diy paint chip ornaments

nestled in with the brightly colored ornaments in my rainbow garlanded tree
are these ornaments that i made using paint chips.

a note about using paint chips, if i may....

i sauntered in to my local paint store and asked for old paint chips - 

and they handed me an armload of fan decks! FREE!

(i nearly skipped out the door...)

i highly recommend making this effort to procure paint chips responsibly.
i emphatically discourage raiding paint chip displays in home improvement stores.
just to be clear.

making these ornaments is pretty simple - it's a scissors & paste kinda' craft project!

continue reading for the easy tutorial for all three styles of ornaments... 

 

 

 

the paper ornaments tuck in and around the others, adding some texture and pattern to the mix.

i made three types of paint chip ornaments:
dimensional round orbs, wide rounds, and flat rounds:

they all began with paint chips in various sizes,
and the orange flat rounds were made from my own handpainted paint chip paper.

let's start the tutorials with those flat rounds, as they really are the easiest...

1. select two paint chips of relatively the same length.
they can be similar colors if you like - or opposites or coordinating colors.

2. glue those two strips side by side onto a piece of printer paper or posterboard.
i placed my similarly colored strips in opposite positions,

so the darkest hues were on opposite ends.

3. flip the paper over and trace a round circle (i used a glass for consistent size).
then cut them out.

4. cut the white ends off of the paint chips, cut in half width-wise,
then glue one onto the back of each ornament so it looks like a 'cap'.

5. punch a hole in the 'cap' for hanging the ornament.
(take a peek at the pink flat round ornament in the left photo above to see the 'cap')
place a chenille stem 'hook' (or a real metal hook) through the hole to hang!

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now let's try the next two...
the secret here is that one cut on a paint chip is the prep for both!

1. as seen in the photo above, cut the paint chip lengthwise.
you'll be cutting off a thin piece that is equal to one fourth the width of the strip.
i mark a straight line using a pencil and follow it for consistency.

set the thin strips aside for now...
we'll work with the wider part of the strip first, for the large round ornaments:

1. first, bend the white end of each strip forward, toward the color blocks, to form a tab.

2. simply take the wide strip, and bend it into a circle with the color on the outside edge.
the white 'tab' will be sticking up and out from the circle - 

glue the strip together without gluing that down.

3. punch a hole in the white 'tab' (if there isn't one already there) to hang the ornament.

option: you could also glue two strips together lengthwise and back to back, if you wish.
then when you form a circle and glue it, you'll have color on the inside and outside edges. 

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now, let's make use of the thin strips that you cut earlier, and make some of the orbs:

1. make a simple circle, just as you did for the large rounds. repeat and make a second.

2. fit one circle inside the other then glue into place on top & bottom to hold it together.
add one or two more strip circles to fill in the spaces between, if you want.

again, you can use any combination of colors you wish!

you can punch a hole in the 'tab' or simply pop the orbs over a branch, as i did.

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after i completed my set of paint chip ornaments,
i decided to make a paint chip tree topper...

i combined all of the colors used in the ornaments on this one! 

technically, it's made up of two cylinders, two orbs, two circles, a triangle, and a dot.

i just kind of played around with shapes until i had something that looked
like tall glass spire tree toppers.
then i hot glued the heck out of it to hold it all together!

oh, and there's another step to all of these: TEST IDEAS FIRST.
and use paint chips in colors that you do NOT plan to use for your ornaments & topper:

i played with taupe and gray chips to figure out how each of these could work
BEFORE i started cutting and gluing the bright color chips!
i didn't want to waste them on a mistake.

and if paint chips aren't your aesthetic...
what about using playing cards or game cards? old gift tags & wrap?
got gift bags or boxes with pretty art on them? they work, too!
all you need is some paper with a bit of 'body' to it to get the same results.

have fun!

links to previous related posts:

painted paint chip paper

rainbow garland tree decor

chenille stem ornament hooks

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