When I first started Diamond painting, I was doing it only in the bedroom from about 5:00 p.m. until about 11:00 or 12:00 midnight. I didn’t do anything during the day except sit on the couch and watch TV and look at my phone, but I decided that I wanted to start working on some Diamond paintings in the living room and so I’ve been working on a smaller diamond painting in the living room during the day, and then a bigger Diamond painting in the bedroom at night.
I started working on the Mushroom diamond painting that I mentioned in a previous blog post where I talked about putting parchment paper on it instead of the silicone release sheets that I buy from Amazon. I couldn’t get the parchment paper off and there was a lot of stuff on the sticky part of the diamond painting that I still couldn’t get off. I managed to finish making that in 8 days, and I also made another Diamond painting that I started making a few days ago. The diamond painting that I’ve been working on in the living room is one of the summer Diamond paintings that I got on clearance at Michaels.
Beach Chairs by Make Market started on July 27, 2025 and finished on July 30, 2025Mushrooms by Make Market started on July 21, 2025 and finished on July 29, 2025
The Beach Chairs Diamond painting came with its own wooden magnetic frame, but the bigger ones don’t come with frames. I will have to eventually buy a wooden magnetic frame and cut the sides off. I’ll have to scrub the entire Mushroom Diamond painting with a scrub brush and some water to scrub out all of the crap left from the parchment paper. I already tried it and it seemed to take the dirt off without taking any of the diamond drills off, so I’ll have to go over the whole entire diamond painting before I seal it.
This whole making two Diamond paintings at one time seems to be working out for me, although my back is in a lot of pain LOL.
I have chosen two new diamond paintings to start making on July 31, 2025. They are Colorful Street which is a 11×14 diamond painting, the same size as the Beach Chairs diamond painting, and it comes with a wooden magnetic frame.
And then for the bigger one in the bedroom, I’ve chosen Lake Forest which is a 18×24 diamond painting.
The Lake Forest Diamond painting is the same size as the Sunflower Bouquet diamond painting that I made before that took me 3 weeks to make. I’ve gotten a little faster at making Diamond paintings, so perhaps it might not take me that long, but it still will take a while. It might not take me 3 weeks, but I’m sure it won’t be less than 2 weeks. This is still a big Diamond painting to make. But I enjoy making them and this is going to look wonderful in our living room.
I “kitted up” both kits and I have the Colorful Street in the living room ready to go for tomorrow morning, and I have the Lake Forest on my desk in my bedroom ready to go tomorrow night. I’m looking forward to making both of these because I really love them.
So yesterday I was planning on making my Mushroom diamond painting from Make Market at Michael’s and also another diamond painting that I have from Temu, and I was low on the release papers and I remembered someone somewhere said instead of using those release papers from Amazon or wherever you get them, use parchment paper instead. Just buy a roll of parchment paper and you’ll be golden and it’ll save you a lot of money. Blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah, that did not work out that way for me today.
I went to start working on my Mushroom diamond painting and I could not remove the parchment paper very easily. It was very difficult to come off. My life partner suggested I use the heat gun to make the glue or the parchment paper soft, and it kind of worked, but it was still a bitch to remove. I have some release papers, but I only had 10 and I needed at least 12 for the Mushroom diamond painting and also I needed some for the Starry Night with the Tardis from Temu. I didn’t have enough so I used the parchment paper and now I’m regretting it so much.
At this point I’m not going to follow any advice anymore because every time I’ve ever followed advice from somebody I don’t even know on the internet, it always ends up in disaster for me. Someone once told me to sharpen your Cricut blade to rub aluminum foil on it and I did and I went to use the Cricut blade and it wouldn’t even cut anything. It just destroyed the blade, and the blade ripped the paper instead of cutting it. I went to Michaels to buy another blade, thank you very much for costing me money, and I told the lady who worked there and she said I’ve never heard that before and I would not suggest doing that again.
I threw away the plastic that was on both diamond paintings, so those were gone because remember I took them off last night and crumbled them up and put them in the garbage. I found one in the garbage for the Tardis but I couldn’t find the one for the Mushroom. I was able to take off the parchment paper from both, but the one on the Tardis is okay to stay on there for now because it comes off easier since it’s already been removed. It’s not as stuck on as much as it was with the Mushroom. I guess there’s something about the glue that they used that’s different for each of them. So for now I’m just going to keep that one on the Tardis but use the release papers on the mushroom and I put the crumbled up plastic on the part of the Mushroom that doesn’t have release paper.
