Tag: parchment paper

“Starry Night Police Box” Diamond Painting from Temu

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, diamond paintingLeave a comment

I started Diamond painting this year in April and I have made around 16 Diamond paintings so far. This is a diamond painting that I bought from Temu in April and I received it on April 28th.

I finally got around to it in mid-july and I had run out of the silicone release sheets that I bought from Amazon. I had seen a lot of people say on YouTube and on tiktok to use non-stick parchment paper instead of the silicone release sheets from Amazon because it’s cheaper and it works just the same. So I went to Albertsons and bought their brand of non-stick parchment paper, and this is what it looks like.

I had put this parchment paper on two different diamond paintings that I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts. Anyway, it ended in disaster but I was able to peel off the parchment paper and continue working on the diamond paintings. In fact, I have finished the mushroom Diamond painting which was the second Diamond painting that I put the parchment paper on. This has been blogged about with images. That’s not what this post is about.

So when I started working on this Diamond painting with the Starry Night Police Box, I was having issues because this was a different kind of diamond painting. Normally the diamond paintings that I have made in the past have had like a square with a color and a circle with a symbol in the middle of it and that would tell you where to put the diamond drill. Every Diamond painting that I’ve made so far has been like that. This one on the other hand is so different. This one has a graphic printed on the canvas and then the symbols on top of the image with no squares, no circles, it’s just there and you have to put the diamond drills in there.

As you can see, the symbols in this case are all letters and are sometimes difficult to see. Letters are on top of a color, but it’s just different. I mean, I’m not having trouble with it because I have a light box underneath it and so I’ll be able to see the letters clearly, but it’s still difficult to do this one. It’s doable, it’s just weird and different.

One other issue that I’m having is that when I pulled off the parchment paper, it pulled off a lot of the stickiness. So there were some spots where there was no stickiness and I had to buy a glue called Dotz Stick. I poured the glue on a section that didn’t have any stickiness at all and it made it really sticky. But tonight I was working on this section on the left and I was having so many issues with the diamond drills moving around too easily and also every time I would put my finger on the diamond drills on the very top row that I had already done, they would come off in my hand. Like literally I would pull my hand up and the diamond drills would be stuck to my fingers.

I was starting to feel like this Diamond painting is not going to happen. I’m going to have to give up on this because this is not easy and the diamond drills are coming up too easily when they should be stuck on. I should be able to scratch my fingers on the diamond drills and they should stay put. But all I have done was just rest my fingertips on the diamonds and they come off on my fingertips. My fingertips are not sticky. I’m not Spider-Man. I don’t understand why this is happening other than the fact that the parchment paper removed more stickiness than I thought it did. I didn’t know that this was an issue when I made that top part.

So tonight I did the 4×6 section that you see down below and tomorrow I’m going to do the 4×6 section that is to the right of that section, but I added the dotz stick glue to that entire 4×6 section and then let it dry and then put the silicone release sheet back in place. Tomorrow when I start working on this again I will see if it worked and if it’s really sticky and if the drills don’t come off. If that’s the case then I’ll have to do that throughout the whole rest of the diamond painting and just pray that my fingers don’t make any more of those Diamond drills come off that I’ve already put on there before.

I am sure in the entire history of Diamond painting in the last 15 or so years since it was invented that this has happened to someone. Has this ever happened to you, reader who is reading this right now? Let me know because I want to know that I’m not the only one that is going through this.

DO NOT DO THIS with your diamond painting

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, diamond paintingLeave a comment

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.