The diamond art scene in Australia leaves much to be desired when compared to the United States. That’s why Create Love Share was founded! We want to give our Aussie customers a better choice when it comes to nurturing their crafting addiction. Diamond paintings can take a long time to complete and are usually framed or given away as gifts as high value items. Here’s how to not get caught out with a cheap product!
The number one thing customers care about is the quality of the design! Here’s what the industries don’t tell you about: there are two very distinct ways to design diamond art.
As the header suggests, this type of design is almost completely automated by some designing software. A picture is fed directly into the software and it produces a colour matrix that tries to roughly match the colours of the original picture.
If you are a part of any diamond painting groups, you may have heard of the term “confetti”. When you purchase either a custom kit or a cheap stock kit from a huge marketplace, the colours will tend to be chaotic and messy. Something that looks like it should be one or two solid colours might end up being 10 or more!
This is how a section that should be all black ends up being different shades of blues, purples and maybe even some unrelated colours like green or red. Ah, so that’s why it’s called “confetti!”.
Dot matrix preview simulation sample of "Sea Breeze Trail" - Automated Design
When a design is done with real human hands, it’s called a hand designed diamond painting! In this case, an expert artist looks over the computer generated chaos and sees what can be improved. Usually that means many “confetti” colours are substituted out so that objects have consistency.
The designers painstakingly look over each and every dot of colour to see what can be improved. This process can easily take anywhere between 2 up to 8 hours for really large canvases. But the results speak for themselves!
Not only does the final design look better than the fully automated version, they’re much easier and comfortable to do! You, the diamond painter, will be able to do large swathes of similar colours in one go and your immersion in the activity won’t be constantly disturbed with the need to switch colours continuously.
This is a direct result of the design software not knowing how to reproduce a certain colour spectrum. The drill colours are limited after all!
How do you know if a design is automated or hand-designed, before you buy it? Usually the shop you buy it from won’t tell you or they will pretend to not know the difference. But here’s a tell-tale sign: if they’re offering multiple sizes (more than 4), they probably haven’t invested the time and money into hand designing. After all, hand designs area expensive to produce and require a lot of stock to be produced. If the store you’re looking at is offering 5 different sizes (usually more), they’re doing print-on-demand automated designs every time you place an order.
Dot matrix preview simulation sample of "Sea Breeze Trail" - Hand Design
Next up, we cover everything what you should know about diamond drills; which if you don't know, is the official name for the sparkly, tiny diamond beads that come with every kit!
]]>Genuine resin drills are much more expensive than their acrylic cousins. Square resin drills especially will not "pop" out of the canvas (a phenomenon aptly called "popping drills"). If you've ever purchased a cheap square kit from Amazon or Aliexpress and the like, you may have noticed it's quite frustrating to keep the drills on the canvas and in a straight line. If you're about to invest time and money into a kit that will hang on your wall or be sent as a gift, it pays to pay attention to this detail!
Many stores out there will claim they supply “resin drills” when in fact, they are betting that the customers won’t be able to tell the difference (or worse, they themselves don’t know the difference!). It’s difficult to know for certain what type a company is using, but you can simply apply the same sleuthing advice we gave earlier: if the company is selling multiple sizes per design, they’re most likely using the cheaper acrylic drills.
Resin drills are expensive and can only be produced in bulk. It’s much more likely that they’ll be used for designs that have been pain-stakingly hand designed and manufactured with care.
Actually, the answer is no – the technology to manufacture drills is actually advancing each year, and top stores who continuously update their stock may be using higher quality acrylic drills that better closely match their resin cousins (much like how synthetic diamonds are becoming more alike real diamonds – imagine that!).
If you find a store that you absolutely trust and have no problems with their drills, acrylic is fine too! Just make sure you aren’t over paying for any false promises.
Which to choose? Square base drills or round? There are arguments for both sides and yes, there are avid diamond painting fans who steadfastly prefer one over the other. Many just focus on whether or not they enjoy the design and are happy to do a kit with either shape. So if you're just starting out and don't have a preference yet, which one to choose? We'll cover the differences in detail.
Squares are the most popular choice among many diamond painting fans by a majority of about 60 to 40. They are more challenging to place correctly on to the canvas and the time taken to complete a square kit may be much longer compared to round drills. There are no gaps in between a square bead and its surrounding neighbours and so placement is less forgiving.
However the absence of gaps is actually the reason customers love the squares. The final result when the canvas is completed looks more "complete" because when done correctly, none of the printed base is visible and it's just 100% sparkles.