So before when I would make my diamond paintings I would put my grid on the diamond painting and then cut the release paper around the grid so that when I finished using the grid, the spots around the grid were still covered with the release paper. But since that happened I’m just going to remove the release paper sheet and then put my grid on the diamond painting and continue until the worked amount is the size of the release paper. Like this.
The release paper is about 4×6. So when I finished with that one release paper, I put that one sheet in one of the spots that was missing release paper. So tomorrow when I take another sheet off, I will put that where the other spot is and then just keep doing that until all of the spots are covered in release paper.
I bought more release paper on Amazon and it won’t be here until Wednesday, and I bought two packs, and each pack has 100. I’m sure that taking them off and putting them back on is probably going to be wear and tear on it so that’s why they sell so much in one pack, so I’m just going to do it like this from now on instead of cutting it.
I’m going to be working on the Tardis during the day in the living room and then when I come into the bedroom at 5:00 p.m I’ll work on the Mushroom. So the Tardis one is still going to have the parchment paper on it and I’ll just cut that away until the release paper comes and just replace it. The Tardis one is much smaller than the mushroom one, which is too big to make in the living room on the couch. I can do that easier at my desk and there’s no point in me sitting in the living room doing nothing until 5:00 p.m., I might as well do something in the living room during the day so I’ll do the Tardis and the living room.
Hey, I have to keep busy. I’m disabled and this is the only thing that I’m able to do. Every now and then I have to stop because it starts hurting my back, but I’d rather be doing something than just sitting there watching TikTok all day long in the living room.
Just for reference, the mushroom Diamond painting canvas is 19″ wide x 23″ high, the actual image is 16″ x 20″, and the Starry Night Police Box (TARDIS) canvas is 19.5″ wide x 16″ high and the actual image is 17.5″ x 13.75″. So as you can see in this image, it’s easier to hold the Tardis in my lap on the couch and then use the desk to make the Mushroom. See, there is a method to my madness.
So I guess the moral of the story is don’t do everything someone tells you, whether you know them or not. Test it out for yourself and if it works then it works and if it doesn’t then it doesn’t. And if they say that the parchment paper works for them, ask them what brand because obviously that matters.
These are all of the Make Market diamond paintings that are in my stash
Yesterday I made a post about buying some more Make Market Diamond paintings from Michael’s, because I bought the “Wheat Field by Vincent Van Gogh” Diamond painting with a coupon for 40% off and I used my $10 Michaels rewards voucher and the total of the diamond painting was $2.15. I also mentioned that I purchased five of the smaller Diamond paintings that are 11″ x 14″ and I wasn’t sure if I was going to get them all, but this morning we went to Michael’s and they were all there waiting for me.
So I took a picture of all of the Make Market diamond paintings that are in my stash. I now have nine that I need to make and I have already made three of them from past purchases. The first one was the “Rainbow Surfboards”, the second one was the “Sunflower Bouquet”, and the third one was “The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.” So that leaves me with all of the rest that you see here in this image at the top. The ones that I’ve already made, the boxes are not in the picture, except for the Sunflower Bouquet diamond painting which I bought a second one so I could make another one because I gave the first one away.
“Rainbow Surfboards” by Make Market“Sunflower Bouquet” by Make Market “The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh” by Make Market
I’m already starting to work on my next diamond painting which is the “Mushroom” Diamond painting from Make Market. I “kitted” that diamond painting when I got it even though I knew I wasn’t going to get to it right away, so since all of the diamond drills are in containers in my diamond drill drawers, I thought I would work on this one next.
I have bought many diamond paintings from Amazon and they are okay, but those don’t compare to the quality of the Make Market diamond paintings by Michael’s. Of course, I’m sure some will argue that the best diamond paintings are from Diamond Art Club, but I can’t afford Diamond Art Club Diamond paintings because those are on a whole other tax bracket LOL. Those cost a lot of money and I just don’t have that kind of money.
