3/08/2025

Random Saturday - Diamond Painting

When I'm downtown, I usually take the bus home, and since that particular bus only runs every hour, I try to plan my appointments around that.
Sometimes, however, that doesn't work perfectly and I have some time to kill, most times not enough to do any big shopping, but too long to spend on a bus stop bench, especially if it's cold.
One way to do that was to go to our version of a dollar store which has now moved to another location, so the one option in the area is the discount retailer which has a bit of everything.

I always head to the crafts and office corner where I sometimes pick up little stuff like pens, brushes, glue or whatever things I see that could be of use to me. Often they offer the same items as our dollar store.
Last time I was there, they had diamond painting kits. I had never thought about picking up diamond painting as a hobby despite having seen some beautiful pictures.
I have an online friend, however, who does really large canvases and another friend picked up a kit when she temporarily didn't have access to her jewelry studio and said it was more fun that she had expected. So I thought it would be interesting to try it just once.

I had never thought about the history of diamond painting before.
From what I read, it was invented in Asia in the early 2000s and then went worldwide.
You use small plastic "diamonds", so-called drills, which can be round or square (there are also special shapes), and put them on your sticky canvas to achieve a sparkly "painting". At first, velvet was used for the canvas and superglue to stick the drills on. Nowadays, the canvas is pre-applied with adhesives and you use a stylus with wax to pick up the drills. The canvas, oilcloth or velvet that is used today is pre-printed with the pattern by numbers or symbols. You can even have a picture of your own turned into such a kit, but when I once thought about giving one as a gift, I saw reviews that the colors don't always come out right.
It really reminds of cross-stitch or of painting by numbers which was basically invented in the 20s, but started its success story in the 50s, only with drills instead of floss or paint. Also if you use round instead of square drills, you will of course have gaps in between. There is even such a thing as partial drill which means you only cover part of the canvas.

The very small kit that I chose is partial drill and it set me back incredible $2. Obviously I expected no masterpiece for that kind of money, but only a small glimpse into what this was all about.
The first thing that didn't convince me about this kit was were the two spots in the tail and leg that are not covered because there are butterflies "in front" of them. As the butterflies are just in the print, they don't work with the 3D of the fox and to me he looks as if his leg is missing a part. There were loads of extra drills, so I could have used some glue - because those spots aren't sticky - and put some on, anyway. I didn't because this was supposed to give me an idea of diamond painting, not a piece to keep.
I did, however, add three black drills for the nose (that spot was sticky) because that hole looked disturbing and the smile in what looks like a beard instead of the chin and breast was a bit creepy, too.


If you go to pages where kits are sold, you will also find facts about diamond painting and explanations about the benefits and why it is so popular.
I could tell rather quickly myself that it's not for me, even with such a small kit that was finished in a short time, as I never found a good way to sit and therefore cramped up. After the second color I just wanted this to be done somehow.
I don't think it's because the pattern is what it is and I therefore lacked motivation, after all I hadn't expected anything, it really was a matter of doing this comfortably and painfree. Had I found the perfect position and had a really good pattern, I could absolutely see how this could become meditative and calming, even if I would not want to exchange it for any of my other crafts.
What I don't see is how my online friend manages to do this with a cat around, he really must be an extraordinarily well-behaved boy!

10 comments:

  1. It's always good to try something new, and you didn't pay too much. But, I'd say it was $2 well spent because you now know it's not for you. I taught with a woman who made a huge one of a peacock. She actually had a peacock! Someone who lived close to her originally had it but abandoned it. She's since moved so I wonder what happened to Kevin!

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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    1. Also I appreciate even more what others are doing with those large pictures. I agree, money well spent.
      Peacocks are beautiful, but so loud. We had them at the zoo and the neighborhood wasn't happy. What a shame that Kevin - quite the unusual name for a peacock ;-) - was abandoned, how nice of her to take care of him.

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    2. There was a peacock in the movie, Up.

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    3. Oh, therefore Kevin! I always thought he was a fantasy bird mix from different birds

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  2. That's interesting, I'd never heard of that before. It does look fiddly (and yes, how would you do it with a cat around) so thank you for trying so we could all see what it was about. Sorry I haven't commented for a bit: when we were in Spain I had terrible trouble commenting on any Blogspot posts and gave up after I'd written longish comments that wouldn't then post, even anonymously!

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    1. For someone who's used to work with tiny beads, I sure knocked those drills around on my table a lot (although they were of course in a little try) and couldn't even blame it on den Dekan because he was locked out! Boy, he would have had so much fun.
      No worries, it has happened to me on Wordpress posts (weirdly enough it works like a charm if I use the reader, I just had to find that out first). Hope you had a relaxed vacation!

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  3. My SIL does diamond painting and really enjoys it. The last thing I want to do is pick up another hobby I can’t keep up with. I’m not sure that it would be for me either.

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    1. Good for her. It's so nice to have something you really enjoy doing which also helps you wind down.
      There is definitely a thing such as hobby overload. I'm okay with jumping between the things I do and have something rest for a while, so that works out nicely for me, but I have known others who have a problem with that.

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  4. Yeah, I think he is, but I always think of him as a peacock.

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    1. The little crown on the head :-D
      I think I never even noticed that because there's no long tail. Shows how differently everyone looks at things.
      Thank you for pointing it out!

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