One of my goals is to thoroughly test as many sealants, topcoats, and glazes for paper quilled jewelry as I can, and to give thorough reviews, descriptions, and tips for them each. I have been using Diamond Glaze for about a year and it has become one of my favorite products to use on my quilled earrings and pendants.  I have mentioned it in many posts, but finally here is a post with a full Diamond Glaze review! First of all, what is Diamond Glaze?  Here is some info directly from the official website for Diamond Glaze.  View the whole page here, and view the FAQ here.

  Below is my official star review and then you will find Pros and Cons and some photos of times that I have used Diamond Glaze as well as some descriptions, tips, tricks, and links to other posts that talk about Diamond Glaze and some fun tutorials as well.

CONS

• It is fairly thin, so if you want a particularly thick coating, you will have to use several layers
• If you use it on paper that is edged in metallic gold or silver it can give a bit of a distorted color (view that effect in this other post)

Is it waterproof? This is an important and often asked question.  The official website says that since it is a water based product, it is very water resistant when it is dry, but it is not totally waterproof.  However, they also say that it is permanent when dried, and even say that they don’t have a solvent that can remove it once it is dry, like if it gets on your clothes or something.  That, to me, shows that it is extremely sturdy.  I don’t think that any product that is water based can be said to be absolutely waterproof once dried.  But I would say that Diamond Glaze is extremely close!  You wouldn’t want to put your quilled jewelry into the washing machine of course, but normal chances of it getting in contact with water should be no problem as long as you are careful to coat your piece properly.

Mixable

When you use a sealant or topcoat with paper quilled jewelry it is sometimes hard to get it all into the cracks.  If all the cracks and crevices don’t have sealant in them, they can get damaged if they get dropped in water, rained on, etc.   Since Diamond Glaze is a bit thinner than some other sealants, it can be easier to use for this purpose.  But you can also add water to it to make it even more liquid, as seen in this photo below (it says right on the bottle that you can add water to it).  You can then use a paintbrush to blob the Diamond Glaze all over it and let it drip off and use the paintbrush to get rid of the excess as well.  Read this post for lots of photos on how to exactly use it with this type of jewelry.

Comparing

I have spent some time comparing Diamond Glaze to some of the other glazes and topcoats that I use.  I wrote one post comparing Diamond Glaze and Crystal Coat Glaze with one project (cute little pendants).  Click here to read that whole post. I found Diamond Glaze to have a harder finish, but it was also thinner and therefore didn’t give quite as smooth of a finish, as can be seen in the photos.  In this photo the Diamond Glaze was on the aqua pendant and Crystal Coat Glaze was on the purple.  I found that each had its pros and cons, but in the end I would choose Diamond Glaze for this project because of the harder finish.

Using Diamond Glaze with Gold Edged Paper

One of the first times I tested Diamond Glaze was with this experiment. I made 4 rings, all the same, and used 4 different glazes/topcoats on them to see the different effects.  It turned out that Diamond Glaze was my least favorite in this project (though others were close to it) because it made the gold edge paper have a bluish look to it.  Some of the others had this effect as well.  The only one that didn’t give a bluish look at all was PPA (perfect paper adhesive). I haven’t tested Diamond Glaze with silver edge paper yet.  Click here to read the whole post about these gold edge rings.  Click here to learn more about using PPA on your jewelry.

Projects:

Here are some projects that I used Diamond Glaze on. I made this pair of earrings for myself to match an outfit.  I needed to wear them the same day, so I didn’t have time to go through my usual process of using a liquid sealer first, letting it dry, then applying the Diamond Glaze.  So I just used Diamond Glaze.  It dried quickly and I was able to wear them with no problem.  The Diamond Glaze is easy to spread into all the spaces.  It dries to a hard, sturdy, yet slightly flexible finish.  Click here to view more about this pair of earrings (includes a free pattern!)     For this fun Jack O’ Lantern ring I also only used Diamond Glaze.  I was testing it to see how it worked with the paper colors.  Some sealants and glazes cause colors to run.  I have especially seen this with black quilling paper.  I was happy to see that the colors stayed perfectly in tact and it gave a beautiful hard finish.  Click here to read more about this ring and to see the free pattern!     These yellow daisy earrings were made by my daughter as a gift for a friend.  Again we didn’t have enough time to do the liquid sealant first, so she just painted on a good layer of Diamond Glaze and hung them to dry.  They dried quickly (I love that Diamond Glaze dries more quickly than other glazes) and she gave them to her friend that evening.  Click here to read more about these earrings and to get a link to the free step by step tutorial.

Where to Get It!

So where can you get Diamond Glaze?  Luckily it is one of those art supplies that is available in a lot of different places!  You can find it at just about any art and craft store in the US, and many in other countries as well.  Check for it at places that sell jewelry making supplies as well.  You can even find it at Walmart. Here is a list of online places where you can find it.  Some of these are affiliate links. In the US you can find it at: Amazon Scrapbook.com Blue Moon Scrapbooking In Malaysia you can find it at beading.my

Does it soak into the paper? When looking to protect my paper quilled jewelry, I like to have two types of protection:

1. To make the paper stiff to help protect against it being smashed
2. To make the paper water resistant to protect against dirt, moisture, rain, etc.

I don’t know of any product that does both things perfectly.  That is why my usual method involves using a liquid sealer as a base coat which soaks into the paper and makes it quite stiff.  When that dries I add a glaze or topcoat for extra protection.  A sealer by itself won’t last and won’t be very water resistant, and a glaze by itself won’t make the piece as stable as possible.  That is why I give Diamond Glaze only 2 stars for “soak into paper to make it stiff”.  It is possible to add a bit of water to Diamond Glaze to make it more runny, but it still does not totally soak into paper the way a real sealer does.  However, I have many times used Diamond Glaze on paper jewelry by itself, and because it has a very hard finish, it does a pretty good job of making the final product sturdy.  If I had to choose only ONE product to use I would currently choose Diamond Glaze.

I hope that you found this Diamond Glaze review helpful.  Let me know if you have any questions about Diamond Glaze and I’ll do my best to answer!  I have many more products to review, so stay tuned!

Click here to see all posts that are about sealants, topcoats, and glazes.

• Click here to view free paper quilling tutorials!
• Click here to view paper quilling tips and tricks!
• Click here to view a list of places to buy quilling supplies around the world!
• Click here to view some of my own quilling projects, with tips so you can make your own if you’d like!

 

• *All products and supplies mentioned in this post I purchased and/or made on my own.

• *This post contains some affiliate links, and some non affiliate links.  If you purchase products through the affiliate links I get a small percentage (at no extra cost to you!).  I only link to products that I believe in and/or love to use myself.  Thank you for supporting my blog!