A fresh coat of paint is one of the quickest and easiest ways to transform a room. But deciding on which color to use is another story. Even if you have the shade and hue narrowed down, there are still dozens upon dozens of choices — all of which seem to look exactly the same after a few days. The samples can start to pile up as you debate over which color is just right.
After all is said and done, odds are you have more than a few remaining paint chips lying around. Don't just recycle these colorful pieces of paper! The shape and gradation make these leftovers perfect fodder for several colorful DIYs around the house. These 5 bloggers came up with their own clever ways to use up the paint chips in their homes.
Megan from The Crafty CPA created colorful coasters by glueing leftover paint samples to tiles. After a few coats, she let it all dry, applied spray acrylic to the top and glued cork or felt to the bottom.
Sally from SallyTV used to be an interior designer, so she still has thousands of paint chips from old projects on file. She wanted to do something creative with them instead of just tossing them out, so instead of painting her dining room, she used her paint chips to create a unique and textural wall installation.
She attached each paint chip to the wall with double-stick tape, leaving some unflattened to look more like a casual inspiration board than formal wallpaper.
If you had a smaller-scale project in mind, try your hand at this DIY paint chip calendar by Lori from Hey… Things Change! cut squares from leftover paint chips and pasted them on a Crayola floor pad. Using different hues for each page mixes it up a bit and make it a fun craft for her kids to do each month.
This eye-catching artwork was featured in recent Houzz tour on Heather from The Lovely Cupboard's home. She chose paint samples all in the same color family — pinks, oranges and purples, and cut them into triangles. After sorting them by color and hue, she used extra-strength glue sticks to glue them to the posterboard for a chic piece of art.
Erin from Landsdowne Life created a fish-scale-like piece of art for her living room. Instead of cutting her extra paint chips into triangles as Heather did, Erin used a big paper puncher to punch out hundreds of dime-sized dots. She arranged them in a scalloping pattern on a red wood panel, and glued them down with Mod Podge.
C'mon! I do not think *anyone* has this many samples of paint chips around the house. The paint companies are generous with their free chips. If everyone takes the chips and uses them for art items that have nothing to do with choosing paint, the paint companies will have to limit the store display supply in some way. It's always a few, who ruin it for others.
Hey @j22b: Actually, you don't need that many paint chip samples to do most of the artwork DIYs in the piece above! Even if you have just a few on hand from a leftover home improvement project, you can make a mini version of any of the artwork, or a few coasters. Sally's adorable wall does require quite a few paint chips, but like I mentioned, she had a ton on hand since she was an interior designer and often was sent free samples.
I work at a retail paint store, and these chips are never free. There is no such thing as a free lunch (paint chip). We're already seeing the price of paint go up exponentially, please don't add this to the cost of business by being greedy with your stealing.
This reminded me of a wall display at Stanford that takes this theme to another amazing level. Every time I walk buy this "monument to change" I stop and enjoy what new pattern is being created. Enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ttajKgpJTns
I am an interior designer and previous paint store owner . It takes
many man hours to restock the paint chips which equates to expense. Here's an idea: Try paint for your projects. :-O
sherryt, paint is bad on the environment. Why doesn't one try scraps of fabric from old clothes? I've just made needlepoint cushions for my children using my grandmother's, mother's and my old strings of wool in random, multiple colours. Worked fabulously & the children have a wonderful piece of history attached to them, not to mention three generations of sewers in the family.
I think sherryt and mncolorist comments should be taken seriously. I know I have lots of paint samples leftover from painting samples for clients. While there are recycling paint options, I wonder what DIY projects Houzz folks could some up with.
Whoa, easy guys! I have painted every surface (including the interior of the cabinets) in my previous condo, and now my current house, at least twice over 10 years. Also I have been refinishing furniture for almost 15 years now. That represents a LOT of paint - easily $1000++ spent on paint, primer, samples, brushes, roller covers, drop cloths, tape, and other equipment over that time. I always pick up paint chips for each project in my quest for the perfect color, and I too make a habit of hanging on to them. I found this post very inspiring and would like to try to re-use some of my paint chips in this way. I and others like me are most certainly NOT stealing - in fact, we are the paint industry's very best customers!
I like the calendar idea, but the wall installation in the dining room, YIKES! I want to relax and forget about work when I have guests.
I've seen even experienced designers make mistakes, when choosing wall colors from a small paint chip. If you find a color is way too bright, you don't have to repaint, you can tone it down with one or two layers of transparent glaze. Email me if you don't know how. laurelmurals@yahoo.com
Life after red walls: if you need to change from a red wall, you'll need to paint it black, then primer and start over. Otherwise, that red will always show through.
I decorated an old chair with paint samples (what I call them) by cutting them into small pieces and making patterns many geometric designs and then varnished over the top looks great.
I take my old paint chips and make them into coasters. I cut them into circles and they are a great way to add color to the event. No use wasting the chips after you are done decorating.
Some great ideas but I agree with Sherry. Try paint. I just finished building a house with my husband and had to pick colors for every room. Large swatched painted on the wall gave me a better sense of how the color would react as the day changed and the sun moved in the sky. I even painted the colors onto large sheets of heavy weight water color paper. This way I had a "wall" to carry around as I picked out carpeting and fabrics. I am an artist so the remainer of the paint...in these small sample containers will be used in my art work.
For those who might have kids... I made this countdown calendar for our Disney trip using Disney paint chips from the Home Depot. It was simple and fun. *Excuse the quality of this photo. It was taken 5 years ago on a cell phone.