Another reason Squares have a big fan base is due to the satisfying "click" our diamond artists feel when placing each square piece. The margin for error is quite narrow, so in order to fit them squarely onto the canvas (haha), some force is required to push a drill into its place on a crowded area. It's definitely an experience worth trying!
The humble round based drills may be less popular but in this writer's humble opinion, they are no more or less inferior to their counterpart! Round drills are just perfect for beginners who have no experience in diamond painting.
Placement on the canvas is much more forgiving and you can finish a kit in faster time than it takes to complete a Square kit. There are no corners and hence much more room to adjust if you make a mistake. Perfect for those of us who are a bit less patient, or whose hands aren't as steady as they used to be ;).
When completing a round kit, the final result may understandably have tiny gaps showing through. However for most designs, especially in larger sizes, these gaps are hardly noticeable especially when viewed at a distance. Since most customers choose to frame their completed artwork on a wall, it ends up not becoming an issue at all!
All in all, it really comes down to preference. Without trying both, we recommend you not come to any conclusions about your own preference just by reading about their differences online. Both are completely viable and guaranteed to result in a great time! Happy diamond painting!
Up next – last but not least on our list of three, we’re rolling out the canvases!
]]>The choices on how these are manufactured can be divided into two major sections: the canvas material itself and the method of applying glue. We’ll start with the former.
In the early days of diamond painting, these canvases were the only options available. Broadly speaking, they’re made of chemical components combined with various percentages of polyester to create a material that is both strong and flexible. The canvases come in either plain white or pre-fused with sparkly glitter for a bit of extra glitz.
A trend in recent years saw a surge in popularity with these type of canvases. There are two main types that companies have made: “velvet” (cloth or satin) and ecological cotton. The velvet variants are usually very soft to touch, similar to the sensation of rubbing your fingers against a cotton shirt or coat jacket. They are also a bit easier to flatten out so long as there are no major folds in the canvas. Ecological cotton, as the name suggests, were made with some degree of environmental friendliness in mind and are also fairly softer than synthetic fibres.
It’s important to note that, unlike the synthetic fibre canvases which were made especially for printing, soft fabric canvases may have some colour bleeding and symbol blurriness. This is a result of manufacturing using a printer that was not designed to print on cloth fabrics.
This is largely up to preference. The material of the canvas ultimately do not affect your diamond painting experience to any significant degree. Soft fabric canvases are generally more expensive to buy, and may be more difficult to work with for those who already have a hard time seeing symbols. However many customers swear by them and enjoy the soft texture on their fingers as they work their craft.
The glue or adhesive is the stuff that holds everything together; specifically, the diamond drills to the canvas itself. Here again we have two distinct types of adhesive application. One is poured glue and the other is double adhesive.
This gluing method has recently become the new gold standard for canvas manufacturing. While a bit more time consuming and expensive to produce, diamond painting fans swear by it and would not have it any other way.
As the name suggests, the glue is poured directly on to the canvas right after printing has finished. A wood frame is used to make sure the glue stays within the boundaries of the drilling area, and a levelling scraper runs over the design to perfectly spread out the glue.
Kits made using the poured glue method are stickier than double adhesive, but may lack consistency if the application was not done carefully. But the best thing about it is no peeling off the glue with the protective film when you’re starting a project!
A double-sided adhesive layer is a thin, sticky film applied straight on to a printed canvas. Manufacturing with double adhesive is a method that gets new kits from the production line to the shop with greatly increased speed and lowered cost. This is great for the store, but in some cases not so great for the you – the customer!
Double adhesive kits are only slightly less sticky than poured glue, however they are prone to at least one annoying problem. All diamond painting fans are familiar with the sheet of protective film that must cover every canvas to protect the glue from drying out or sticking on to things that are not your diamond drills. With double adhesive, there is a chance that you might pull off the adhesive layer along with the film itself! While there are ways to fix this if it happens, it isn’t a great experience for those new to the craft.
Another issue is that the adhesive itself may have a shorter shelf life than liquid glue, so unfortunately you might find that a year after finishing your work of art, some drills might start falling off! Although in the end it all comes down to quality. Buy anything too cheap and you might find yourself with buyer’s remorse later on!
The last thing to consider about canvases is one that most companies nowadays do tend to get right. Canvases that have gone through a premium quality printer with high-grade ink cartridges come out the other side with crystal clear HD symbols and vibrant colours. Whereas, manufacturers that don’t invest in higher tier printers may have duller colours and symbols that are a bit harder to read. The end result might be the same regardless of print quality on the canvas, but it could have a huge effect on your painting experience!
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