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.

 

One of the many things I have missed in my office is having a Month-at-a-Glance calendar where I could write in the upcoming special events-important dates such as dinners with friends, birthdays, appointments that I want the family to also remember, travel plans, etc.

There are calendars in many office supply stores that are dry erase, but my office has antique furniture in warm oak tones and the cold look of white board and metal did not appeal to me. Also I find that the dry erase boards tend to stain over time and not look great. One other feature that did not appeal to me was the overall size of the available calendars; they were just too big.

About a year ago I had purchased two 11”x14” frames that I wanted to turn into calendars, but it wasn’t until I bought the Cricut Maker that I knew how I wanted to make them. I created the calendar files using Adobe Illustrator and made my calendars and I wanted to share these files with you.

I am so very happy with the results and my calendars went up on the wall and right into use. They look great, they offer function as well as style. I hope you find that they work for you as well. You can choose any 11”x14” frame with glass, not plastic, and you can choose any fabric and any color pen. I chose light colors to work well in the office, but keep in mind that you will want to be able to write on top of the glass and have it show up. I think light colors work better.

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