I still have some Make Market Diamond paintings in my wish list that I would like to eventually purchase. I have the Michaels credit card and I’ve charged quite a bit of money on it this month for these diamond paintings, so I’m going to pay that off in the beginning of next month and then I will wait for another coupon and buy those.
These Diamond paintings are in my Michael’s wish list. I think they are so interesting and so lifelike. What I like about some of these images that they have is that they look like they were taken from a picture. Like the rainbow surfboards above. The people at Make Market have done such a wonderful job with these diamond paintings.
“Skull” by Make Market “Roses” by Make Market “Hydrangea” by Make Market “Books” by Make Market
All of these are 16″ X 20″ except for the “Books” which is 18″ x 24″.
If you like to do Diamond painting, let me know if you prefer one brand over another or if you just don’t really care about the brand and just want to make anything from anywhere.
I received a coupon from Michael’s that was for 40% off any one regular price item and I’ve been debating whether I should just go ahead and buy another Diamond painting or not, and the reason why is because I have 12 sitting here in my bedroom waiting to be made and I don’t want to have a horde of diamond paintings that might betake a very long time to get to, so I just didn’t want to buy any more, but at the same time I really wanted to buy more LOL.
So I was going through the Michaels app the last couple of days and one of the diamond paintings that I saw was “Wheat Field” which is a Vincent van Gogh painting. I really like Vincent van Gogh and I have the “Starry Night” by Make Market and I also have a Tardis with the Starry Night, actually I have two of them LOL. I wanted to get this one. I took the opportunity to use the 40% off coupon and it went down in price to about $12. I also just so happened to have received a $10 Voucher from Michael’s rewards, so I added the voucher and it went down to $2.15. so I thought you know what, I’m going to get this.
There were also some Diamond paintings that are on clearance for $7.99 that are normally $14.99. I really wanted to buy those, but like I said, I don’t want to have a horde of diamond paintings and those are still pricey even at $8 each, so I thought let me just wait a while.
So tonight I was looking at the Michaels app at the Diamond paintings because I wanted to add some of the ones that I really wanted to my wish list and I noticed that the clearance ones are no longer $7.99, they are now $4.49. What a bargain! I had to buy them. I bought five more Diamond paintings tonight LOL. So tomorrow I will be picking up six Diamond paintings from Michaels.
So there is “Girl with Bird”, “Pink Guitar”, “Colorful Street”, “Flamingo Float in Pool” and “Sun Fruits.”
I really wanted the Colorful Street and the Flamingo Float in Pool, but I didn’t really care for girl with bird or pink guitar at regular price or even at the previous clearance price, but at $4.49 I couldn’t resist. I could give those that I don’t really care about as a gift to someone who wants to get into Diamond painting. I actually know someone who wants to get into Diamond painting and this would probably be really good for them to do as a test to see if they like it. I did also like Sun Fruits.
There are some other ones that I really want to get and those are the “Skull”, the “Roses”, ” Hydrangea Square”, “Tropical Fruit” and “Books.” I really like the Books and Skull. Those are the ones that I was trying to add to my wish list when I saw those clearance ones had gone down in price.
There is a good chance that when I wake up tomorrow morning and I see my text messages saying that my order is ready to be picked up that one or two of them will be canceled because they were sold out. That happened the last time I bought some Diamond paintings late at night and then woke up in the morning and saw that something was canceled. I really hope that I am able to get everything that I paid for tonight, but if not, that’s okay.
After this, I’m going to try to chill my ass out because this is getting ridiculous. I have already finished making 10 Diamond paintings and I’m working on number 11. I have 12 sitting in my room and now I have six more on the way, give or take depending on whether they are going to be available for me or if I give some away. But at least I am working on them and I’m not just letting them collect dust.
I’ve seen some videos on YouTube and on tiktok where people are showing their Diamond painting stash and some of them have a very large stash. One had 73 and some have more than that. I don’t think I’m going to have to worry about getting that high, but you never know lol. Some of these people have in their stash several if not more than like 50 from Diamond Art Club, which is very extremely expensive. And I would imagine if I were to buy one from Diamond Art Club, it would take me months to finish because those are huge. I thought 3 weeks to make the sunflower bouquet was a long time, that is about half the size of a diamond art club painting. They are ridiculously huge LOL. They’re also like $75 and up.
