally i think that you better can not cut the foil film and just leave it in one piece,

Time to start painting

Now we have everything counted and sorted, so we can start. There are some more things that you can buy to make diamond painting more fun and easy but just let us start first to look of you like diamond painting and if its something for you,

get your canvas ready, your canvas is rolled up in your box or bag, so first we need to flatten your canvas if you have a canvas with a paper top layer on top you can do this very easy by rolling your canvas open an start pulling off the paper from one corner to the half of your painting and stick it back, repeat this for all the corners if you have done this you will see your canvas is flat. If you have a canvas with a foil top layer you can roll your canvas open and roll it up in the opposite direction this helps to get the curves out of your canvas, you can also try so books on top of your open painting if this not my work for you. I also hear from people that they iron there paintings, I never did this. If you try this i should say iron on the lowest level and on the backside of your painting and use a kitchentowel in between your iron and your painting,
Open a part of your top layer paper and fold it open or cut it off. Don’t cut a to big of a part (me myself cut of parts of the paper around 5x10cm each time) like this you adhesive layer will not get dirty and better protected,
Now we start painting look at the symbol where you want to start with, on the right side of your painting you find the index of dmc colors and charge your color that fit with your symbol, Put some diamonds in your plastic tray, don’t take to much, if your tray is completely full is harder to get your diamonds out of your tray. shake your tray slowly so your diamonds will face up.
Take your diamond painting pen, and your pink wax. Remove the protected film from your wax and push the top of your pen into the wax so that the tip is filled with the pink wax now pickup one of the diamonds out of your tray and place it on your canvas in the middle of your square if you use round diamonds place your diamond in the circle, some companies use for round diamonds also squares on the canvas place your round diamond in the square. repeat this till all the symbols of your color are filled in. and continue with the next color.
If you completed your whole work it can be that some diamonds popup a little. if this happens you can try to use a roller and roll them down use a towel in between your diamonds and your roller. Why does this happen? there are a couple of things that can make diamonds popup, it can be that there airbubbels between your canvas and adhesive layer if you have this try to cut them open carefully with a hobby knife, it can also be that you diamonds are not completely clear and have some bumps on them so that they will be to big for your squares and push the diamond next to it up. Most of the time a roller will work, or try to remove the diamond carefully with your tweezer and replace your diamond with an other diamond.

Your painting is done

Now you’re Diamond painting is done, you can frame it or you can make your own frame, The most easy is to buy a frame but with some patients its easy tot make your own frame, your diamond left overs you can keep, maybe you need them the next time if you miss some diamonds with your next painting

And now ?

Congratulations you have done it your first diamond painting, ordered your self controlled and of course made by your self, And tell me did you enjoyed it? If so here are some helpers that makes diamond painting more fun more easy, believe me it will help you with your next painting

First of all you need a lightpad, A lightpad is a flat plastic with LED lights in it most of them you can change in brightness they start around € 10,00. You put your lightpad under your painting the light will make your symbols more easy to see,

A place to store your diamonds while you are painting. of course you can keep your diamonds in your little bags but after a while is a storage box a good idea there are a lot of options to store your diamonds the the photos under this text. This is what I use now . If you are interested in one if this storage bags just contact me i will be happy to help you with it.

Glasses, there are special glasses that makes your work bigger so you can see the symbols better. Personally i never used them but i hear often that people work with them and that it really works good. So if al lot of people say it works, i think it will work LOL if you use one just let me know how it works for you, I will be happy to write about your experience

And the last thing, is the roller, you can use this to roll over your diamond painting. sometimes diamonds will popup and with this roller you can roll over your diamond to push them down again. and let them fit better on your painting. this roller has a soft coating. so you will not damage your diamonds. I hear all that people use a towel to protect the diamonds, But with this roller i never did that.

I hope this explanation has helped you. If you have any questions or additions to this text you can always contact me. And of course if you want you can subscribe to my newsletter on the bottom of this page.