Christmas Teddy Bear Diamond Painting Kit

Festive and cozy are not the same thing, and most Christmas art has to pick one. This diamond painting kit picks cozy, then lets the festive parts happen in the background where they belong.

A plush bear is curled into the middle of the scene with green pines, candy canes and Christmas ornaments. The reds stay warm rather than sharp, the forest greens sit deep and unlit, and soft creams handle the fur and the snow both. Look at the ribbon. It is the only clean, saturated shape in a picture otherwise built entirely from soft edges.

The palette runs from DMC 152 to DMC 3865 across twenty-two colors, and the useful part is how many of them are pale. Snow lying on fur is a problem of near-whites, and with this many creams and blush tones the dusting reads as snow rather than as a bald patch.

The details

• 45 x 45 cm (18 x 18 in)
• Full coverage, round drills
• 22 DMC colors, DMC 152 to DMC 3865
• Adhesive canvas printed with clear symbols and a color legend
• Sealed, numbered, DMC color-coded drill packets
• Diamond stylus pen, grooved tray, wax refill and tweezers

Straight talk

Roughly 25 to 30 hours, and those near-whites are the reason to work in daylight or under a good lamp. Several of the pale drills look identical in a dim room and can only be told apart by their numbers, so keep them in their labeled packets until each one comes up. Full coverage, round drills, 45 x 45 cm. Rolled canvas, no frame.

Cozy carries further than festive, which is how this one stays on the wall into February without anyone remarking on it.