Diamond Art is a painting-adjacent craft using cross-stitch patterns to create a glittering piece of handicraft.
I have always had a curiosity about diamond art/diamond painting. The interest can be heavily attributed to one of my cousins. When I saw her working on a piece, it seemed like something right up my alley. It looked like a mixture between a puzzle, paint-by-numbers, and cross-stitch. The cross-stitch influence mainly comes from pattern design.
What pushed me forward was finding a diamond art kit in the clearance aisle. I normally don’t like starting with a premade kit, but when the universe provides an opportunity, I might as well take it! And honestly, there is nothing wrong with working from a kit. It can be nice to have some structure when going into an unknown territory. I just like stumbling around blindly sometimes.
Check out the Craft section of MCG for more fun patterns in strings and things, or more unlimited ideas.
Supplies
The best part about getting a kit is that I won’t be missing tools or materials. Which is good because I feel like I would be so very confused about what to buy (and why I’m buying it) if I were left to my own devices. The diamond art kit came with a base canvas, resin beads (or diamonds), a wand, a bead tray, and a wax pad.
Process
Getting Organized
Before getting started, I wanted to get organized. The different resin bead colors were separated into little bags, but I want a bit more. Especially since the bags were not resealable. Once opened, I was afraid of the mess that it could result in. I found that I had a bead tower case among my supplies. I poured each bag into a container, and the containers slotted into each other nicely to keep everything clean and neat. It also allowed me to easily move the project throughout the house. And I could store the beads in the base canvas bag, so it was a very self-contained project.
Prepping
I decided to start in the bottom right corner of the canvas, which called for red and yellow beads. The bead tray was the best method for spreading out the resin diamonds to be able to pick them up with the wand. Then I realized, I don’t know what is going on with this diamond art wand.
It looked like a plastic pen with a metal tip. But the metal tip was hollow… so how would I be able to pick up resin diamonds? Well, that’s where the wax comes in (and thankfully, the kit came with instructions, so I wasn’t lost for too long). The wand is pushed into the wax sheet. This fills the metal tip with wax, and the wax creates a light bond to the resin diamonds and allows them to be moved and placed with precision.
Stick and stick and stick
One important factor for making diamond art is the canvas. For the diamonds to stick, the canvas must be… well… sticky! The adhesive on the canvas helped create the final piece and pulled the resin diamonds away from the wand. The process of moving the wand back and forth between the tray and the canvas also felt rhythmic. I felt like I was in some sort of trance. It was a great activity to settle my hyperactive brain.
I started by putting multiple colors of resin diamonds into the tray. And then I quickly realized that I didn’t like that I did that. Luckily, there were enough spots on the canvas to place everything. But if I didn’t need all those resin diamonds, separating them by color later would have been… a time.
From there, I only put one color into the tray at a time and tried to fill all spots with that color instead of working on the full canvas areas. The only issue with this approach is that I had to be careful about how I positioned my hand. Since the canvas is covered in adhesive, it was easy to accidentally stick.
From there, I became a woman on a mission. Doing one color at a time was oddly satisfying, as it felt like I kept hitting goalposts. I could be “finished” with that color even if I wasn’t finished with the whole diamond art project. And that sense of satisfaction helped drive me forward. Sometimes, finding these little pick-me-ups can be a really good way to enjoy the journey of a project.
Reflections
This was a fun first project to start going into the diamond art world. I love how the little pouch sparkles. The diamonds bring a fun element of look and texture to the bag, which I was drawn to. I am quite curious to see how well the adhesive sticks over time and the durability of the pouch. But I want to use it, especially since it fits the summer.
Lessons
The Canvas
I was working with a prebuilt canvas, and I have seen many kits that have prebuilt canvases as well. Which got me thinking, is that the only type of canvas that was out there? What if you wanted to do a more personalized project? Not sure why I was ever concerned. Of course, blank canvases exist. And that’s also where the cross-stitch aspect of this can come in. Cross-stitch patterns can easily be converted to diamond art, which allows for a lot more room to play.
Pattern
The Outline of Diamond Art
Ingredients
- Diamond Art Wand
- Wax Sheet
- Resin Diamond Beads
- Resin Bead Tray
- Canvas
Instructions
- Prep the wand by sticking it into the wax sheet and place one color of resin diamonds into the bead tray.
- Remove the protective sheet from the canvas and place the beads as indicated.
- Remember to re-wax the wand when the adhesion of the wand begins to fade.
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