Creating Custom Diamond Art from a Kit

One of the items in my Prime Con swag bag back in May was the Rainbow Tree Diamond Art by Leisure Arts (affiliate link). It's pretty, but as I got new Diamond Art projects to review, I kept moving this one to the bottom of the stack. Rather than complete it as intended...

... I used the kit to create my own custom design!

The first thing I did was to cut out a cardstock heart that was approximately the same size as the tree image. I traced the pattern onto the protective plastic using a Sharpie. 

I cut out the heart, following the lines I'd drawn on the plastic. I cut off the color guide from one side of the canvas and threw the rest of it away. 

Then I got to dotting! Because the canvas was printed, I started out by following the color guide, filling in the reds, oranges, and yellows on the left. 

Three problems arose: First, I didn't want the black branches to show, so I had to get creative there. Through experimentation, I found that hiding the black was the most effective when I did an ombre transition of color directly across the black areas. You can see a little bit of the black in the light yellow area, but it's camouflaged well elsewhere. 

My second problem was that there were two tiny areas (upper left and in the middle far right) where there wasn't any adhesive because my heart had extended slightly beyond the size of the tree. I solved that problem with craft glue. The dots stuck beautifully. 

Problem #3 was that the dots didn't perfectly fit the arbitrary heart shape I'd cut out. Take a closer look: 

The perfectionist in me was annoyed that the rows aren't smooth and perfect all the way around the heart like they are along the bottom left, but I got over it. I haven't decided what I'm doing with the finished heart, but I'll choose something that allows me to camouflage the edges. 

I completed 98% of my heart using the colors in the kit, but I've amassed such a large collection of leftover dots (see my storage system here!) from other kits that I used some other colors to help with the ombre effect I needed to cover the black.

I've been using my leftover gems to dot everything that doesn't move. It's so much fun! Tomorrow I'll show you a fun Christmas ornament and Friday my new hair accessory, both made with leftover Diamond Dotz.