Diamond Painting is a newer craft that is similar to a paint-by-numbers type of activity without the paint. The finished piece also reminds me a bit of a cross-stitched piece, but instead of using embroidery thread, like DMC floss, the image comes together by placing faceted resin diamonds to a sticky canvas with a design imprinted upon it.

While attending a craft group meet up, I was pleased to see that one of the group members was working away on a large piece that was colorful and had a gorgeous shimmering finish. I could not stop asking questions about this clever activity. She was working on a cheeky cow design where the cow had a brilliant mask of flowers and there were so many colors to work with that I was immediately inspired to get my hands on a kit and try diamond painting for myself. There was only one downside to this activity...I had no idea what to do with the finished design!

My home is full of antique furniture and art. These diamond paintings, although beautiful when they are completed and framed, are just to modern for my home. I wanted to find a scaled down option so I logged on to my Amazon account and starting searching.

There are some small card designs on Amazon and probably on other places on the web, but the selections were limited to holiday greeting cards. Diamond painting tools were plentiful as well, but the "diamond drills" or faceted resin diamonds were a bit harder to find. Fortunately, I did find two options that worked; one for square diamonds and one for round diamonds. Once I managed to find the materials that I needed (the "diamonds", the tool kit and the way to make my cards sticky) I was ready to create my own DIY Diamond Painting Greeting Cards. 

 

Now I needed some designs, so I got to work. First I designed a beautiful Vintage Rose so I could created Mother's Day cards for my mom and my mother-in-law. Next I created a cute Narwhal design, then a simple Geometric design. These are all for sale in the shop. Just click here to see the whole collection.

 

Handwritten Foil Embossing is a new technique for me. Imagine how exciting it will be to add your signature to a letter or card and then emboss it with beautiful foil. Think of how many items you could personalize with a truly elegant finish. I can think of so many items where this could be useful and beautiful.

This Craft Curiosity video shows an introductory technique that you can recreate without a large investment in a foiling application machine such as the Heidi Swapp Foiling machine. You can skip the embossing altogether by using a bone folder. A bone folder is a dull flat tool that can be used in paper folding or origami, but it would also be very effective here to press the foil down firmly onto the Zig Memory System Two Way Glue Pen.

When you use thermal reactive foil products one thing that you want to keep in mind is that you can use every bit of the foil. If you create a project with a design like you can see in the Handwritten Foil Embossing video; a design where you are going to press the foil and then peel it up, and then have a scrap piece with a lot of remaining gold foil, you can use the rest of the foil for additional projects. Be mindful of this when you are making something. You want to keep every scrap until no foil remains. Another little secret is if you pull up your foil and one part didn’t stick, just put some more foil over it and press again, firmly. Peel back the sheet and you should have a nicely covered area.

Check out the video to see what I did in just a matter of a few minutes and if you have any comments, I would love to hear from you.

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