I’m just going to focus on my small diamond paintings that I bought from Amazon and my small Diamond paintings that I’m getting from Michaels and just keep it small and keep it cheap. I can’t afford to go too crazy with this new addiction.
I bought these 3 diamond paintings from Michael’s for my birthday. The Sunflower Bouquet diamond painting didn’t include the DMC color numbers in the chart on the sides of the canvas, but the Mushrooms and Rainbow Surfboards diamond painting did include that. Actually, the Mushrooms has it printed on the sides of the canvas, but not the rainbow surfboards because there were no sides because it came with a frame, instead it came with a long piece of paper with the color numbers, codes and DMC numbers.
I went online looking for the DMC color numbers for the Sunflower Bouquet and someone said that Make Market doesn’t include DMC numbers, but as I said, the mushrooms and rainbow surfboards have them included. Perhaps their old diamond paintings didn’t include them, but they are included now, or maybe vice versa. Who knows.
I contacted Michael’s a few days ago and they finally responded this morning with the chart, so I took a screenshot and here it is if you are looking for it.
I actually bought this ARTDOT color card for diamond paintings from Amazon and I held all of the diamond drills up to the diamond drills that are glued to the chart, and I was correct with all but 3. I was quite surprised how accurate it was when Michael’s sent me that email this morning and I went over the numbers I typed out and saw I was correct, besides the 3 that I got wrong.
I will benefit from this chart when I have diamond drills that fell out of the container and onto my desk, or when they fall onto the floor and don’t know where they go. Also, I have extra diamond drills from past diamond paintings that don’t actually match the other ones I have from other diamond paintings with the same DMC numbers. So this will help me determine the correct DMC numbers so I can relabel the containers. I believe there are 4 colors where I have 2 containers with the same number, but the colors are not the same shade. These came from either Amazon or Temu.
So I finished the Rainbow Surfboards diamond painting, and here it is on my bedroom wall with the frame. I actually love this frame and would like to buy more frames for the other diamond paintings that I have, rather than having them framed, which can become quite expensive.
I think these are an excellent way to decorate your walls. I don’t have much on my walls, so these diamond paintings will be very nice to look at.
I finished making this “Sunflower Bouquet” Diamond painting by Make Market from Michaels. It took me almost 3 weeks to make starting on June 19, 2025 and finishing on July 8, 2025. I took 2 pictures, one on my bed last night in very poor lighting with a flash, then again this morning on the sidewalk in the sun. I am very happy with this and I can’t wait to see it hanging in my bedroom. I bought a wooden magnetic frame on Amazon which will be here next week on July 16.
This is the picture I took in the sun.This is the image in poor lighting with the flash in my bedroom.
I don’t know exactly how long diamond painting has been a thing, but I’ve avoided it because holy cow, I have way too many crafts already that I just don’t really want MORE craft supplies taking up space in my bedroom. It’s already overwhelming with all the plastic lanyard, yarn, a huge box of plastic canvas, drawers and drawers of cardstock for my box cards and all of the many things I need to make the box cards look cool, like inks and rhinestones and whatever else lol. I have a lot of things taking up so much space in my room, I just didn’t want to add to it.
So I was watching TikTok and some videos about diamond painting started appearing on my FYP, and I sat there watching them the whole way through, because they were interesting to watch. But then more videos started appearing, and live creators were making these live on TikTok, and suddenly my FYP started changing to mostly diamond paintings. Oops.
Someone had a diamond painting with the Starry Sky painting with the TARDIS from Doctor Who, so that got me really interested, because I had assumed they only came in whatever you found at the craft store. I didn’t realize they had so many different images to choose from. So I bought this one from Amazon and made it, and this is what it looks like after I added all the diamond drills.
You tend to lose a lot of details when they are as small as this. This particular one is 12″ x 12″, which I discovered is actually the size of the actual canvas, and not the image. The actual image is more like 11.8″ x 11.8″. Which is fine because I think how it works is you buy the 12×12 frame and it has one of those borders that covers up the outside of the canvas, so you’ll see the actual image you made with the diamonds.
I bought this and another on Amazon and then I found some on Temu, because of course I did lol. I found another one similar to this, but much bigger. This is the image, but I won’t know how the end product looks until I make it.
