Dollar tree diamond painting keychain

I have been loving the little craft kits sold at the Dollar Tree .. 

Fun quick projects with most of the items needed to work them up, a few tools like scissors and players might be needed to complete some of them but overall most of the items have been there...

Yesterday I saw a diamond painting keychain

small and simple looking..

  I have never worked one before and haven't wanted to get into a big project just to see how it's done...

This was the perfect size to just try the craft out..

 I had no clue how any of this worked or if this is even how other kits do it... 

It came with limited instructions but enough where you got the idea of what to do, a small super cute tray for the beads, a sticky sheet with the pattern printed on it, it's sticky on both sides so after placing the "diamonds" you stick it to the wooden backing piece, included is hardware for the keychain as well as the "diamond painting pen" and what they are calling silicone clay and or wax depending on where on the packaging or instructions you read.. 

I assume do you use the tweezers or something like that to pick up the little rhinestones, but you actually just put a little bit of the wax / silicone play on the tip of the pen and it picks them up rather nicely, then just lightly touch the spot where you want them to be on the design that's it, super easy and surprisingly relaxing .. I can see why people like these kits, no real thought involved it really good mindless project that gives you something cute in the end.. 

I have no clue how well these will stay stuck on there if used as a keychain so I might try to add something over it... I think I'll do a little research into these projects before I try anything LOL 

There were plenty of extra rhinestones looks like there's enough to do a couple of them.. definitely a fun project and well worth the buck 

How I set out my embroidery floss scraps for easy use

I am on a forced break from crochet... I ended up with some tendon damage when two IVs infiltrated with two different antibiotics that I am allergic ... to one immediately after the other... It's been over a month... most of the intense pain is gone in my arm and I can almost use it normally, although the strength is still an issue.. 

both IVs were in the same limb so at least I can still use my other arm and hand ...

 my hand is still on the painful side just enough to limit me to only a couple of hours of crochet every few days at most ... So.....

I've been playing with embroidery... 

Like all of the crafting I do I save scraps...

 I have a lot of floss of small amounts and lengths, cross stitch kits I did ages ago among them..

I am currently working on small projects so it's a great time to use some of them up.. 

I thought I would share a time saver I use..  

I lay out them out so I can see the colors and a general idea of amounts available.. 

on a piece of crafting felt.. after wrapping them around my finger tip.. 

holds them in place nicely 

I stick another piece of felt on top and just roll them up for quick temporary storage between crafting times .. no more resorting them every time I need to stop for a bit.. 

 

 Be sure to remove the top piece of felt slowly to avoid a mess as they stick just as well to that piece... 😊

It's so much easier that trying to wrap so many small lengths around floss cards. 

With many of these being from kits the colors are a shade or two different.. this makes that slight difference easier to spot as well .. 

When I finish with the project I rebag the floss and put the felt back with the rest of my felt stock... No waste .. but even if I didn't have the felt on hand I would go grab some from the dollar tree .. as much time as I save with the ease of it it is definitely worth it to me..

I do save the pieces that are too short for stitching as well .... for small tassels and such, the smaller ones I use with making scrapy fabric bags.. the texture and interest it adds .. love it... 

It's been a good year since I did any real embroidery other than an embellishment here and there... was running out of smaller scraps.. so that is a bright side lol...

I had been planning on doing more bead and embroidery work it's just happening sooner than planned ... 

I haven't taken any photos yet... So here's some bees instead