To make your Diamond Painting artworks even easier to handle and to succeed, we have a collection of practical tips and tricks for you. Especially for Diamond Painting beginners this collection can be very helpful, but even if you have created Diamond Painting pictures more often, you can learn something here.
Tip 1: Choose the right size
Especially for Diamond Painting beginners it is important not to choose a too big Diamond Painting picture at the beginning. While an extra-large canvas will give you a particularly great effect, beginners can quickly become overwhelmed with such a large motif. Since working on a large project takes a long time, especially if you have little or no practice, it’s easy to feel like you’re not really making progress and there’s no end in sight. To avoid putting the project away in frustration at some point, it’s best to start by choosing a motif that’s not too large and gradually move on to larger motifs. Holding a completed diamond painting in your hands, no matter how big or small, is a beautiful and satisfying feeling. In our Diamond Painting Shop we have a large selection of small Diamond Painting Sets especially for beginners or even children.
Tip 2: Round or square diamonds
The glittering Diamond Painting stones are available in either square or round shape. Diamond stones with a square shape fill the canvas completely, without gaps, creating the classic diamond mosaic painting look. It’s a little more difficult at first to place the square stones correctly, but once you get the hang of it and have placed a few stones, the rows become neater simply because of the square shape of the stones.
Round diamond stones, on the other hand, need to be placed less precisely than square diamond stones. Therefore, the round stones are also well suited for beginners or children. Since the placement is a bit easier, it also goes faster until the entire canvas is covered. However, because of the round shape, there will always be spaces between the stones.
For a more plastic end result, the square stones are therefore better suited, but you need some experience, dexterity and precision for the placement of the stones. On the other hand, if you want faster results and do not want to work as precisely, the round diamonds are the right choice.
Each Diamond Painting Set includes either round or square glitter stones. If you only want to buy Diamond Painting Sets with a certain stone shape, pay attention to which stone shape is indicated in the description. By the way, with our exclusive Carat Art sets from the artist collection, you can also individually choose whether you would rather buy your set with round or with square stones. No matter which shape you prefer, both shapes glitter and sparkle beautifully like diamonds.
Tip 3: Unroll your Diamond Painting canvas
Since your canvas comes rolled, it will keep rolling back right after you unpack and unroll it. To effectively prevent this, you can unroll your canvas, lay it face down on a straight surface, and weigh it down overnight with a book or other heavy object.
Another option is to carefully peel off the transparent protective film at one corner to about the middle and smooth it back onto the adhesive surface. If you repeat this on all four corners in succession, your canvas should be nice and flat afterwards and not curl up.
Tip 4: Opening and labeling the bags
The diamond stones included in each Carat Art Diamond Painting Set come sorted by color in small plastic bags. Experienced Diamond Painters like to transfer them into handy storage containers, but of course you can also leave your diamonds in the bags. To remove the diamond stones, it is best to cut off only a small corner of each bag. This way you can always pour the contained stones in good portions into your Diamond Painting tray. If you have poured too many of one color into the tray or want to take a break and want to put the stones back into the right bag, you can simply pour them back over the spout of the tray.
To keep your diamond stones safe in their bags, you can seal the small cut corner with a strip of Washitape or tape until you need that color again.
To find the colors in the bags faster, you can draw the matching symbol from the legend to the printed DMC numbers with a waterproof pen.
Tip 5: Sort and store your diamonds
In all Diamond Painting sets, the glitter stones are delivered in small plastic bags. However, these are often a bit impractical, since the numbers on them are not always easy to see and, especially with larger pictures, you always have to search a long time for the right one among all the many bags. In Diamond Painting, there are a total of about 450 DMC colors. Most motifs have between 30 and 60 colors. In order not to lose the overview while working, you should sort them well.
If you paint regularly and also larger diamond pictures, it is therefore worthwhile to fill the stones from the bags into small clear containers and to label them.
For the storage boxes, you can get creative and use cans and containers that you already have at home. Medicine cups, tic-tac tins, or film roll tins are all great for this.
You can also find special Diamond Painting storage options in which the glitter stones can be perfectly stored in our Diamond Painting accessories.
Tip 6: Glue individual stones to the edge of the canvas to create a legend
In each Diamond Painting picture you work with many different colors with different numbers, which are represented in the motif simplified as a symbol. There it does not remain that one forgets again and again, which symbol now to which DMC number and thus to which color belongs. If you want to shorten the search for the matching stone color, you can simply stick a matching stone next to the corresponding number and symbol on the legend at the edge of your Diamond Painting canvas. This way you can see at a glance which stone color you need for the respective symbol. Many Diamond Painters find it much easier to keep track of their work and thus work faster!
Tip 7: The right way to work with the diamonds
When placing the glitter stones on the canvas, you should never work with too much pressure. Otherwise, some of the wax contained on the pencil may stick to the diamonds, affecting the shine of your set diamonds.
Thanks to the strong adhesive power of your canvas, the stones hold on by themselves anyway, so it is enough to always apply them very carefully with the pen.
However, if wax remains on one or more of the stones, this problem can also be solved. As soon as the diamonds are firmly attached to the canvas, you can simply wipe them off with a damp microfiber cloth. This will easily remove any wax residue.
Tip 8: The right lighting
Diamond painting requires the recognition of very small symbols and different colors on the canvas. In order not to strain the eyes too much and to work relaxed you need a good lighting. Usually the normal room lighting is not enough and it is advisable to choose a workplace with a good light source such as a bright table or floor lamp.
However, a light source that you place directly under your canvas works best to illuminate your canvas from below. You can do this by using a tablet that you slide under the canvas to help you see darker colors and small icons more clearly and quickly by illuminating the screen. However, the surface area of a tablet is usually quite small, which can sometimes be a bit distracting when working. If you notice that working with light from below is much easier for you, it might therefore be worth investing in a special LED lightpad in the long run. In our Diamond Painting accessories store, for example, they are available both as a super handy LED Lightpad in DIN A4 format and as a larger and more convenient LED Lightpad in DIN A3 format.
Tip 9: Using multiple attachments
With the tip of your Diamond Painting pen, which is included in all Carat Art Diamond Painting sets, you can pick up one stone at a time and place it on the canvas. However, this is often very tedious and slow for motifs with larger areas of one color. To speed up the process significantly, we have included two so-called multi-attachments in each of our sets. With these special multi-diamond tools, several stones can be picked up and set at the same time. Depending on the attachment, different quantities of stones can be picked up. In our Premium Toolkit, which is included with every set, we have always included one 7-step attachment and one 4-step attachment. With these Diamond Painting attachments, you are significantly faster and, when used correctly, also more accurate. It is very easy to use them and therefore they are also suitable for Diamond Painting beginners. You put them on the end of the pen and before you start working, just like with the normal tip, you simply pick up a small amount of wax by poking the attachment into the wax.
We hope we were able to give you some ideas you didn’t already know with these 9 tips and tricks. Often it’s just little things, but they can make a big difference and help make Diamond Painting even more fun and enjoyable. If you want to read more tips and tricks about Diamond Painting, we also recommend our second blog post on this topic: “Even More Diamond Painting Tips and Tricks”.