I really do like this, and it is relaxing. However, it is frustrating because no matter how hard I try, I just cannot get the diamond drills in the actual spot they are meant to go on, so they start looking crooked and the diamond drills are all over the place and look like I just slapped it together in a hurry. I have a tool that I bought that has a thing that you can slide through between the diamond drills that’s supposed to keep adjusting them so they are straight, or more uniform, but that doesn’t actually work too well. You move them and they move right back.
I was watching another video on TikTok and this person had this stainless steel alignment ruler that you lay on the canvas and you put your diamond drills on, and it puts them in the exact place you need them to be, and they don’t move when you remove the stainless steel alignment ruler.
The entire left side of this new diamond painting called the Tree of Life that I started making that goes all the way to the top, I did that without the tool, because I saw the TikTok video after I did all that. So the right side that doesn’t go all the way to the top was made with the stainless steel alignment ruler which is to the right of that, if you can see it. If you are able to zoom in, you will notice a huge difference in how uniform they are in the new section with the metal tool as opposed to how wonky they are on the left side.
I couldn’t justify removing all those diamond drills on the left that I made before I got the new alignment ruler because to be honest, you won’t really notice it when the entire diamond painting is finished. You’ll probably only notice because I told you. The canvas of this diamond painting is going to be 35.4″ wide by 12″ high, but the actual painting will be determined when I finish because the Amazon listing did not specify the actual image size, only the canvas size. But this is what the image is on the listing.
So what I discovered is this is really relaxing because I am so focused on this and not on anything else. All my tics mostly disappear, and I lose myself in the art work. I can relax and just lose myself for a few hours or whatever amount of time I decide to spend before my neck or back starts to hurt. I usually have either music or a YouTube video playing on the TV that I’m kind of paying attention to, but not really lol.
And of course the tools they include in the painting kit are ok, but you really want to buy some other tools. For example, I’ve learned you want to buy the little release paper sheets to cover the sticky parts rather than have a long thin piece of plastic hanging off the canvas. It reveals small sections to work on so the sticky parts don’t start getting dust and hair on them before they get the diamond drills. You’ll want a new pen tool with the different attachments that screw on that give you the ability to pick up 1 diamond drill at a time, or 2, on one end, and then whatever amount up to 10 on the other end. I haven’t had so much luck with picking up too many because they are never close together when I pick them up, or the wax is stuck inside, so I only get half of what I was trying to pick up. It’s a learning process. It’s also relaxing to just do 1 at a time. It takes longer though lol.
This wonderful stainless steel alignment tool. Oh and they give you these little ziplock bags that are supposed to hold the diamond drills, but I’m told they will add a lot of static to the diamond drills. I bought a diamond painting storage container that has all these little boxes that are very similar to tic tac boxes. You add the diamond drills and add a sticker to the top with the DMC number on it, and it keeps them all together and safe in the organizer box.
I had so many diamond drills leftover from the Mysterious Starry Sky painting with the TARDIS that I am just keeping them in their containers, so when I opened all the diamond drill bags for the Tree of Life I’m making now, I’ve pretty much used most of all the rest of the containers. I think I need to buy another box of these containers before I start making more paintings.
Oh and one thing that is really helpful is to have a light box under the painting, because it allows you to see everything much easier. Not just the numbers or letters or symbols, but you can also see the mistakes you’ve made so you can fix them. Amazon has this TOHETO A4 Light Board for Diamond Painting that is 14″ x 10″ for only $20. I have a Cricut Bright Pad that costs $70 on Amazon. I actually got this for free at Michaels when I got my first Cricut. It’s been collecting dust for more than 5 years. I haven’t had a reason to use this until now.
I’m sure there are more tools that I don’t know about yet, but I’ll continue researching products. This is a cool new craft that will actually add something nice to the walls of my bedroom when I finish.
Oh and yes, this has a lot of Amazon links and I have included my associates codes, but I assure you that this is not a sponsored post. I just wanted to talk about this new craft of mine and share the links for the products I have bought. I couldn’t include the Temu links because all of the products I have brought from Temu aren’t even available anymore.
Update: I’ve finished making the Rainbow Tree of Life diamond painting, and here it is.
Xanapus` Lair 