What paper to use to cover your diamond painting: The ultimate guide

One of the most common questions diamond painters have is what paper they can use to cover the adhesive of their diamond painting. Of course, all diamond paintings are supplied with a suitable cover that protects the adhesive in transit, but what if you want to use a different cover?

Why would I want to use a different cover?

There are many reason why you may need to change the cover on your diamond painting. Firstly, the cover supplied is usually in large sheets, and some people don’t like cutting the large sheets in case they damage the canvas underneath.

Alternatively the cover could be creased from poor packaging, and some people like to work with a transparent cover rather than the opaque cover or vice versa. Whatever your reason for wanting to use another cover, we’ll go through the 3 options in greater detail.

Parchment paper:

Parchment paper, also known as grease proof paper in some countries, is used for low temperature food applications. It has a wax coating on one or both sides to prevent grease and moisture from permeating the paper.

Parchment paper is not recommended for diamond painting since:

1. It often only has a coating on 1 side, so if you put the wrong side down, it will stick to your canvas and you won’t be able to remove it.
2. The wax coating is not very effective is resisting the adhesive on your canvas.

Baking Paper:

Baking paper is a siliconized paper similar to parchment paper. Instead of using wax to give the paper its non stick properties, it has silicone impregnated into it. Whereas parchment or greaseproof paper can only be used for relatively low temperatures, baking paper with it’s silicone based non-stick surface is good for up to 260^oC (500^oF).

If you are unsure if you have greaseproof paper or baking paper, check the temperature rating on the packet. If it says it’s Ok to use at high temperatures, you have siliconized baking paper.

Baking paper is an excellent alternative to the paper supplied on your canvas. The silicone resists most common adhesives, is translucent to you can see your canvas underneath, is cheap and readily available.

Baking paper is the material Diamond Pixels Australia recommends above all else due to its cost and availability, but there are better alternatives.

PE coated paper:

PE coated paper is one of the products that is widely used, has been used by just about everyone, yet almost no-one knows its name.

PE coated paper is normal paper with a Polyethylene coating, hence, ‘PE’. You all know of this paper. You encounter it on a surprisingly regular basis. You know that backing paper use in printer stickers? That’s PE coated paper. You know the paper on double sided tape? That’s PE coated paper. Have you ever got meat from the deli at your supermarket and the paper it’s wrapped in has a waxy coating on the inside? That’s because it’s PE coater paper. What is commonly referred to as ‘Release paper’ in the diamond painting community is, you got it, PE coated paper.

Polyethylene is a plastic with a particularly low surface energy which means that very few things stick to it making it a fantastic cover for diamond painting canvases.

Unfortunately, PE coated paper on its own is very hard to find as it’s mainly used in the manufacture of products with an adhesive, and as such is rarely sold by itself, especially to consumers.

For this reason, we don’t recommend using PE coated paper due to its very limited availability, however if you do use the paper on a regular basis for another application, i.e if you use a lot of A4 sticker sheets, then by all means save the backing paper because this is great for diamond painting.

You mentioned low surface energy, what’s that?

All materials have a property called surface energy. Glues and adhesives will stick very well to materials with a high surface energy. Alternatively if the material has a low surface energy then adhesives do not stick very well.

Most plastics have a low surface energy. Glass on the other hand has a high surface energy. If you’ve ever tried to stick a sticker onto plastic and it seems to come off easily, that’s because the plastic has a low surface energy. If you’ve ever tries to glue something together and it breaks apart easily, that’s because the plastic has a low surface energy. If you’ve ever bought glue and some say they work on plastic and some say they don’t work on plastic, that’s because of plastic’s low surface energy.

Polyethylene has a particularly low surface energy which is why it’s widely used for backing paper to protect adhesives on stickers, tapes, and other items because nothing much sticks to it.

So there you have it. The definitive article on what paper to use on your next diamond painting project.