Point #30-My Fandom’s Made of Paint Chips

My last post, uploaded mere hours ago, outlined my groovy foray into the exciting world of figuring out what the shiny hell to do with all the paint chips I obsessively collect like Pogs. Or Pokemon cards. Crap, I don’t know what kids collect these days. Something to do with Twilight, no doubt, but you get my point.

The other night, my exhusband/bestfriend-type-person came a-swingin’ by with his lovely lady to pick up some books, and he took one look at my awesome paint chippery upon the wall and declared “want”. I am one to oblige my nearest and dearest who like them a piece of the hastily created out of random objects style of craft I produce and so I set to work the next day. Gary had a very simple colour request: black, gold, and white, stating that those colours “go with anything”. Horse doots. That isn’t why he picked those colours. You see, during my marriage to the fellow, I developed many fandoms, one of which in particular stays with me to this day. In spite of never having once set foot in Pittsburgh, I am a die-hard Steelers fan, as is he. This made the challenge doubly fun for me, and I set to work enthusiastically.

Crap crap crap crap, quintuple crunchy crap.

In limiting the colours to variations (and I most broadly interpreted, let me tell you) of the three he listed, I did not have enough of them in any one size to cover the other DAVE box (packaging from IKEA’s computer table, DAVE) fully. *kick chair, get in rage, wonder if drive to hardware store just to “steal” paint chips would be ridiculous…sigh* The neato thing is, this forced me to improvise, and honestly, I think the resulting project is actually awesomer (shaddup, it’s a word.) than my original attempt. The chips are different sizes, the colours are uniform but not matchy matchy, and the black paint outlines give it a cool graffiti finish that I like very much. It is subtly indicative of his favourite team, without outright using and abusing any logos or copyrights (observant folks may notice a subtle swish of paint on three chips meant to pay homage to the team logo in the shape of a hypocycloid; present, but not overwhelming) and something that even a non-fan would potentially find appealing strictly as a work of art. In other words: woo. Go me. Go Team! Go paint chips!!! *waves big foam finger*

This shows that wonderful Mod Podge shiny goodness:

A close up showing some textured chips as well as some left with the name of the paint colour showing:

A close up of the hypocycloids:

I’m entering the CSI Challenge this week! Check out their site for other awesome projects!

Point #29-Just Tell Yourself You Really WILL Paint the Spare Room Someday

I am obsessed with paint chips.

I promise I am going somewhere with this.

I collect paint chips with a furtive, secretive, obsessive glee that is going to land me on Hoarders one of these days, I swear. I have gone so far to acquire a small, desktop plastic little set of drawers to hold them, carefully arranged in order of colour and by manufacturer. I have even added a small label, helpfully proclaiming “PAINT CHIPS” in sensible white on black traditional label tape; indeed I used my handy (if slightly outdated) label maker, taking my customary pleasure in the solid “GRONCH! GRONHCH!” noise it makes as each letter is punched. I acquire these chips and then I sorta just…have them. It’s a pride of ownership thing that happens with many crafters, especially shoestring, seat of pants type crafters like me. You don’t even want to see the jar holding my bottle cap collection.

I knew someday that I would find use for this vast collection and recently I did! Now in the words of the great auteur Kevin Williamson (c’mon…you watched Dawson’s Creek, just freaking admit it)my idea is a “rip off of a rip off”, but I like my take on it. (Edit: I found the original post I was snaking the idea from!!!! In the world of commercial type art, those big canvases covered in colour blocks are very popular and tend to go with everything. The more expensive ones can be upwards of $200; the cheaper ones at Target are still around $50. As readers of this blog are aware, I tend not to spend money on commercial art I can make myselfand this was no exception.

Since I don’t have a start to finish tutorial on this, being a very simple project, I will share a few photos and then outline what I did. I know you are panting to know.

Pretty, no? And oh so easy peasy. I used some particularly cool almost square ones that are textured in some way…sandstone and Venetian plaster finishes and the like. I glued them down onto, of all the weird things, the packaging from a DAVE computer table from IKEA. The size and shape were perfect to emulate a broad canvas. Once they were all glued down, a quick smear of burgundy paint around each chip to rough up the edges and the whole thing looked painted. The whole thing was covered two layers of ModPodge to seal it and give it a nice shiny finish. Now, I wasn’t sure how to finish off the cardboard edges, which were not only the wrong colour, but also a bit torn from opening the merchandise to begin with, but some cool burgundy coloured duct tape wrapped around the edges finished it off nicely.

So there you go. Obsession is good, boys and girls. Hoard like mad. Saunter out of home improvement stores with your blouse stuffed with paint chips. Date the paint counter guy so he can hook you up. Live at the top of those big shelves and live off of plants in the nursery. No one will think it’s weird at all.