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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at JMU chapter.

Is your dorm or apartment looking a little bland and dull? Tired of plain white walls? Well there’s a fun, inexpensive, and easy way to add some pizzazz to your home: paint chip art! Paint chips are a great way to add your favorite colors to your own residence. Use one of these ideas yourself, or get inspired and create one of your own!

Heart Garland
This first paint chip craft idea is an easy and low-cost way to brighten up any room. The materials needed for this colorful heart garland are: 
1. Paint color samples (a good place to get these is at a local hardware store)
2. Heart shape-puncher or scissors,
3.Needle and thread.
The first step is to use the heart shape-puncher or scissors to cut small hearts out of the paint color samples.

Once you have cut out your desired amount of hearts, lay them out in the pattern you want the garland to be. Now, thread the needle and weave it threw the first heart. Continue to lace the thread through all of your heart cut-outs until you have created a string of hearts.

Finally, hang up your colorful heart garland to create an adorable decoration that will transform any boring wall space! 

Source:  http://www.ohcrafts.net/decoration-paper-punch-heart-garland.php

DIY Dry Erase Board
This next paint chip project is an easy way to create a cute and practical piece of art for your walls. We all know that it is super important to stay organized in college, so why not do this by having a custom made dry erase board calendar? The materials you will need for this project are:

1. Paint color samples
2. Picture frame (a good size is 12×16)
3. Tape or glue
4. Any color piece of construction paper big
enough to cover the back of the frame 
5. Dry erase marker 

To start, take your piece of construction paper and lay out five rows of seven paint chips. You can get creative by making patterns of different color paint chips, like purple and gold to show your JMU pride! 

Next, tape all of the paint chips to the piece of paper. Then, assemble the frame back together. All you have left is to take your dry erase marker and write all your important dates on the glass. Put up your custom dry erase calendar in your room and stay on top of your school work and social life.

Source: http://theaestheticwriter.blogspot.com/2011/10/diy-dry-erase-calendar.html

Layered Paint Chip Art

This paint chip project is probably the easiest of the four. 

All you need is: 

1. Paint chip colors of your choice
2. Scissors
3. Glue
4. Paper frame or a simple canvas

You can get a paper punch, which will punch out a specific shape for you, or you can simply cut the shape out yourself. In this example, the artist used plain circles of various sizes. You simply cut/punch out the shape, glue it onto the board, and voila! There are so many ways to customize this project. You can keep the colors in one shade or color family, do a few colors, do completely random colors, do various shapes, the same shape — anything you choose. 

Source: http://the3rsblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/project-30-week-30-circular-p…

Ombre Hearts

This project is similar to the “Layered Paint Chip Art,” but the paint chips are arranged in a different way and adhesive foam circles are used to give the paint chips dimension. Using a paper punch, you can punch out many shapes of the same size, and then arrange them in any order in straight horizontal lines on a canvas. You may want to use a ruler to make sure the hearts are placed in a straight line and are evenly apart.

The foam adhesives make attaching the paint chips much easier, but you could still use glue if you wanted. The ombre effect that this artist used gives the pieces a very sophisticated look, but you could organize them any way you want.

Chantal Johnson is a senior at James Madison University, studying Media Arts and Design with a concentration in Digital Video and Cinema. Aside from Her Campus JMU, she is involved with University Program Board. Chantal loves hanging out with her friends, listening to her "feel good" playlist on her iPod, or just curling up with a really good book in her spare time. Chantal loves her hometown, Roanoke,Virginia, but can't wait to graduate and explore her opportunities around the world! Within the next 10 years, Chantal's dream job would be becoming "the next Shonda Rhimes"!