Preparation is Key

1. If possible set up a space in your home that is dedicated to diamond painting. This will ensure you always know where your tools and various crafting equipment are kept. By staying organized you reduce the time it takes to run around and get set up - precious time that could be spent actually painting!
2. Another thing to prepare and maximize your time is to put your hair up in a ponytail and out of the way. It surprisingly takes up so much time to be fussing about with hair. Plus this reduces the risk of your strands falling into the adhesive.
3. Don’t forget to roll up those sleeves while you are at it! Those tiny fibres are a lot harder to remove from your adhesive!
4. Get rid of distractions and narrow down your focus to music, youtube, movies or audiobooks in some headphones. This is also a hack to make the time go a lot faster as well!
5. Keep your diamonds organized by numerical DMC order

Technique for speedy Diamond Painting

1. Use a large plastic tray or chocolate box so that you can work with multiple trays and DMCs at once! But be sure to keep your trays labelled if working with many colours so as not to get confused!
2. Use your multi-placer tool to see if you paint more quickly with it or else try other methods like the checker boarding pattern. Everyone has a different preference and ability when it comes to working with the tools. Test out different strategies to see which you are most comfortable with. Sometimes working with multi-placers can be more trouble if the diamonds are not placed straight. The effort it takes to straighten your diamonds may cancel out the convenience of placing down multiple at once. A good trick for straighter drills with a multi-placer is to walk it from heel to toe (left to right) while placing the diamonds on the adhesive.
3. No matter which tool you use, a good general practice is to keep your hand and tray as close to the area you are working on as possible. If your tray is too far from the workable area - time is spent traveling across the table to pick up and place down your diamonds. This can also be harder on your arms and wrist. Nataliya suggests getting comfortable with a swivel and wrist movement to place your drills. You can use parchment paper to help cover and protect the canvas when you are working on hard to reach areas like the centre.

Working by Section VS Colour

This is an age old debate! The logic is that working by section forces you to switch colours often thereby taking up lots of your time. Switching between baggies and sorting out diamonds ends up costing you precious minutes. The rebuttal is that working by section can help you gain momentum and satisfaction thereby helping your motivation to complete a project. However the same can be said about working with colour in that you see the entire picture coming to life at once. In the end it is up to the diamond painter to decide which strategy is best. Still we encourage you to at least try both to test and challenge yourself!

It’s important to note that even with all of these and other tips and tricks , diamond painting is a process! You are placing thousands of tiny diamonds onto thousands of little, delegated spaces. This craft takes patience and persistence and above all else - it is not a race! Enjoy the relaxing nature of painting and the many health benefits that come along with it. We hope this article has helped spark an excitement to try new strategy or even prioritize your time to include more diamond painting.