I’m sitting here on my couch surfing the web wondering what size diamond painting should I buy?

One of the biggest questions I always have when ordering a 5d diamond painting is what size should I order.

I did some digging around on this and here’s the conclusion I came up with.

When it comes to painting with diamonds bigger is better

With that said it also depends on:

• Your diamond painting techniques
• What you intend to do with the diamond art when it’s complete
• What type of diamond painting it is
• What shape are the diamond dotz? Round or square
• The clarity of original picture

Part of the answer to the question what are the best diamond painting kits has got to be what is the right size diamond painting kit.

Let’s look at each of these.

But before we do, real quick, here's a code for 20% off for getting this far: 2020

Diamondxpres

Use it anytime you'd like.

Why are bigger diamond paintings better?

Each diamond is like a pixel in a picture.

Just like in pictures, the more pixels the better.

But, unlike pictures where you can cram more pixels in a given space, the only way to get more pixels into a diamond painting is to buy bigger diamond art painting kits.

Looking at the math a 20cm x 20cm diamond painting has exactly 6400 diamonds.

A 40cm x 40cm diamond painting will have 25,600 diamonds to represent the exact same picture as the 20cm x 20cm.

So a 40x40cm diamond painting has 4 times the number of diamond drills because it is 4 times bigger.

But it still doesn't have millions of pixels like a picture would.

Does the math look funny? I had to check it twice.

See math below or skip ahead if that’s not your thing.

1 diamond is 2.5mm x 2.5mm.

There are 16 diamond dots in each square cm.

20cm x 20cm = 400 square cm

400 x 16 = 6400

40cm x 40cm = 1600 square cm

1600 x 16 = 25,600

A 40cm x 40cm diamond painting is not twice as big as a 20cm x 20cm diamond painting....it's 4 times bigger.

In a 60cm x 60cm diamond painting there are 57,600 diamond dotz!

That’s almost 10x as much clarity than in a 20cm x 20cm diamond painting.

And an 80cm x 80cm diamond painting has 102,400 diamonds….wow!

So for pure clarity of the finished product a large diamond painting is much better, exponentially so.

But again, none of these come close to the number of pixels you'd find in a picture. An 80 x 80cm photo would have billions upon billions of pixels.

There's also another very important 5d diamond painting factor to consider as well.

The number of colors.

A diamond art painting is just a representation of a picture

A normal color picture has thousands of colors and hues.

A diamond picture is normally limited to 25-45 colors.

If a picture has can handle hundreds of different shades of a color.

For instance light blue, blue and dark blue. Including all the shades of blue in between.

If a diamond painting has many different shades of any color then it must compromise and pick a few shades to represent them all.

The color match between a picture and a diamond painting will never be exact.

Larger diamond paintings will have more colors and will be sharper than smaller diamond paintings.

This is another reason bigger is better.

Check out this clarity guide to help determine what your DIY diamond painting kit will look like.

Here’s some good news. We’re going to show you how to get bigger diamond painting kits for less money later in this article.

How do I convert centimeters to inches?

It's easy.

Just divide the number of centimeters by 2.54

20 centimeters / 2.54 = 7.8"

That's not so easy really.

You can also multiply the centimeters by 4 and divide by 10.

4 x 20cm = 80cm / 10 = ~8"

Again, really not that easy.

We've made it super easy with this automatic conversion tool and our easy to use chart.

Who knew that to paint with diamonds you had to know math?

Centimeters to Inches Converter

Type a value in the centimeters field to convert the value to inches:

centimeters

inches:

We'll keep the conversion chart and tool HERE forever and ever so you won't have to go look for it again.

What about my diamond painting skill level?

I’ve found that completing diamond painting kits is like anything else in life.

It takes practice and time to get better and more efficient.

When I did my first diamond art kit, diamonds went everywhere every time I poured them into the boat.

And, I couldn’t shake them correctly to get them to line up.

Here's a cool video that offers a few basic diamond painting tips.

The better you are at diamond painting the faster you can go.

I had problems putting the glue on my diamond pen and most of the gems that I put down I had to painstakingly fix with a set of tweezers.

It's a good thing I had all the diamond painting supplies I needed.

But I stuck with it and soon I was laying out ten at time, not quickly, but I could do it.

I just had to concentrate a little bit and simply apply the diamonds to the adhesive canvas.

I was creating diamond art! And now, I've completed many diamond art kits.

Then I saw a video of someone who had done hundreds of diamond paintings and it blew my mind.

I thought I was watching the video in fast motion but I wasn’t.

That's also when I realized why they sometimes call it diamond painting cross-stitch.

I think for skill level, beginners should stick to diamond paintings no bigger than 30cm on either side, meaning the biggest diamond painting a beginners should buy is about a 30cm x 30cm.

Clearly anyone is capable of completing a bigger picture, but it’s always nice to get to get that rush when completing a diamond painting kit and it will keep you from giving up on a larger picture if it is taking too long.

