DIY Paint Chip Canvas Art

* PLEASE READ:

Before I show this DIY tutorial, I'd like to talk first about the ethics of doing this with free paint chips. I got these leaf-shaped paint chips from Home Depot (bless you, Home Depot!) and I took 28 of them. I felt horrid in the store, hoarding all 28 of my paint chip leaves, so I asked the cashier in the paint section if there was a limit. Before I could even finish my question he laughed and said "You can take as much as you want, no limit, they are completely free."
I was stunned, and so I smiled back and walked out. On my way out, I again asked another cashier if I could take to many even though I didn't intend to purchase paint, she again smiled and said they hand them out free for a reason, we can do what we want with them.
So when I came home with my 28 leaves, I did a search to see if anyone else felt a bit..off about walking out of a store with a handful of paint chips without paying a dime for them.
This is what I found: {{from http://homeandgarden.craftgossip.com }}

BEHR~
"We’ve been tickled pink to see all the creative ways BEHR fans use leftover paint chips!  From our mobile application to our new blog all about color, we offer innovative and interactive tools that help consumers build confidence in their color choices.  Certainly the in-store experience at The Home Depot is essential to that.  Our comprehensive color palette lets customers find a way to bring beautiful color into their home –  once they’ve tackled a painting project, we encourage do-it-yourselfers to use and recycle paint chips in interesting ways.  Mostly, we hope the paint chips inspire our customers – whether in a 8 oz. sample or gallon size, we love seeing how colors come to life on the wall!” 

So, because I am using BEHR Paint Chip Leaves, I felt much better about taking some now that I know BEHR is 'tickled pink' at my creations. However, I do advise that if you do this craft, ask for older/out of print paint chips, or buy some paint while you are there! I did buy paint with this purchase, for my old house's living room, and if I had simply walked in and out with no purchase, I would have felt weird and wrong.

In conclusion: in my opinion, as long as you are in fact making a purchase (or will make future paint purchases at the store b/c of this craft) then I say go for it, take some paint chips. But if you are for some reason making lets say a roof out of these babies, you might want to ask for out of print paint chips, or see if you can buy a box straight from the manufacturer. Do not resell your creations unless you have paid for the paint chips, in my opinion.



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DIY Paint Chip Canvas Art

Cost: 3$ {{Yes, really}}

This took a lot longer than my normal paintings, probably 4-5 hours. The bulk of the time was spent cutting/tracing, then gluing. But, for 3$,I won't dare complain.

Seriously, for 3$, this is pretty much as good as it gets. Now, before I go into the step-by-step, I'll start with what colors I used to make this, how many, etc. 

Colors: 

Basketry

Sliced Cucumber

Pencil Point

Macchiato

Elephant Skin

Ivy Topiary

Dusty Olive

Now that's 7 colors in all, and I got 4 of each color (28 leaves total). It turned out to be just enough, as you will need 80 "petals" (I'll get into this later) and this will make you 84, so you have a little wiggle room in case you rip one, or you want to play with the colors a bit.

 Where did I get them? These are the BEHR Paint Chip Leaves from Home Depot. I love Home Depot, let me just get that out right now. This is what the paint chip leaves look like:

 Aren't they lovely? So much prettier that those boring old paint chips, these leaves have character! This is "Elephant Skin", and probably one of my favorite colors in this bunch.

Now, I initially wanted to do something like this, using the actual shape of the leaf:

But I found that it was just too plain for me. Too much white was showing, and I didn't like how feminine it looked. I live with two guys, so a flower in the living room - really?

Then I tried this, but it still wasn't working for me.

I was just blindly moving around leaves at this point, not gluing anything, until I stumbled across this beauty online:

On clearance sale for only....drum role please...105$!!!! Down from 130$!!!!!! 

Yeah, no. 100$ for a piece of canvas?!?!

So, I decided to make it myself, with my color palette of grey/green/tan. To get the "petal", I measured my canvas. Mine was 16" x 20", so I was able to fill it with 20 circles, each one with a 4" diameter.

The hard part now was finding out how to make that darn petal. I just cut 2 circles, and on one I drew 2 lines bisecting the circle. Then, I overlapped the other in the bottom 'corner' of the first, and traced. I drew this lovely paint sketch to show you, as it was hard to take a picture of.

 So, that little green bit is the petal, and you just cut it out! I cut mine out on a manilla folder, so I had something on thicker paper to use as a stencil. Now comes the fun part, stencil out 84 of these babies. I managed to fit 3 petals on one BEHR Paint Chip Leaf, here is how:

Now, each leaf has a little, tinier leaf perforated into the end, so I just pushed those out and, personally, I think it adds so much character and uniqueness to the piece.

Just trace all the petals and then cut them out, and, if your fingers haven't fallen out by then, we're ready to move onto placing and gluing.

Just start placing and try not to let any of the same colors touch each other, and to try and keep the leaf cutouts from all being in the same corner, touching each other. If you followed my color palette, you should have 7 colors to choose from, and keeping the same color/same color tones from touching each other shouldn't be too difficult. Here is a close up, as an example:

Now, when you get to this stage (below), it becomes a bit difficult. Almost done, very few petals left, and it becomes hard to get the colors in without touching the same color. Here, play around a bit until you can put all 80 petals in place, and you'll be grateful for the 4 extra petals you have to play around with.

Now, just glue them on. Any way you can. Elmer's glue did not work for this part, the edges began to curl up. Since I just moved and things are still in boxes, the only other things I had that were remotely sticky were tape and a glue-stick. Lo and behold, the glue-stick worked fabulously to stick them down without the edges curling up! Then, once I had a section pasted down with the glue stick, I painted over that with glue. You could use Modge Podge if you wish, but I just used Elmer's glue to brush over. I then set a thin book under the canvas, to prevent it sagging in under the weight, and put a cutting board loaded with some books over the wet area to press it into place. Leave it on each spot for about 3 min, then take it off and brush the glue in the direction you want it to dry.

Here is the finished piece! Easy, not so fast as the others, but it makes up for it by being so cheap! I found the canvas in a 5-pack at Micheals for a low price, which I then got 40% off of thanks to a coupon. So, each canvas ended up being only about 3$!

You can put the little leaf cut outs in the circles if you want, and experiment with different configurations like this, but I personally didn't like them as much and didn't end up gluing any on. But, just throwing the idea out there, in case anyone likes it!

 Variation #1

Variation #2