Before we dive deeper, what exactly is a diamond painting pen? Diamond painting pen is the most important tool that allows you to pick up your diamond drills and place them on the sticky canvas. The pen makes it so much easier than having to pick each drill with a tweezer.

Most diamond painting pen that is included in a kit is made out of a plastic tube with a tip, either metal or plastic. They are not too comfortable if you like to craft for a long period of time. The key part is its tips that have hollow space that can be filled with sticky materials that can softly pick up the diamond beads.

The most basic diamond painting pen has a hollow metal end tube that can pick up a single diamond drill. There is a more developed form of this pen, where the tips are wider allowing you to pick up multiple diamond drills. We call this multiplayer, allowing you to pick up 2, 3, 4, or even 7 diamonds all at once and place them simultaneously in a row. Some diamond painting pens have interchangeable tips, so you can remove your single placer and install a multiplayer easily.

Diamond painting pen is used together with the diamond painting wax, it is a sticky gummy material that will fill the hollow nib of the pen, and this wax is essentially what your diamond beads will stick to. Without the wax, your pen will not be able to pick up the diamond drills.

With the pen loaded with the gummy, you can pick up the diamond from the diamond painting tray, or even the box, and transport it to your canvas. And the diamond will stick to the canvas and come off of the pen. The beads will come off the pen easily because the adhesive on the canvas is much stronger than the wax, so it pulls it off the pen just fine. This is also where you get the satisfying popping sound of diamond painting.

If you’d like to know more about the whole process of diamond painting, you can go ahead and read our Beginner Diamond Painting Guide.

The function of all diamond painting pens is pretty much the same. So what makes it different, and why would you want to buy more? Well, it’s a matter of upgrading your comfort. The basic pen that you get out of a kit is not the most ergonomic thing to hold.

There are some ways to make the standard pen more comfortable, for example, Craft-Ease included 2 pieces of foam squishy that you can use on the handle of the pen to make it more comfortable. Or a cute knitted sleeve for the pen, and even wrapping masking tape on the handle so that it has a better grip and curve for your hand.

The ones that you will find the most are curvy artisan diamond painting pens, there are usually made out of epoxy resin or acrylic. Resin is the lighter one of the two. Artisan pens usually have a thicker body than the pen you receive with your kit, they also have curves on them. This gives a better grip comfort, the curve will feel better in your hand, and allows you to craft for a longer time.

Some of these artisans’ diamond painting pens are also double-ended, so you can attach placer tips on both sides of the pen. This makes it really convenient! PS: Craft-Ease Diamond Painting Pen are curvy, and double-tipped - we even include 4 different tips for you! Go check it out.

Aside from an artisanal diamond painting pen, there are also DIY ones! These are when crafters really flex their creativity hats so that they can upgrade the feels and look of their gear!

Ballpoint diamond painting pen - yep, you read that right. This is where you remove the tip of your diamond painting pen and attach it to your favorite ink pen. This can give you a more familiar grip. You can even create retractable ones. For a different grip and ergonomy, you can even try a Y-Shapen pen and replace the tips with a diamond painting hollow nib.

Diamond drill tray really helps you in aligning your diamonds before they go onto your canvas. Ever wonder how to get your diamond right side up that your diamond painting can pick it up? TRAY! There are tiny uniformed ridges along with the tray so that when you gently shake your diamond drills around it, it will fall in between the spaces and landed right side up! This tool is crucial.

If you are given one with your kit, why then do you need more? Well, the biggest reason crafter would want a different diamond tray, is to upgrade the size. With a bigger diamond tray you aspen less time pouring and shaking diamonds, and more time painting!. This is really convenient when you are working on a large surface with one color, or if you are working with a multiplacer nip.

Have you heard of a tray for your tray? This is a step above the diamond painting tray that carries the diamonds. But this is a container that allows you to have several different diamond trays out. Crafter loves this when they are working on an area that has a lot of different colors on it, a “Confetti” area. This way, you do not have to repeatedly change colors. The container keeps these diamond trays safe with minimum risk of flipped-over, oopsies.

This is a container box that will help you store your diamond drills. You can use this while you are working on a kit, or when you are done and want to store your leftover beads. So these work just like your daily medicine container, which has a lid for each small container, and you usually have many cubbies attached together. This is a much convenient way to work with your diamond drills than the flimsy plastic bags that it comes in. It is easier to pour out your diamond and place it back in when you want to change colors.

You can label the containers to know exactly what colors are in them! And like any good tools, they are also reusable from kit to kit. You can get one with your kit at Craft-Ease, check out our 28-slot diamond organizer.

For your leftover diamonds, you can use something like this, but maybe bigger in size, as you will eventually build up a large number of leftover diamond drills as you continue crafting. I have seen people repurpose medicine bottles and ever jars. Just make sure that you label your bottle correctly with the DMC color code, which is mostly universal.