Summer was a great time for remodeling the home, but what do you do with the paint sample cards after all the painting is done and the paint is dried? Today I’ll share three fun paper crafts projects for re-purposing those paint chips. Not only are these paint chip card ideas a great way to recycle and keep them out of the landfill, the projects are also fast to make and super useful too!
1. Decorative wall art
When we bought our current home, we let the kids pick out the colors for their rooms. I wished that I had kept the original paint chips because I had a hard time trying to recall the name of the paint when I needed to get some later for touch-ups. If you still have the paint chips that you used to color your home, frame them up as a decorative wall art. That way, not only will you have a pretty keepsake for your home, you never need to worry about forgetting what paint you used to color the rooms. The paint chips are right there and all framed up for you to use as a reference!
To make the framed art, I cut out the word “home” and three slim rectangles using white card stock and my Silhouette Cameo personal electronic cutter machine. I cut out the same letters a second time but out of a colored paper (I used dark brown). I in-laid the colored cutouts back into the white card stock and taped them together on the reverse side. To finish the project, I taped the paint chips behind the three slim rectangles and placed the whole completed page into a frame.
2. Change-of-address cards
One of my favorite paint chip card ideas is to make change-of-address cards with them. Paints chips and new homes — they just sound so appropriate together!
To make these cards, I printed the image of a flatbed truck and a greeting on white card stock. I used my Silhouette Cameo cutting machine to cut out the houses. To finish the cards, I layered the cutouts over the printed card base and adhered with foam tape.
Notice that I deliberately cut out the paint chips where the name of the paint color is printed. This is to make it obvious that paint chips were used for the cards rather than some regular patterned card stock. You can make these cards even more special by making them with paint chips that matches the color of your new home.
3. Quick notecards
While most paint chips come in a single color, some companies make paint chips that show different shades of color on the same card. An example is the paint chips from the Behr paint company. The gradient of colors makes it quick to create paint chip projects with an ombré effect, but it is also extremely easy to make great looking notecards with them.
I used the Behr paint chips with my Big Shot and some metal dies to make the cards pictured above. By in-laying the letters, not only was the wastage of paper minimized (there are no “negatives” leftover), the project was also quick to complete.
Pictures of your completed project would be extremely helpful to those visual learners.