Tag: Michael’s

My Entire Make Market Diamond Paintings Collection

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, diamond paintingLeave a comment

So starting with the 18×24 Diamond paintings, I actually have 2 of the Sunflower Bouquet, 2 Lake Forest, then 1 each of Cottage and Books. I’ve already made one Lake Forest and that one is hanging in the living room, but someone also wants the Lake Forest and so I bought another to make. I wanted the Sunflower Bouquet for myself, and I made it, and then I sent it to someone in Idaho. So I bought another for myself and now somebody wants to buy it, so I bought a third one. So technically because I don’t have the one that’s in Idaho, I only have two for now.

The 16×20 there is Mushroom, Wheat Field by Vincent Van Gogh, Skull, Pagoda, Cliffside and a Halloween one called Castle and Owl. I have already made the Mushroom one and I’m currently working on Wheat Field.

The 11×14 are Palm Tree Hut, Flamingo Float in Pool, Pineapple Drink, Colorful Street and Sun Fruits. All of these have been made and are in my Etsy shop. I had two more called Rainbow Surfboards and Beach Chairs and those both sold in my Etsy shop.

The next picture of the 11×14 summer collection are Girl with Bird, Pink Guitar, Sunset Beach and Lifeguard Stand. I would like to make all of those for my Etsy Shop except Sunset Beach. I want that one.

Then there are the two little boxes with the two 5x7s in each that are Beaches and Fruit. Then next to that is Scary Mushrooms which is a Halloween 8×10. Also in the next picture which is the picture of the actual Diamond painting is Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night which is a 8.5×11 diamond painting. I don’t have the box anymore because I sent another diamond painting to someone in that box to protect it during shipment.

This is a lot of Diamond paintings, but that’s not even close to the amount of diamond paintings that they still have available for me to buy. Of course I am trying my best to resist buying any more, because I need to make them before I should buy more.

Right now I am currently working on an Amazon Diamond painting that is being made specifically for a craft fair coming in October, and then if still available will go in my Etsy shop. I have four more Amazon and 4 Temu ones coming that I want to make for the craft fair and I’m making those during the day in the living room while I make the bigger Make Market ones at night in my bedroom. Like I said before, the bigger one that I’m making right now is Wheat Field, but when that is finished I will work on both of the Sunflower Bouquet Diamond paintings one after the next. I will then have to work on Books because that is going to be a Christmas gift that will go to my aunt and uncle in Texas.

As for the 18×24 Cottage and the rest of the 16×20 Diamond paintings, I will eventually get to them. There is absolutely no rush because they’re not going anywhere and they’re not going to anyone in particular. They can sit around until I get to them even if that means after the new year. I can only work on so many things at a time and I have other things that I need to do other than Diamond paintings during the holidays. I have to work on Halloween box cards, Thanksgiving box cards and Christmas box cards and those will take a long time to do. That’s going to take away from working on Diamond paintings because I’m going to work on box cards all day long to get them done faster.

There are a couple of the Halloween Diamond paintings that I would love to get, but they are the smaller 8×10 ones because I would like to buy them as gifts for my Etsy Shop’s large purchases. I made the scary mushroom one in a couple of days, So I don’t think it would take too long to make a few of those to have them ready to send out as a free gift. The same goes if they have those same size ones for Christmas. Of course, if I have those made before the craft fair in October, I will sell them there.

I would have loved to have made some of the 16×20 Diamond paintings to sell at the craft fair, and I will if I have time, but I don’t think I will have much time. I do have places picked out in my bedroom that I would love to hang these Diamond paintings for myself. The Wheat Field is going to go near my bed along with the Starry Night next to it. I have a space picked out for the Sunflower Bouquet which is going to replace my pez dispenser rack. And then the Cottage is going to go above my television because I would like to remove the rack that’s up there that has nothing but tchotchkes on it that do nothing but collect dust. I would rather have artwork there instead. Then there is another wall in my bedroom that has another rack hanging on it that I would like to remove to place a couple of diamond painting for the same reason. I was thinking of putting the castle and owl there. That is a Halloween diamond painting, but it doesn’t have to be because it looks like a Harry Potter image. That I would have all year long on the wall. I may put Cliffside or Skull above or below that and Pagoda in the hallway. Whichever I don’t hang with Harry Potter will go in the hallway. Also, the Mushrooms and Spooky Mushrooms are in the hallway.

