awesome, all the mor eiders for my soon 2 be 6 yr old's art party.

Wow, so many great ideas! Too bad I didn't know about these sooner, I recycled about a million paint chips earlier this year (though knowing me, we've got a million more somewhere around here).

I recently made something for a friend's new baby that is similar to the butterfly picture. I used a teddy bear hole punch and used colours from the Farrow and Ball paint chip card, as this included the exact colour in which they had painted their nursery. Such a cheap and easy way of producing art work.

Here's another one - paint chip peacock -
http://tpcraft.blogspot.com/2011/06/toilet-paper-roll-paint-chip-peacock.html

Maybe I'm the only one here but I just feel weird walking up taking tons of paint chips at the store. I periodically see ladies do it and the paint guys give them the nastiest looks.

I made one paint chip project too! :-D The video is in portuguese but is easy to understand the process. Check here: http://www.dcoracao.com/2011/09/sindrome-da-parede-vazia.html

Glad you saw my Pinterest board. I like to provide a library of images by themes for people to get inspired and create!

Someone please explain to me. Are the people making these paint chip projects just walking out of the store with gobs and gobs of paint chips simply because they are free?

Off to check them all out..

nice but "free" only works because everyone is supposed to take one or two. not 20 or 30. I can understand why employees at the store give them dirty looks. I already felt guilty when I took two of several colors (for my apartment, not a DIY project)
how about you use colored paper instead? (or recycled paper, even better)

Of course I have paint chips as heart;

http://cafenohut.blogspot.com/2011/08/tamam-biliyorum-cok-basit.html

It seems to me that most of the recent paint chip craft projects have been met with negative feedback. I've done one such project and hit up 3 different stores for a total of about 30 paint chips. However, I don't think I'd do that again because it just seems dishonest. Some of the projects above look like you could use some paint chips that you took for a legitimate, "I want to paint something," purpose. Those I think are great!

The employees give people who scoop up paint chips for projects that won't result in paint sales for a very simple reason: they're thieves.

How anyone thinks this is OK is beyond me, and I wish the AT blogs would stop supporting this notion.

Agreed, mdorothy.

If you tried walking out of your place of work with a bag full of post-its and supplies for a project or went to the grocery demanding all of the free samples they were giving away that day to make dinner, you'd be reprimanded. Free doesn't mean all for you.

This is a great one from Mark Montano's Big Ass Book of Home Decor -- especially ideal for those with paint chips left over from past projects, so naysayers can rest assured :)

http://markmontano.typepad.com/mark-montano/2011/01/paint-chip-art-from-the-big-ass-book-of-home-decor.html

What they are doing is NOT stealing. If it were stealing the employees wouldn't glare at them, they would call the police. The chips are there to be given away, so, unless the store posts a notice placing a limit on the number of paint chips taken, there is no legal difference between taking one and taking them all.

Taking free samples at the grocery store is the same. Unless the person handing them out says you must stop, you can eat 'til you're ready to burst. Some people may not feel comfortable doing this, but there is no legal prohibition against it.

Taking supplies from your employer is not the same. In most cases you will have been given either a written or verbal instruction that supplies are to be used for work related purposes only.

Now, back to the subject at hand, there are some cute projects up there. I may have to try a couple. I'll probably take all of the chips from one store and see how many glares I get.

nrKist thanks for that. people get so uptight sometimes. chill people chill.

anyway i love the butterfly one and it doesn't look like it'd take up that many paint chips people!

nrKist - just because ya can doesn't mean ya should.

Omiggosh, paint chip police! These things are complimentary and meant to be taken home, people. Whoever said you're only "supposed to" take one or two paint chips is off their rocker. I have taken home fifteen, twenty, or more - simply because I had no idea what color I wanted to paint my rooms. I needed that many to decide. I re-used some of them (I put them in the little label holder on all my storage boxes). Get over yourselves!

Some of these are really cute ideas, some are... eh.

The free/steal debate aside I'm gobsmacked by the really inventive use of what, for most people, is a throwaway. I'll definitely be experimenting with this myself. Heaven knows that after trying for years to come up with the perfect paint colors I have enough of these on hand (and now they're all in my color scheme). Though must say I really love the egg one so may have to purloin a few in colors I'd never anticipated using for wallpaint... be prepared paint chip police cuz I'll be in the aisle of my local Lowe's and may take up to half a dozen paint chips! Ooooh, it's Bonnie & Clyde in the paint chip aisle...