For accomplished diamond painters, and for this I mean someone who has finished 10 or more diamond art paintings and can lay the diamonds in fairly rapidly they can go up the 60cm x 60cm range.

57,600 diamonds is a lot of diamonds even when pasting them 10 at a time.

An expert should normally go for the larger size diamond paintings for the clarity of the diamond painting and for the challenge.

Who is an expert diamond painter?

I can’t really think of a definition but you’d know an expert when you saw one.

He or she can handle the ten diamond pen with ease, never misses a spot and paints at a blistering speed.

An expert could easily crank out a smaller diamond painting in one sitting.

Here is an easy to remember skill level guide:

Beginner: 30cm x 30cm diamond paintings and below.

Intermediate: 60cm x 60cm diamond paintings and below.

Expert: Recommend 60cm x 60cm diamond paintings and above but can handle any size.

An additional thought on larger diamond paintings.

Large group projects are fun. And, it doesn’t matter what skill level everyone is as long as they are participating.

Just as jigsaw puzzles are great group fun activities so are 5d diamond paintings.

Here’s a video of my daughter and her friends working on a diamond painting during Thanksgiving break.

They were hooked in seconds and one of them picked it up amazingly fast.

My daughter has completed several diamond paintings and creates her own diamond painting videos.

It's easy to see why cross stitch and paint by numbers diamond painting are taking the crafting world by storm.

That’s definitely one of the benefits of diamond art painting, not only is it clean and wholesome family fun, it’s relatively easy to learn.

How does size affect what I can do with a finished diamond painting?

Finished diamond paintings can be framed and hung like any other painting.

As shown earlier the larger diamonds art kits will have better definition so are more likely candidates for framing.

However, there are many simple designs that look nice even at the 20cm x 20cm size.

Here's a picture of a finished small diamond painting.

In this area it’s a matter of taste and preference.

The smaller designs are well suited for kids’ rooms, bathrooms, dens and the study, while the larger, more brilliant and radiant diy kits are ideally suited for living rooms, dining rooms, and even hallways and entrances.

If you'd like to see a collection of completed diamond paintings you can visit our Diamond Painted Completed board on Pinterest.

Of course finished diamond paintings make great gifts too. Especially the custom diamond paintings.

Size, as it pertains to what to do with a finished diamond painting is more a matter of taste and style than it is clarity of the picture.

What effect does round or square drill have on the finished diamond painting?

Or, to put it another way, what is the difference between a round drill diamond painting or a square drill diamond painting?

A square drill 5d diamond painting will have slightly more clarity than a round drill simply because the drills are more tightly packed.

All round drill diamond painting kits have areas around the gem that physically can’t be covered by the gem.

It does help that the gems are extremely small so the effect is not so acute, but it is still noticeable.

To be honest with you I can only tell the difference the closer I get to the diamond painting, from a distance they all look the same to me, bright, shiny, brilliant, sparkly and awesome.

For smaller pictures, square or round, there’s just not going to be that much definition but with the round the lack of clarity will be a bit more pronounced.

What about the clarity of the original picture?

Clarity of the original picture will absolutely affect the final product.

Most diamond paintings are printed on massive printers from a photo or template.

So whatever the going in picture looks like is what the diamond painting canvas is going to look like once it’s printed.

Because every diamond painting picture is pixelated to 2.5mm x 2.5mm resolution it stands to reason that no diamond painting will ever be as clear as the original picture and a blurry or unclear picture going in will become more so when transformed to a diamond painting.

This is the key for a good custom diamond painting.

Send in a clear, crisp and sharply focused picture and your diamond painting will look that much better.

Here’s a link on how to sharpen a picture without photoshop. With photoshop it’s just as easy.

Now for the fun part.

If you go to our website right now and order a custom diamond painting we will give you 20% off the original price for a custom diamond painting.

Use it to upgrade one size from a 40cm x 40cm to a 50cm x 50cm or use it to buy two and send one to a friend.

Just use code CUSTOM20 and follow this link to get your custom diamond painting today at a reduced price!

You'll be surprised how easy it is to order a custom diamond painting and what pictures you can use. We explain all that at the blog post here.

Conclusion

It’s no surprise that when it comes to painting with diamonds bigger is normally better. But also like a lot of other things in life, it depends.

All diamond painting sizes are fun and quite frankly not everyone can handle the large diamond painting kits.

Personally, I don’t think I have the patience to complete anything larger than a 60cm x 60cm, just because I can’t see as well as I used to and I struggle to get the gems lined up.

As far as square diamonds vs round diamonds, I can tell you we get more square diamond painting orders than round diamond paintings so I suspect square ones are slightly more popular.

We also get a lot of mixed orders so many individuals prefer either it seems.

Botttomline: Diamond painting is a fun creative outlet, no matter the size or shape!

Got any comments or suggestions? We’d love to hear from you.

Here's a link to our award winning diamond painting blog that will show you how to do diamond painting as well as offer some amazing diamond painting tips and techniques.

Feel free to share with your friends.

Thanks

Lynn Hamilton