DIY piece of art (using paint chips)

Last Friday I popped to B&Q to get some paint & other basic items for some furniture DIY make-over I am about to make in my living room... (check here next week for it!) Aside from brushes, dust sheets and sandpaper, I couldn't resist, I had to pocket those cute strips with colour samples... I remember reading ages ago on Pinterest a suggestion to make little boxes with them, so I though they could come handy.

Photo Credit: How About Orange

Last Sunday morning, however, I didn't feel like making boxes, I had no use for them at the moment. But I did have an empty frame waiting to go up on the wall once I found a pretty enough picture for it. Hmmm... Pinterest never fails. A little bit of browsing around and I came across an amazing (and incredibly colourful) website: BRIT + CO. narrowed down to 25 the number of things you can make with these little paint chips.

I decided to follow the tutorial by How About Orange and make myself a pretty piece of wall art, as you can see below.

Photo Credit: Zaira Brilhante, with iPhone 4S.

First I thought of making something with chevrons, following another tutorial I had come across, but I fell in love with the idea of these triangles. But here is a very important tip for anyone wanting to have a go at it: think of the colour wheel before choosing your strips. Usually, colours that are next to each other on the wheel look great together. However, if you want to add contrast, then pick colours that sit on opposite ends. I played safe and kept my little project to one side of the wheel, avoiding greens & yellows...

Goethe's symmetric colour wheel with 'reciprocally evoked colours' includes magenta (left) as the mixture 

of red and violet, just as green is a mixture of yellow and blue (right). Source: Wikipedia.