It's no secret that crafters love paint chips, and even though I'm not a big believer in raiding local paint stores to collect the chips for no other reason than craft, I am a believer in reusing them if you find yourself with a collection. A couple of years ago my husband and I built a timber cubby house for my eldest daughter, Mimi, and in the process I amassed several paint chips trying to decide how to make a cubby house feminine whilst not being overtly pink. We ended up with a dark purple frame, a pale brown with a hint of pink for the walls, combined with pink and purple stencils to make it child-friendly.When I recently rediscovered my little stash of colour chips, I decided to experiment. I made two things to get started; a Christmas tree with the green card, and a flower with the pink one.
Here's how to make a paint chip flower:
- Cut your paint strip into thin strips of roughly equal sizes.
- Place them inside a cup overnight so that they curl slightly.
- Use a pin to poke a hole roughly in the centre of each piece.
- Push a brad through the holes of each strip, one piece at a time, placing them all off centre of each other to form petals.
- Optional - add fabric flowers, a brooch pin or ribbons to complete.
- Now pop it on your blouse for a bit of crafty fun.
Note: I did not cut the words of the colours off, I quite liked the words 'charmed' and 'Bordeaux' and that people would spot the provenance of the paper... you of course may feel differently.
These flowers can of course make pretty decorations to wrapped presents, could be used to embellish scrapbooking pages, or turned into costume accessories... the options are endless!
I'm almost tempted to go get more paint chips in red and green to make poinsettia-styled floral rosettes for Christmas, but I don't know why, it feels a little wrong... but then again, I have plenty of scrapbooking paper that could work just as well...!!
What are your thoughts?
Linda.
