Diamond painting

Picture No. 2 is finally finished. This time, I took my time.

Dear Andrea, these are wonderfully atmospheric pictures. Such diligent handiwork. Is there a No. 3 in the series—and have you already picked out a spot where they’ll go later?

Best regards, Ina

Thank you, Ina. Yes, there’s a No. 3 and a No. 4 as well. I already have a frameless picture frame that both pictures fit into, but in landscape format my frame doesn’t fit in the spot where I first thought it would. I’m still thinking about it. Maybe I’ll just hang one up first; that would fit there. We’ll see.
Have a nice weekend in advance.

That way, you’re guaranteed not to get bored. Have a great weekend, too.
Love, Ina

Wow, Andrea, that looks absolutely beautiful!
Would you mind telling us a little about this technique? I’ve heard the term before, but I’m not really sure what it entails.

Have a great weekend!
Monika

Hi Monika,
sure, I can explain it to you. The picture is printed on a kind of thick plastic sheet, with an adhesive layer on top, like on a piece of tape. There’s also an extra layer of regular film on top for protection, which you can remove or peel off when you start your picture.
It’s basically “paint by numbers,” but with tiny stones (they come in square or round shapes). They’re as tiny as computer confetti. It comes with a little stylus and a kind of wax—you can press the stylus into it every now and then if the stones don’t stick to it; the stylus is there to help you place the stones more easily.
I usually stick them on from top to bottom, row by row (after sorting the stones into little boxes first). It comes with a small, grooved dish where you can place the stones and pick them up more easily because they’re lined up in rows.
It’s kind of hard to explain. You can also Google it—it’s explained there too.
But it’s a lot of fun; you could even do it with your grandkids, but be careful with the stones—choking hazard, so only under supervision.

Andrea, that really makes me want to give it a try myself. But first I have to finish my embroidery project. It’s basically a similar technique—pixel by pixel. Except that with embroidery, you can’t work in rows. You’d have to keep changing the thread and weaving in ends.

Thanks, Andrea! That sounds really interesting. It’s quite a labor of love. I admire you for your patience.

I used to do paint-by-numbers a lot, as well as large and small embroidery pictures. As a child, I once had a pegboard set with little stones that were square or triangular. You could use them to put pictures together, too. I loved it and, with a lot of patience, kept putting together new pictures again and again.

At the moment, I prefer to stick to crocheting or knitting. But who knows ... you should never say never. 

In any case, your pictures turned out great.

Thank you all so much.
I used to do a lot of paint-by-numbers projects, too. The finished paintings are still lying around somewhere—I don’t really have a place for them.

So, one painting is now hanging on the wall