Paint Chip Organization

I needed a quick and easy project this evening for a blog post.  Why?  Because A…my day job is consuming some serious time these days…B…we’ve been mudding/sanding fools upstairs in our master bedroom which is also time consuming (and doesn’t make for exciting posts)…and C…we just returned from our second straight weekend in Vermont.  And considering weekend time is when we do the bulk of our house projects, two weekends away can put a damper on the progress.  But last weekend was the Lake Champlain fishing derby, which was a blast, and this weekend was Colby’s high school reunion (I’ll spare you which number that might be).  And I wouldn’t trade learning some dirt on Colby as a youth for painting door trim any day!

So anyway…this little project I’m bringing you today was simple, I’ve been meaning to tackle it for about a year now, and it took me less than ten minutes. I finally organized my paint chips…well…at least the ones that are active colors in our home.  The paint chips have never had a home and have been living all over the place including my desk drawer:

In books as bookmarks:

And on my nightstand:

Just to name a few.  And strange enough, using the paint chips as bookmarks is usually my favorite use.  When I can’t find a paint chip and I need to go get a refill at the paint store, the first place I look for said missing chip is in the current novel I’m reading.  Odd, I know.  The paint chips needed a home.  A reliable place that I could find them, and find them often since painting seems to be my go-to project these days.  And I came up with a simple solution to organize the mess using a binder clip, leftover from the wedding card organizing project.

All I did was open the clip and loop the paint chips around it.  Easy peasy!  Oh, and I also wrote on the backs of them where the color was used.  This was especially helpful for a few chips that are used in more than one spot, like one of the shades of blue which can be found as a staircase baluster color and also the dining door color.

For now, the paint chips are hanging out on one of the floating shelves above my desk space.

I’m not convinced I’ll keep them there.  I’m debating either putting them back in the desk drawer or even adding one of those little screw-in hooks on the bottom of the shelf so I can hang the chips from the hook.  But we’ll see what I do.  Right now, I’m digging having them out in the open where I can easily access them.

When you step back, they kind of blend in with the chalk and the paint but you can still notice them.  But it’s hard to notice anything near my desk these days thanks to the crazy mess that is going on there these days.  It gets worse than what I’m revealing, but I just cropped it out of the photo.  The magical wonders of Photoshop!

So that’s my quick and easy how to organize your paint chips post.  We’ll see how it works for me, but so far it’s a huge improvement.  Now I’m off to go find something else to use for bookmarks.

Pssst…How was everyone’s weekend?  Anyone else celebrate a reunion or take a road trip?  I feel like we’ve been road warriors lately, spending 29 hours driving in the last two weeks, and can’t wait to relax at home next weekend!  Or anyone else have a nifty little organization project that you wish you had thought of years ago?!

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