Love the Easter eggs! Perfect use of the white divider between colors.

Regarding the paint chips themselves, I worked at a hardware store about 20 years ago. We did have to order (and pay for) new chips when we ran out, so they weren't exactly free for us. Maybe things have changed, I don't know, but hey, maybe just buy a gallon of paint from time to time to help 'em out. :)

I really like only # 9,10 and perhaps 15.

I do have tons of paint chips at home. I think it's silly to assume that a person is supposed to take only one or two, especially with all those subtle differences between colours. Often, I am not sure if I will paint a wall a gray or purple (an example only) - so I will take at least 4-5 chips from either category.
I keep all my paint chips for future reference so by now I have amassed quite a collection.

If we're on this site, the odds are we're into home decor and likely to have MANY paint chips hanging around. Every time I start a project, I pull out the stack of chips, and I know there are many that I'd NEVER pick - and instead of throwing them out as useless, they would be great for crafts for my kid. These ideas are great!

It's a way of reusing something you'd likely toss away to be recycled anyway.

I wouldn't support the gathering of them since they are there to assist people in picking colors for things - but there are many reasons why people would have these already in their homes and available for use.

AT isn't here to tell you HOW to get these materials, just what to DO with them. They also don't endorse going out and stealing buckets of paint so you can redo your room - but they don't have to specifically state that you have to go properly buy it either!

Though I would love to see an article on stealing paint, just for the hell of it.

Some people make things from old paint chip booklets (you know, a stack of paint chips bound together at one corner). That's okay.

It's even okay to make something from the paint chips you've saved up from real projects.

And it's not illegal to walk out of a store with all their paint chips, but it certainly isn't polite. And also, something people on here are always ranting about, it isn't very green.

Recycling paint chips that once served their original purpose and are no longer needed is a good thing. Stealing paint chips solely for the purpose of doing arts and crafts is just ridiculous. You really don't have any scraps of colored paper at your house? Or scraps of white paper and a little paint?

You can always buy a chip book if you feel better about it. The last one I bought at Benjamin Moore was $18.

I love butterflies and wanted to decorate my daughter's room with them and finally I found the website www.decowall.co.uk. They have so many different styles of butterflies so I purchased some. I really satisfied the result and def recommend the decowall products. If you like butterflies and would like to make the room more brighter, why don't you try these?

I cannot believe how offended people are here by the taking and using of paint chips. Chill out, people! If it really upset Home Depot, they would start charging for them. Besides, we all shop at hardware stores and make other purchases at them. It's really no different than accepting a grocery store food sample when you have no intention of buying the sampled item. My goodness, find something more important to freak out about please.

If anyone feels guilty about taking free paint chips, go to a smaller paint store and buy a fan book (where five or six colors in a row are on each strip and they are bound together with a grommet). You might get charged $10 or so but you will be able to sleep at night.

It's funny what makes people feel a sense of guilt. When I am shopping for paint I always feel bad when I pull out strips and then DON'T take them home because I imagine it's a pain to refile them in the right place in the racks.

I have a 2000+ sqft home, and all of the walls have been painted in the two years we've lived here--some twice. I have dozens of paint chips on hand from choosing colors, and we have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on paint.

I would not feel the least bit bad about grabbing a few extras from the display. They've made plenty of money off me. If the salespeople gave me rude looks for taking paint chips, I would definitely not return to buy paint from them!

Besides, better to use them for something than to throw them away. I really do wish I had seen this before I recycled a bunch of mine.

Employees don't refile the paint chips. Who but the most active paint chip police would do this? The employees throw them in the garbage, not even recycling them. As least us paint chip crafters are using them, then recycling them.

Most paint chips can't be recycled. You can put them in the recycle bin but that doesn't mean they're recyclable.

Not sure if anyone is looking at this post anymore, but I just saw this on another site I read a lot and it reminded me of everyone going off on here:

http://homeandgarden.craftgossip.com/paint-chips-are-you-stealing/

Basically, she contacted the big paint manufacturers and without a doubt, all of them (some in a more salespitchy, sell some paint kind of ways) seemed to be roughly on the same page- don't take more than you *need* and without the intent of using it to purchase paint. Behr was the most positive about everything, but while saying use them for crafts *if you picked chips to later use in purchasing paint*