Of course, there are some more Diamond paintings that are still in my Michael’s wish list, but as of now I don’t know where I would even put them even if I did have them. There’s only so many spots on the wall in my bedroom that I can put them. I don’t think there is any room for any Diamond paintings throughout the rest of the house because there’s artwork on every wall. Lake Forest is in the living room hanging above the organ, that is the only space that was available for a diamond painting in the living room.

There will be another craft fair in the spring, and of course I will most likely be making Diamond paintings all day long like I am now that I can bring with me to the craft fair that will hopefully sell. I think that would be the only purpose for buying any more Diamond paintings at this point. I really have to draw the line somewhere.

Rainbow and summer diamond paintings for Etsy

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, diamond paintingLeave a comment

When I first started Diamond painting in April this year, I had no plans on making Diamond paintings to sell, but, I didn’t rule it out entirely. My main focus was to collect the leftover Diamond drills for using in my papercrafts and if I found that I liked making the diamond paintings, then perhaps I will sell the product that came from it. My Etsy Shop focuses mostly on things that are rainbows because it is a gay Etsy shop and rainbows are a big part of the gay community, so, I like to make things with rainbow colors to sell to people in my community.

Over the last few months I have been buying rainbow themed Diamond paintings and these six are ones that I do plan on making. I have made one of these, the tree of life on the very bottom left and it did not come out as well as I thought it would, but it is still a nice Diamond painting. I think that the other ones will look a lot better based on the way they look on the canvas with the squares and symbols in them.

Most of the diamond paintings that I’ve bought from Michaels are summer themed and I do plan on selling those as well, and those are the ones that I seem to be working on mostly rather than the rainbow diamond paintings. I will be getting to the rainbow ones, but I would like to focus on finishing all of the Michaels summer diamond paintings so that I can put those in a single listing first, and then when those are finished, I will start working on the rainbow themed Diamond paintings and put all of those in one listing.

I have so far only completed four of these, believe it or not. I still have so many more to make. I made the surfboards first and then I made those two little ones with the rainbow umbrella and the Adirondack chairs and then the beach scene which is called beach chairs and I just finished working on the fourth one called colorful street. The next one that I’m going to make is the one with the pink flamingo in the swimming pool.

I swear the Michael’s Make Market diamond paintings look like they were taken from real pictures. They look so lifelike. I just don’t know how they can make them look so real. And they are Diamond paintings which means they’re pixelated. It’s just the oddest thing that when you’re standing back or even looking at a picture of it, it looks so real. It almost looks like a photograph. I think that’s what makes me so attracted to this brand as opposed to any other brand that I’ve found because these look like they are actual pictures.

Another thing that I love about these summer Diamond paintings is that they come with their own frames. So I don’t have to worry about buying frames for all of these diamond paintings because they’re already in the box. It makes it so much easier to sell something if it comes with its own frame because then I don’t have to spend extra money and then also charge extra money for the frame. I did however have to buy frames for the Rainbow Diamond paintings from Amazon because they don’t come with frames. The summer Diamond paintings from Michaels are all 11×14 and the rainbow ones are 10×14.

I want to focus on the summer Diamond paintings so that I can list those on Etsy first, because summer won’t last forever, but rainbows do. Although, if you love the beach, you’re going to love it all the time. I will have the summer Diamond paintings in there until they’re all sold out.

I finished 2 more diamond paintings

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, diamond paintingLeave a comment

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, 2025
Mushrooms 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.

