I Heart Paint Chips

When I was a little girl growing up in the Chicago suburbs, there weren't too many places you could go on foot. There were, however, a few small shops just a few blocks from my house that, by the time I was in elementary school, I could walk to on my own. My two personal favorites were Mr. Gs, a hot dog stand that sold soft serve ice cream cones, and Hines Hardware Store, my earliest source for paint chips. It was one of those wonderful, hard-to-find locally owned hardware stores that had a little bit of everything, and I loved going in there, usually with an ice cream cone in hand, and picking out a few paint chips to take home. I typically used them as bookmarks in my library books.

I never thought of using paint chips for crafts until the wonderful blogosphere introduced me to the idea. And so, with a little help from my trusty sidekick, I put together a few Valentine's inspired paint chip crafts. I bought the heart shaped punch from Michaels, and that, in combination with a covert, satchel-stuffing visit to the paint department of the local hardware store, was pretty much the only expense.  What I am most proud of is that I was able to use nearly every scrap of every paint chip - the punched out hearts were every bit as pretty as the punched out outlines. Finn and I made three entirely different crafts with the stack of paint chips that I had...not bad for a days work!

I started with these bookmarks, courtesy of Foxy Inspirations:

I then ran the leftover heart outlines through my sewing machine, to make this funky rainbow garland:

 I gave Finn the heart punch, some stickers, the remaining paint chips, some cardstock, a few markers, and a rubber stamp and commissioned him with making Valentines for his preschool friends. He called it a "decorating picnic" as we were able to sit outside in the sunshine to work on the cards. It is not usually this warm in the midwest in February, so we are soaking up every bit of sun we can!

Happy February, all!