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    The Diamond Painting Guide and Logbook: Tips and Tricks for Creating, Personalizing, and Displaying Your Vibrant Works of Art
    The Diamond Painting Guide and Logbook: Tips and Tricks for Creating, Personalizing, and Displaying Your Vibrant Works of Art
    The Diamond Painting Guide and Logbook: Tips and Tricks for Creating, Personalizing, and Displaying Your Vibrant Works of Art
    Ebook253 pages1 hour

    The Diamond Painting Guide and Logbook: Tips and Tricks for Creating, Personalizing, and Displaying Your Vibrant Works of Art

    By Jennifer Roberts

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    About this ebook

    The ultimate guide to the hottest new crafting trend! 

    Colorful, creative, and totally addictive, diamond painting has taken the crafting world by storm. Now, with The Diamond Painting Guide and Logbook readers can get expert advice and inspiration on how to take their artwork to the next level.

    Inspired by cross stitch and paint-by-number, diamond painting involves carefully placing colorful jeweled "diamond" resin pieces on a canvas to create gorgeous works of art. This book is the first ever guide to the best practices for making flawless, stunning paintings, including:

    • Best tools and uses
    • Easy tips, tricks, and techniques
    • Designing customized paintings
    • Finishing, framing, and displaying artwork
    • Maximizing therapeutic benefits
    • Logging pages for tracking favorite projects
    • And much, much more!

    Whether you’re a beginner interested in learning a fun new skill, or an experienced diamond painter ready to take your work to the next level, this book will give you everything you need to create show-stopping paintings.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRocky Nook
    Release dateJun 30, 2020
    ISBN9781681985923
    The Diamond Painting Guide and Logbook: Tips and Tricks for Creating, Personalizing, and Displaying Your Vibrant Works of Art
    Author

    Jennifer Roberts

    Jennifer Roberts writes short stories. However, her more accomplished alter ego CJ Roberts, has sold over 3,000 copies of her debut novel Captive in the Dark and is writing a sequel to come out in September of 2012.

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    • 5/5
      Very informative. I love the portfolio canvas storage idea since I don't always want to frame the painting.

    Book preview

    The Diamond Painting Guide and Logbook - Jennifer Roberts

    Section One

    THE BEGINNING OF A DIAMOND PAINTING ADDICTION ADVENTURE

    INTRODUCTION

    When someone has an addiction, they dive in, changing their life to accommodate it. While addictions can be harmful, they can also be very positive. And this is where my story begins.

    I am a trauma therapist who has worked with human-trafficking survivors and refugees from around the world. My heart goes out to those who have lost their voice, journeyed to reclaim it, found freedom, and endeavored to be all they were born to be. My work takes immense amounts of emotional energy. And although I love every minute of supporting my clients, I also need to renew my own emotional tank. This is true for everyone, which is why we seek out ways to relax, unwind, and enjoy life. We desperately need positive distractions to recoup from our demanding daily existence.

    At times I’ve acted like I’m a superhero and ignored self-care. But when one neglects one’s self, one becomes susceptible to addiction—mine became diamond painting.

    There was a period in my life when I did not follow my own self-care advice and found myself ill for the umpteenth time. Lying in bed for the third day in a row and miserable, I started scrolling Facebook. Between my best friend’s post about something cute her child said, and the neighborhood-watch page about another lost dog, was an advertisement. In my cold-medicated state, I clicked on the video. It entranced me with amazing colors and sparkles, the words crafting, do it yourself, and 50 percent off. I was instantly hooked.

    The ad was for a new craft called diamond painting. I am an avid crocheter, scrapbooker, and photographer and could not resist the allure of a new art discipline. I scrolled through the company’s catalog until an image caught my eye. I couldn’t find my wallet fast enough. Little did I—or my husband—know that one advertisement was going to forever change our lives. I entered my debit card number, clicked the purchase button, and waited for the confirmation page to load. Smiling, I laid back in bed and drifted off into a blissful sleep.

    A few weeks later, I received a package. I remember it like it was yesterday. The Winter Olympics were on TV, it was pizza night, and I was about to try and figure out how to do this craft with directions that were only in Chinese. In the box was a canvas on which were symbols, numbers, and glue. There was a cover atop the glue for protection. There was also a stack of little plastic circles.

