Crafting With Ali: Paint Chip Art

So off to the paint store we went.  We picked up paint chips from Home Depot, and Sherwin-Williams.  Just my opinion but the ones from Sherwin-Williams are pretty cool because they are much longer than any of the paint chips from Home Depot.  Anyway, after shoplifting a butt load of paint chips (what?  they're free?) we grabbed a few miscellaneous supplys  from the craft store, and came back to mi casa to start the crafting.

Supplies:
Paint Chips (duh)
Skissors
Exacto Knife (optional)
Cutting Board or if you're fancy a Cutting Mat (so you don't cut your table with the exacto knife)
Paper Cutter (optional)
Imagination
Card Stock
Ruler
Double Sided Tape
Talent (required, but just a small amount)
Frame

So I ran around like a crazy lady getting all this stuff together so we could get started.  I had planned on making a vintage Nuggets logo with my paint chips, while Ali wanted to create sky lines from the cities that her and her husband have been to (Who flies for work all the time so he racks up airlines miles that allow them to take awesome vacations all the time and are assholes for that).  Here's my inspiration and my paint chips. (oh and pay no attention to the busted portion of my screen.)

First I started out measuring the spacing that I wanted to maintain so that all the colors would be even.  So I used my fancy sewing ruler and drew a line a 1/2 inch from the opposite side of my paint chip that would be showing.  I didn't want any lines showing so I drew it on the back.  See?

Now stack each color in the old Roy G. Biv order to make a double rainbow and use your double sided tape to keep everything in place.  I don't have a in progress picture for this step but here is the after.  Also, enjoy this completely appropriate song for the rest of the post.






Then I cut out the semi circle for the top.  I raided my kitchen to find something to trace.  The winner was my Popcorn bowl that Mike and Ali gave us for xmas 2 years ago.  How ironic!  The only thing that I failed to notice was that the semi circle wouldn't be tall enough to fit all the colors like in the logo.  So instead of doing a semi circle, I just extended the lines straight down.  I don't really know how to explain this.


To get the mountain and building outlines, I laid a strip of my card stock on top of my paint chips and just transferred the points of my mountains onto the white paper while looking at the logo.  I kinda just marked what color band they were on and guessed on how far apart they should be.  For the buildings I drew the lines for all the color bands and just repeated the process for the mountains.  Again, hard to explain, so just look.

Since this one is all marked up with pencil, I just laid this over a fresh piece of card stock to make a new clean one.  Now just double side tape everything together and you'll get this lovely piece of sports memorabilia.

Here's Ali working on her Denver sky line. (Cash Register Building!)

And her finished  New York and Chicago sky lines!


If you notice that there isn't a finished one for Denver, she decided that the windows kinda suck so she needs to re-do it with out them.

Notes of how I would do this differently.  

1. Use masking tape to hold the paint strips in place while I perfect them, THEN add the double sided tape to the back.
2. Pre-cut the paint chips instead of overlapping them.  (There is a lot of bulk in the middle of the frame.)
3. Use one of these fancy Silhouette Machines to cut out the arch and mountain/buildings.  (If someone out there wants me to have one just email me and I'll give you an address to send it to. hint hint.)

So much fun!  Have you tried anything that you've pinned on Pinterest?  Does your significant other think Pinterest is really stupid and mock you for enjoying it whilst at parties?  Do you then roll you eyes at them and declare that Pinterest is AWESOME?  If so, we have a few things in common, and I'd love to here about it!  Til next week...


Nikki

I am linking up to Tatertot's and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up Party



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