Paint Chip Art

I have been thinking of how I could add a little bit of color to our hallway that is basically a square with 4 doors. There isn't room for furniture to hold accessories. I can't use shelves because I'm almost positive I would get a concussion as I knock them off during one of my half asleep trips to the restroom in the middle of the night. The only way to go was wall art. Since there are so many doors, I only had an area about 18" wide to work with Worse than that, I had a budget of $0.00. I was trying really hard to not buy anything and re-purpose things I already have or use something someone was giving away.

Walmart gave me this art. Well, not exactly but kind of. I wanted to do an art piece using cut up paint chips and while I was in Walmart, I decided that I was going to attack. I headed to the paint isle and was trying to nonchalantly browse a few colors and grab as many as I needed. I seriously felt like I was going to hear a CODE RED alert over the intercom at any second. I would take a few, fumble in my purse, add them to the stash and then do it all over again. I know they are free, I just felt like I was violating some painter's code and was paranoid that security was going to cart me off to a dark little room in the back and confiscate my paint chips. Luckily, I made it out of there without any incident and was on my way to creating my new art.

I had a simple black 11x14 frame tucked away in my stash, half a piece of left over foam core board from my little guys school project and my stash in my purse.

I drew out the shape of the frame on the foam core board using the glass as a guide and then drew another box on the inside to use as my guide for placing them.

Then I began cutting up the paint chips into small pieces from about 1/4" to 1/2". I didn't measure them, I just started cutting them randomly with my paper cutter.

After I got all eleventy-billion pieces cut, I started on the first row, starting at the bottom and Mod Podged it down. I moved up the row overlapping them similar to shingles on a roof making sure to keep the left and right sides aligned. After I finished the first row I moved onto the 2nd row until my box was filled.


After they were all down, I put a layer of Mod Podge all over the top to seal the deal.




After it had dried, I used an Xacto knife to cut out the foam core to the size of my frame and finished it up.







I think it looks great against the brown walls but its looking a little bare still. I may try to find 3 matching frames and make 3 and hang them vertically on the wall just to give it a little more oomph. On second thought, I'm still a little bit afraid to go back to Walmart's paint section so this one just might have to do.