    With instructions in a foreign language, no YouTube channels to refer to, and no hype from the crafting world, I was lost. Seriously, what had I gotten myself into?

    My husband still laughs today when he remembers watching me awkwardly holding the pen-like, hollow plastic, pink object that had a metal tip on the end. I assumed it must be the tool for putting the plastic circles on the canvas, but how were they going to stick to the pen, I wondered? Ten minutes later, fully frustrated, I looked down to the floor and saw a little pink square of something squishy and soft. To this day I don’t know why, but I poked the metal tip into the doughy substance and the pink goo went into the pen.

    Another 10 minutes of experimenting and I figured out that the pen was the applicator and the pink item was wax that allowed me to pick up the plastic circles and then place them on the canvas, based on the color-coding key (insert deep breath here). Although I’d missed half of the Olympic luge competition, I had earned my own gold medal—discovering diamond painting and the endless joy it was about to bring to my life.

    Working on my first diamond painting, I was amazed how my stress levels began to drop. Joy began to filter back into my life. Who would have guessed that thousands of little plastic pieces and glue could change the trajectory of my life? Once the painting was complete, I asked my husband his thoughts on me purchasing one painting a month. Our budget could handle $10–$20 a month if it brought me peace, he said.

    My first diamond painting, Teal Tree from Paint with Diamonds.

    Now, as I look back, one painting a month is laughable. I went head first down the diamond painting rabbit hole and there is no coming back. I know the diamond painting vocabulary as if it were my second language. I’ve accumulated enough diamond paintings to request a special insurance policy (wink). I started a YouTube channel and Instagram page, and now you are holding my first book.

    The moral of my journey—and this book—is that balance is essential. All work and no play, or all play and no work, is not the best recipe for success. I urge you to find something you love and share it with the world. You are important, valued, and worth the time and energy it takes to rejuvenate your soul.

    WHY DIAMOND PAINT?

    When I show my diamond paintings to friends, family, and strangers, the first thing they ask—after oohing and aahing at my creations—is, Why do you diamond paint? Initially, I didn’t know how to answer. I just knew it helped me unwind like nothing else. I’m contemplative by nature, so I pondered the question, which led me to the reason I diamond paint.

    PSYCHOEDUCATION OF THE BRAIN

    Psychoeducation is a fancy word to describe why we respond to something the way we do. Life is tough, stress is no joke, and when time allows for relaxation, it is nearly impossible to truly rest. Why is this? The best explanation is Dr. Daniel Siegel’s Hand Model of the Brain, as I have found it offers the simplest yet most accurate reasoning behind our actions when stressed.

    Imagine your brain as your fist with your thumb hiding under your fingers.

    The wrist. The wrist represents our survival brain and is the part of the brain that forms first in the womb. It symbolizes our autonomic nervous system, which controls unconscious bodily functions such as breathing, blinking, and heart rate. The survival brain keeps us alive and therefore is equipped with an alarm system. When we are threatened—physically, emotionally, or mentally—our survival brain alerts us that we are in danger. The body then begins producing the hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which increase heart rate and quicken breathing, putting us into fight-or-flight mode. In this state, we are at our most vigilant, but also our most stressed. As the situation calms, alarms quiet and our survival brain releases the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which allows us to begin breathing more deeply and return to a relaxed mood.

    At least this is what is supposed to happen. In today’s complicated, stressful world, our survival brain is overtaxed; we find ourselves in an unhealthy cycle in which our fire alarm is going off repeatedly, putting undue stress on our bodies. As more cortisol and adrenaline are pumped into our system, it not only becomes harder to return to a place of calm, we also go from zero to 10 with the slightest trigger. This proves exhausting on our brains and bodies and leads to less restful sleep, irritability, and high levels of anxiety.

    The thumb. The thumb represents the emotional brain. Our emotions are a byproduct of the survival brain or the thinking brain, which is discussed in the next paragraph. The more often the fire alarm goes off, the more it feeds our emotional brain, which expresses itself through fear, sadness, loneliness, anger, and other states of mind. The emotional brain and survival brain become best friends playing off one another to create the perfect storm for trauma triggers and stress.

    The four fingers. The four fingers folded over the thumb represent the cerebrum, also known as our thinking brain. This is the outer, grooved portion of our brain and it controls logic,

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