I bought even more diamond paintings from Michael’s

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, diamond paintingLeave a comment
Make Market Seasonal Diamond Paintings on Clearance
Make Market Diamond Paintings

So I got another $10 Michael’s rewards voucher and I went back to Michaels and got another Diamond painting, one that was in my wish list and you’ll see it on the second image on the far right and it is the one with the skull. I also picked up a few more of the summer Diamond paintings because they are on clearance.

At this point it looks like I’m a hoarder and I can’t help but laugh at myself because I just can’t stop myself. But if they keep sending me $10 vouchers, how can I not go back and buy more?

Everything that you see in these two pictures were on sale or on clearance or I bought them on sale and had a $10 voucher and got it for an extremely low price. Let me explain.

I was buying Diamond paintings on Amazon and on Temu and the ones that I was buying were okay, and I liked them, but my life partner told me instead of wasting your money on cheaper Diamond paintings, get some premium Diamond paintings and see how those are.

My birthday was on June 2nd and so I bought my diamond paintings on the app and there was a coupon for the Mushroom Diamond painting for 30% off. So instead of being $19.99, it was only $13.99, and the Rainbow Surfboards was on sale for $7.99 from $14.99. I didn’t need a coupon because it was already on sale.

After we left my birthday dinner at Golden Corral, we went to Michaels to pick up my diamond paintings and I got a birthday coupon in my email for 40% off and so I bought the Sunflower Bouquet Diamond painting. Its regular price is $29.99 and my 40% off coupon brought it down to $17.99. Those were the first three Diamond paintings that I got from Michaels.

Throughout the month of June I was working on the Rainbow Surfboards and the Sunflower Bouquet Diamond painting and I finished the Sunflower Bouquet Diamond painting in mid July. My life partner and I decided that I was going to send the Sunflower Bouquet diamond painting to a friend of ours who lives in Idaho and so I thought well, maybe I should get her something else because I really wanted that Diamond painting for myself. So I bought another Diamond painting for her and it’s the one that is the Lake Forest. That is the same size as the Sunflower Bouquet Diamond painting. The Lake Forest Diamond painting was regular $29.99 and I used a coupon for 40% off and so it went down to $17.99. I’d also bought the Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh (not pictured) and that was regular $19.99 and it brought it down to $11.99. I decided that I was just going to go ahead and send her the Sunflower Bouquet Diamond painting instead and so I went back onto the Michaels app and I couldn’t use the 40% off coupon again. It was a one-time thing per account, but I had another 30% off coupon so I bought it and it brought the price down from $29.99 to $20.99.

So a week later I got an email from Michael’s saying that I earned a $10 Michael’s rewards voucher and I decided that I wanted to get the Wheat Field by Vincent Van Gogh Diamond painting. That was a $19.99 Diamond painting and I used a 40% off coupon that brought it down to $11.99, and then I used my $10 voucher and that brought my total down to $2.15.

That same night after I bought that Diamond painting, I went back to the Michaels app and was looking around and all of their summer Diamond paintings had been $7 on clearance and all of a sudden they were $4.49, so I bought five of them. Then cut two 2 days ago. I got another $10 Michael’s rewards voucher so I went back to the app and purchased the Skull and that was regular $19.99 and I used a 35% off coupon and that brought the price down to $12.99. I used my $10 voucher and that brought the price down to $3.24.

When I went to pick up the Skull, I went in and I went all the way over to where they had the diamond paintings that were on clearance to see what else they had and I bought two more of the ones that are 11×14 and then I bought two boxes that have two Diamond paintings in each box that are 5×7.

And that brings us to where I am today.

I have been seeing a lot of videos on YouTube of people sharing their “stash” as they call it, of Diamond paintings. Their stash being Diamond paintings that they bought, but are still sitting in their box waiting to be made. One person had 73 Diamond paintings, and they aren’t cheap either. A lot of them are Diamond Art Club which cost $60 and up. Other people had more and I was thinking whoa, that’s crazy. And now look at me. I still have about eight or nine Diamond paintings from Amazon and I’m still working on the last Temu Diamond painting and now I have all of these Make Market Diamond paintings from Michaels. I thought my stash was huge until I saw that that one person has 73.

