If you have drills left over from your Diamond Painting projects that are not marked with DMC numbers then you can use a DMC color chart to find out which number they have. If you do not want to spend expensive money on buying a finished DMC color chart then you can easily make your own. The real DMC color charts have threads showing what color the numbers have. If you make your own then you can use your remaining drills instead.

Get a DMC color chart

The first thing you need to do is get a DMC color chart on paper. Fortunately you can find those on Internet. I have found two different variants. One is an image on a color map and the other is made in an Excel file. The color chart in the Excel file contains all the different colors available for embroidery thread. There are variety threads, metallic threads and the new colors that came 2018. These are not used for Diamond Painting. The image on the color chart, however, does not contain these special threads, only the usual plus the new colors.

DMC color chart
The top one shows what the Excel color chart looks like and the bottom one shows the image on the DMC color chart.

Its up to you to decide which of these two choices you want to use to make your color chart. However, I would have used the Excel version as it is in number order and has room to put the drills next to the colors. You can find the color charts here: image of the color chart and Excel file containing color chart.

Assembling

Once you decide which color chart you want to use, you print it on paper. It is best if it is a thicker paper, but you can always take the paper and put on a piece of cardboard. That way it becomes a little more stable when you put the drills on it.

When you have printed the color chart, glue the drills to the correct DMC number. On the Excel color chart you can put the drills in the “owned” column which is empty. You will have both the “real” color and the Diamond Painting drill color. Then you can compare the drills you have that lack DMC numbers with your color chart to find out which number it is.

Have in mind

One thing that can be good to keep in mind is that the drills can have different shades even if it is the same DMC color. Depending on different color baths, the drills get different shades, and it can therefore differentiate between different sellers. However, the DMC number should always be correct, for example 666 should be red and will therefore never be yellow for example. If it says you should have DMC 666 and you got yellow drills then you have gotten the wrong color.