If you have browsed the craft aisle at Michaels or Joann looking for a paint by numbers kit, you have almost certainly picked up a Dimensions box. It is one of the oldest names in the category and one of the few sold widely in physical stores. Here is what the kits actually are, who they suit, and what to check before you buy one.
We sell paint by numbers ourselves, so read the last section with that in mind. The rest is a straight description of a competitor's product, because a fair one is more useful to you than a sales pitch.
What Dimensions Painting By Numbers Is
Dimensions is an American craft company best known for needlecraft — cross-stitch, crewel and embroidery kits — that also produces a long-running line of paint by number kits, sold under the Dimensions and Paintworks names. The line has been around for decades, which is why the boxes look familiar even to people who have never bought one.
The artwork is licensed, and it leans traditional: wildlife, lakes and cabins, horses, seasonal scenes, the occasional famous painting. Darrell Bush, whose lakeside and cabin scenes turn up across the outdoor-art category, is among the artists associated with the line. If your taste runs to Americana and nature rather than abstract or pop art, the catalog will suit you.
They are sold through retailers rather than direct, so the range you see depends on the shop. The lineup also changes, so treat any list of designs online, including the ones on marketplace listings, as approximate.
What Comes in the Box
The format is the standard one: a pre-printed surface divided into numbered sections, a tray of numbered acrylic paints, one or more brushes, and a printed guide showing the finished image. You match number to pot and fill in.
Two details worth checking on the specific box in front of you, because they vary across the range and matter more than the picture on the front:
- Canvas or board. Some kits print on canvas, some on card or board. Board will not take a stretcher or a frame the same way.
- The paint count. Printed on the box. It is the honest measure of how long the kit will take, and a far better guide than any difficulty label.
Who These Kits Suit
Anyone who wants it today. The main advantage of a craft-store brand is that you can drive to a shop, look at the box, and start painting that evening. No shipping, no guessing at size from a photograph.
Beginners and younger painters. The smaller kits in the range are genuinely approachable, and there are junior lines aimed at children.
People buying a gift they can hand over in person. A boxed kit gives better than a printed order confirmation.
Where they suit less well: if you want a large finished piece for a wall, or a specific artist, or a canvas ready to hang without a trip to the framer, the craft-aisle range starts to feel limited.
Three Things to Check Before You Buy Any Kit
These are the three complaints that dominate reviews across the whole category, ours included, and none of them are visible in a product photo.
- How the canvas ships. Rolled in a tube arrives flat. Folded into a small box arrives with creases through the image, and they never fully come out. If you are buying in a shop, feel the box: a flat-packed canvas has been folded.
- Whether the paints are sealed. Unsealed pots dry out on the shelf, and a kit that has sat in a warehouse for a year can arrive with paint the texture of putty. A drop of water rescues most of it, but not all.
- How large the printed numbers are. This is the most common complaint in the category and the one people are least prepared for. Ask whether there is a full-size printed reference sheet, because squinting at 2mm digits under a lamp is what makes people abandon a canvas half-finished.
How Ours Differ
Ledgebay sells direct rather than through craft stores, which changes what we can do and what we cannot.
What we do differently: the canvas ships rolled in a tube rather than folded, the paints are vacuum-sealed, every kit includes an 11 by 17 printed reference so the numbers stay readable, and most designs are available pre-stretched on a frame so there is nothing to do when you finish. We license the original artwork — Kim Norlien, the Hautman brothers, Judy Buswell and others — rather than reproducing stock images.
What we cannot do: you cannot buy one this afternoon, and our range is 39 designs rather than a wall of boxes. If either of those matters more to you, the craft aisle is the better answer and we would rather say so.
The one thing no shop can sell you off a shelf is a canvas of your own photograph. Custom Paint by Numbers turns an image you upload into a numbered canvas, printed in the United States. Finished ones are in the customer gallery.
If You Are New to This
Whichever brand you start with, the method is the same. Work the large sections first and the small ones last, finish one color completely before opening the next, expect a second coat on the pale colors, and stop for the night at a color change rather than mid-shape.
Our beginner's guide covers the rest, and the history of the format is worth reading if you like knowing where a hobby came from.
