Do you love diamond painting? If you’ve only ever tried a craft kit before, you need to know how easy it is to make your own! Get the free pattern for my cute cactus diamond painting here and let me show you three ideas for using them in handmade greetings cards.

Once you’ve tried printable diamond painting patterns, you’ll never want to use a kit again as it is so much cheaper and more creative!

Lets get started!

Download your cactus diamond painting free pattern here

cactus diamond painting pattern free Download

How to make cactus diamond painting cards

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Active Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Use the cactus diamond painting printable pattern to make three decal motifs to use in greeting cards

Materials

Diamond drills - square
Card stock
decorative craft paper
glue
double sided adhesive sheet
foam pads

Tools

A diamond painting pen tool
Wax to keep the pen sticky
tray
scissors
envelope template
pencil
optional - cricut machine

Instructions

First print off the cactus diamond art pattern

Cut out each cactus shape place on the adhesive sheet BEFORE you take off the protective paper and trace around it.

Cut out the shapes from the adhesive sheet.

Peel the underside of the protective sheet off and place over your printed cactus design. Ensuring the edges line up. You need to do it this way, so that the front will be the sticky area to place your diamond drills.

Get your diamond drills ready in your tray, look at the corresponding colour chart to match up colours. Many brands use the same numbers as the DMC thread colours.

Peel away a small section of the protective sheet and use the pen tool to pick up and place the diamond drills in the correct positions

If the drills are not picking up easily use a little wax on the end of your pen tool.

Work on one colour at a time - peel away the protective sheet for the next area and continue until the design is filled in.
Once you have completed all three of the cacti, you can use them as motifs in your card making.

I cut three card shapes from card stock and cut out envelopes using template from Creative Fabrica on my cricut machine. This is optional, you could just use pre-made envelopes.

I combined the motifs with decorative paper shapes and some text to make my tree designs. Adding foam shapes for height on some of the shapes and motifs.

What exactly is diamond painting?

Diamond painting otherwise know as crystal art or dot art is similar to painting by numbers and counted cross stitch by which you follow a gridded design and fill in each corresponding colour with a matching diamond drill. These tiny plastic shapes are placed on to an adhesive sheet with either a pen tool or tweezers to fill in the design. Once complete it gives a faceted look to the picture.

What do you need to begin diamond painting?

These are the basic tools you will need for diamond painting:

Diamond drills – these either come in square or round shapes.
A diamond painting pen tool
Wax to keep the pen sticky
a tray
A pre-printed design or a chart that you have covered with double sided adhesive film. Check out Can You Use a Cross Stitch Pattern for Diamond Painting? for instructions on how to prep your own custom sheet.

How does diy diamond painting work?

If you’ve tried diamond painting kits and want to make your own. It can be simple enough to do so. Check out my diamond painting charts for free patterns and use either pre-printed adhesive graph canvas or use glue to follow the designs as you would a cross stitch chart.

The beauty of diy diamond painting is you can customise your choice of colours and use the completed pieces in all manner of craft projects from wall art to gift tags, card making and scrapbooking projects.