Diamond painting for beginners

What's in a kit

A typical kit contains:

• A canvas printed with a grid of symbols, coated in adhesive and covered with a clear film.
• Drills, the little faceted resin "diamonds", in small bags, one bag per color.
• A pen (sometimes called an applicator or stylus) for picking drills up.
• Wax, usually a small pink square, or a putty that fills the pen tip.
• A tray with ridges, for sorting drills so they sit the right way up.

Some kits add tweezers or extra pen tips. If you have drills left over at the end, keep them in their labeled bags.

Canvases come in two kinds. A full drill canvas is covered edge to edge in drills. A partial drill canvas only has drills on part of the picture, often the main subject, and the rest stays as a printed background.

The canvas and the adhesive

The adhesive is the part you have to protect. Dust, pet hair and skin oil all weaken it, and once a patch stops being sticky, drills won't stay put there.

• Wash your hands before you start.
• Peel back only a small section of the film at a time and keep the rest covered.
• Put the film back down whenever you stop, even for a short break.

Canvases usually arrive rolled. Unroll it, then roll it gently the other way with the film still on to take out the curl, or leave it flat under a few heavy books overnight. Taping the corners to the table stops it shifting while you work.

If the film creases badly or keeps lifting, many people swap it for squares of parchment paper laid over the canvas, overlapping slightly. You lift one square at a time.

Round drills or square drills

Drills come in two shapes, and kits are made for one or the other.

Round drills are the easier start. They don't need lining up, and a slightly off-center drill disappears into the sparkle. Square drills take more care, but neighboring drills push each other into line, and a finished square drill canvas looks like a solid mosaic. If you're unsure, round is the safer first kit.

Drill size sets how big a design is. A design 100 drills wide covers about 25 cm (9.8 in) in square drills and about 28 cm (11 in) in round ones. A 30 by 40 cm picture area in square drills is 120 by 160 drills, which is 19,200 drills. That's why kits take as long as they do.

The symbol key and DMC numbers

Down the side of the canvas is the key, or legend. Each line gives a symbol, the drill color that goes on it, and often how many drills of that color the canvas uses. The drill bags carry the same numbers.

Those numbers are usually DMC numbers, borrowed from DMC's embroidery floss range. A drill labeled 310 is meant to match DMC 310, black. The usual drill chart has 447 colors: it follows the DMC floss numbers but leaves out the newer shades numbered 01 to 35 and a few others. Shades can vary a little between drill makers, so keep each project's spares with the project if you think you'll need to replace any.

Sort before you start. Put each color in its own labeled container or tray compartment, and write the symbol next to the number. Hunting for a symbol on the canvas while juggling an unlabeled bag is how mix-ups happen. The DMC color chart shows roughly what each number looks like if you want to check a color before you open the bag.

Wax, pen and tray

Pour a small pile of one color into the tray and shake it gently side to side. The ridges help the drills settle flat side down, faceted side up.

Press the pen tip into the wax a few times so the tip is coated. Touch the tip to a drill and it lifts; set it on its symbol and press lightly. When the pen stops picking drills up, press it into the wax again. If your kit came with a putty pen instead, pinch off the used putty and twist up fresh.

Some pens come with wider heads, often called multi-placers, that pick up several drills in a row at once. They're good for big areas of one color and frustrating for scattered single drills.

Working in sections

Work one small area at a time. Peel back a strip of film, fill it, cover it again, and move on.

Within a section, you can fill one color at a time, or work across in rows and place whatever each square needs. One color at a time means fewer tray changes; rows mean fewer gaps to hunt for later. Try both and see which suits you.

For a big area of a single color, the checkerboard method helps a lot, especially with square drills. Place a drill on every other square first, then go back and fill the gaps. The drills already down act as guides, and the rows come out straighter.

With square drills, keep the tray turned the same way as the canvas, so the drills you pick up are already square to the grid.

If you put a drill in the wrong place, lift it off with tweezers or the pen tip and place the right one. Do it soon, before neighboring drills are packed in around it.

Finishing: pressing, sealing and framing

When the last drill is down, press everything firmly into the adhesive. A rubber roller (a brayer) or a rolling pin run over the whole canvas does it.

Sealing

Sealing is optional. A sealant coats the drills and the gaps between them to keep out dust and hold loose drills down. It makes most sense for a piece that will hang unframed, or for a kit whose drills keep popping off.

If you seal, a brush-on sealant reaches between the drills better than a spray, which can miss spots. One thin coat is usually enough. If you add a second, let the first dry fully: at least a couple of hours, and many people leave it overnight. Extra coats can change the sheen, so stop at one if it looks right.

Framing

Canvases usually come with a generous border. To fit a standard frame, lay the canvas face down on a cutting mat and trim an inch or two off with a craft knife, keeping a margin around the design.

Glass keeps dust off, but it also dulls the sparkle, which is the whole point. Many people frame without glass and rely on a coat of sealant instead. Stretching the canvas over stretcher bars or mounting it on a backing board are other options that skip the frame entirely.

Making your own design

Any square-grid picture can become a diamond painting, one drill per cell. Craft Studio's free photo to diamond painting converter turns a photo into a chart with each color matched to the 447-color DMC drill chart and a drill count for every color. It needs no account, and the photo stays in your browser. Start around 20 to 30 colors. That's enough for smooth shading without a pile of bags to sort. The diamond painting editor (free, with an account) exports a printable PDF with symbols and a key.