The thing about me is that I will be making these diamond paintings. They’re not going to be sitting in my room because I have been working on Diamond paintings every single day since I started in April. I have made three Diamond paintings that have the blue butterflies with the sunflowers and have given them all away. I have another one because I wanted to make that to sell in my Etsy shop, but I’m sure someone’s going to ask me to make that for them LOL. There are also some of the clearance Diamond paintings that I intend on giving to people so these are not all just going to be collecting dust. Some of them will be made by me and some of them will be given away and a lot of the ones from Amazon will be made and sealed and framed and put on Etsy. I don’t intend on letting any of these go to waste.

This hobby is definitely a huge addiction and I’m hoping that I resist the urge to buy anymore. But, I’m pretty satisfied with the amount of diamond paintings that I have and I don’t see any reason to go back to Michaels to get anymore unless I get another $10 voucher and the price of diamond painting is a couple bucks LOL. If that’s the case then I’ll be okay with getting more but I just don’t see myself needing to buy anymore. I still do have some in my wish list on the Michaels app, but they’re not urgent and they’re not on clearance so I don’t have to worry about them disappearing forever. There is one particular Diamond painting that is the big one that is the bookshelf and I do want to make that as a Christmas present from one of my aunts who actually has a library in her house. I think that would be a nice gift for her.

I really do like these diamond paintings from Michaels more than I like the diamond paintings from Amazon or Temu. The quality of the images is just superior to me. A lot of the ones that I’ve gotten from Amazon and Temu are okay, but the detail is lost in some of the diamond paintings. The ones from Michaels, you can see what everything is supposed to be and the details are just fantastic. Any diamond paintings that I had in my Amazon wishlist are gone. I no longer have any desire to buy those anymore. Also, the very fact that I have so many diamond paintings sitting in my bedroom that I won’t be needing to buy any more diamond paintings anytime soon for the foreseeable future. I probably have enough diamond paintings to keep me busy for the next year.

My Diamond Paintings

On By Michel McDonaldIn diamond paintingLeave a comment
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.

Sunflower Bouquet Diamond Painting from Make Market

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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.

Controlling my paper craft hoard for my Cricut

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

I have a Cricut Explore Air 2, for papercraft. I have collected a lot of 12×12 paper pads over the last 2 years for making box greeting cards. Collecting a lot of different designs requires enough space in your crafting area, which happens to be my bedroom.

A couple of nights ago I had a mini avalanche. I was trying to find a specific pad so that I could get the specific patterns for a card, and the loose scrap paper and a opened pad with 50 pages of white 8 1/2 x 11 sheets fell behind the cabinet that the paper was sitting on. I wanted to buy this cart for a long time, but it was so expensive at $80 from Michael’s. The Avalanche of paper made me decide I really need this cart now.

We went to Michael’s to buy the Essex cart from Recollections (which is the brand of all my paper pads) and I put it together and then started filling it up.

There are four drawers on the left side that hold the 12×12 paper and then two deep drawers on the right side that hold all my 8 1/2 by 11 paper. I don’t have that much 8 1/2 by 11, so I put scraps in the bottom deep drawer.

On the right side there is a tray that you can lift up, but it only holds 2 lb and I’m probably never going to use it, so it can just stay down. The shelf in the middle has more 12×12 pads that the drawers could not hold, and they are mostly glitter paper, vinyl and envelope paper. Then I also put some other craft tools and supplies on the shelf.

I feel so good that the paper pads are cleaned up. this will make finding specific paper pads that I need easier because I put all of the Christmas pads in the top drawer, Valentine’s day and Spring are in the second drawer, and then random designs that aren’t holiday related are in the third drawer. All my 12×12 scraps are in the bottom drawer and they used up the whole drawer.

It’s nice to be organized and to have a clean space for once. I’m so glad I got this.