I’ve been seeing pretty examples of people turning paint chips into colorful artwork for their walls, and I have wanted to try making something like this for my son’s room, since he loves bright colors.

I decided to make my color chips into little circles, so they didn’t read so much like ‘paint chips’. It was also a good excuse to try out one of those cool little circle punches you can get in craft stores. They can be expensive but if you wait for a sale and/or a good coupon, you can get them for half of the regular price.

Here’s what I used for my little paint chip piece:

Several bright paint chips (mostly Glidden here)
A frame with white Bristol Board or paper backing
1 1/2″ Circle Punch (like this)
3D foam sticky dots

The process is pretty self explanatory. It just involves cutting out your circles and arranging them in the number/order you want them to fit your particular frame. I used only 20 circles for this, but I cut out lots more and am saving them for another project. I would recommend laying them all out and experimenting with placement beforehand to get an idea of what looks best.

Here I laid them all out on top of the glass.

Then you may want to get technical with a ruler and make some type of grid for yourself. I’m afraid I am the world’s worst at this sort of thing. Straight lines, measurements and the basic laws of the universe seem to distort when I try to make sense of them with a ruler. But what I did do was measure about an inch and a half in on all the edges and make a faint pencil mark near the 4 corners. From there, I made a light grid in pencil and put my dots on…eyeballing some of them. I then went back and erased the light lines very carefully. I used 3D foam sticky dots to give the circles a slight visual “push” out from the paper.

I really like the results — the bright circles remind me of children’s watercolor paints. And it might be fun to make another one, it looks a little lonely by itself. I can see making one in a gradient from one to two colors as well.

Project Cost Breakdown:

12″ x 16″ frame: $5.19 (on sale at Joann’s)
white Bristol Board cut to size (already had)
Paint chips
Fiskars Circle punch: $6.74 (half off sale + 25% off coupon at A.C. Moore)
3D Sticky Foam Dots: $2.24

Total cost: $14.17

Psst…if you like this project, please consider sharing it with others!