Diamond Painting Framing

We frame finished diamond paintings at 1242 Davie Street. A diamond painting is a printed canvas coated with adhesive and covered by hand with small resin pieces called drills. The finished surface is raised, heavy for its size and held on by that adhesive alone. A good frame keeps the canvas flat, keeps pressure off the drills and keeps dust away from them.

Stretched on bars or framed flat

There are two ways to prepare the canvas, and the blank margin around your picture decides between them.

• Stretched. The canvas is pulled over a wooden frame of stretcher bars and fixed at the back, like a painting. The fold has to fall in blank canvas, because drills that sit on a fold come loose. This needs a wide blank margin on all four sides. Our canvas stretching page explains the method.
• Framed flat. The canvas lies flat on a rigid board inside a frame. The lip of the frame, or a mat (a border of card with an opening), covers the blank margin. This works with a narrow margin, and it is the usual choice when the drills run close to the edge of the canvas.

Leave the margin on the canvas when you bring it in. Once the margin has been trimmed off, the canvas can only be framed flat.

Stretching over bars is the method used for paintings on canvas. Terrifying Beauty is one from our gallery: an acrylic on canvas, 80 by 60 cm, with whales moving through a dark blue sky above a woman sitting on the floor.

With glazing or without

Glazing means the sheet of glass or acrylic at the front of the frame. A diamond painting can be framed with it or without it, and each choice has a cost.

• Without glazing. Light reaches the facets of the drills directly, so the sparkle is at its strongest. Dust settles on the surface, and round drills leave small gaps of open adhesive between them where dust sticks.
• With glazing. Dust stays out and nothing can knock a drill off. We fit spacers, thin strips hidden under the lip of the frame, so the sheet sits clear of the drills and never presses on them. The frame is deeper as a result. Anti-reflective glass adds fewer reflections of its own than plain glass, and acrylic keeps a large frame lighter.

Weight and hanging

Resin drills add weight. A large diamond painting in a deep frame weighs more than a paper print of the same size, so the hanging hardware is matched to the finished weight. Our guide to hanging hardware explains the options.

Weight also rises with size on an ordinary canvas. Rising, an acrylic on canvas with a pale hand against black and grey paint, is 95 by 125 cm, and hanging hardware for a painting this large is matched to its weight.

Before you bring it in

• Press the whole surface flat with a roller or a heavy book, so every drill is seated.
• Fill any gaps with the spare drills from the kit, and bring the spares that are left.
• Carry the canvas flat if you can. If it has to be rolled, roll it loosely around a wide tube with the drills facing outward. Rolled with the drills facing inward, they press against each other and can come off.
• Tell us if you have brushed a sealer over the drills. A sealer is a clear coating some people apply at home to lock the drills in place.

What changes the cost

Size comes first. After that, the cost depends on whether the canvas is stretched or framed flat, on the depth of the moulding (the shaped wood or metal the frame is cut from), and on the glazing you choose. A frame with no glazing uses less material. We quote at the counter when we have seen the piece.

What to send from outside Vancouver

Send the height and width of the picture, the width of the blank margin on each side, and a photograph. A finished jigsaw is covered on our jigsaw puzzle framing page.

Walk in at 1242 Davie Street during opening hours. Enter your email on this page for a 10% framing code to show at the shop, and see custom framing for everything else we frame.

Where to find us