Thursday's Unique Picks - Paint Chip Off The Old Block

Do you dabble...

Gorgeous vintage artist palette brooch and earring set from Seaside Studio on etsy.

Have you experienced the Joy of Painting?

This great handmade felt Bob Ross finger puppet from abbeychristine's etsy shop, might be just the thing to inspire you to paint those happy little trees.

Now I am not talking about landscapes or still-life today, I am talking about kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms... you get the picture. Please note that you don't have to be an artist to be a painter, especially when it comes to this week's Unique finds from etsy sellers.

Fantastic vintage French Trade Sign for a Painter sign from Invisible Gallery on etsy.

Porquoi all the interest in the Joys of Painting this week? 

Adorable vintage "painter's tray" from five6seven8's etsy shop

Two reasons:

Reason 1: I have been contemplating painting the walls in my own kitchen.

Reason 2: Curiosity over something I saw in a bar last week (I bet you are curious now too).

I am still in the planning phase with giving my kitchen a fresh coat...picking the color, finding the time, yada yada.

Color choice is quite a process for me, even if I am just choosing neutrals. I often hang the chips on my walls (sometimes for weeks) to help me with the decision (obsess much?).  I even once hosted a party at my house and was in the middle of choosing a new  wall color in my bathroom. I had the chips hung up in the bathroom and asked my guests to vote on their favorite shade. Wack-o.

Picking the color is my favorite part though, I just LOVE paint chip color cards. I still can't believe home improvement stores let you have them for free. 

These paint color cards can not only inspire a room's color, but they have inspired these awesome finds.

Wear the chips fall...handmade necklace from inky.strings on etsy upcycled from paint swatches.

These cheerful hang tags from BETTESBUTTONS on etsy were created using recycled paint swatches.

Even if your walls are neutrally colored, these terrific paint chip inspired placemats from Avril Loreti's etsy shop will surely add a unique punch of color to your space.

Fun with color aside, you will not get very far if you don't have the right tools to get the job done.

Grab that bucket of paint and get to work. 

Brush up on your painting skills with this vintage industrial brush from BD Vintage on etsy.

A little boost for the vertically challenged folk like myself, with this great cottage chic vintage metal painters ladder from TheOrangeCollective's etsy shop. Even if you aren't painting, it would make a neat plant stand or occasional table in your cottage chic home.

If you want to paint like a professional though, you may want to "look" like a professional painter. 

Which leads me to the second thing that inspired this weeks topic. 

What did I see in that bar? Curiosity killing you?

I saw a painter all dressed up in his white painters uniform. Yeah sorry, not a very exciting bar story. 

Someone I was with posed an interesting question to me though, "Why do painters wear white?".

My reply: "Painters traditionally wear white so you can see their level of expertise. If they have lots of paint on them they are probably pretty messy".

Sounds pretty convincing right? Yeah, it turns out that I totally made that up or believed that statement from someone else that totally made it up, and just relayed it to my parents.

The REAL reason that painters wear white:

 Unfortunately, I wasn't able to track down one concrete reason but found a variety of theories:

1. ...."it began in the early 20th century when union painters adopted white as their uniform to set themselves aside from non-union workers. The union guys used to wear white clothes with black neckties as a symbol of their professionalism."
2. ...."the most common color painters deal with is white, and they also deal with a lot of other white stuff such as plaster and spackle, so they wear white clothes so the splotches don't show."
3. ...."painters use to mix 50 lbs of "White lead powder" with a can of paint paste in order to make about 2 gallons of paint. The mixing process produced large amounts of white dust and to hide the dust on themselves the painters wore white."

Thanks Askville, for these fascinating answers to my exciting question.

Image from The Three Stooges movie Tassels In The Air found on the Three Stooges website.

Don't be a stooge, dress for painting success. No one ever said a painters white suit couldn't be cute...

Stylin' white vintage jumpsuit prefect for painting in, found in Ms. Tips etsy shop.

See what I mean, You don't have to be an artist to be a painter, nor do you have to actually be painting anything to be inspired by these sweet finds from etsy sellers!

The ultimate color splash, no paint required! Beautiful handmade original mixed media using fabrics to create this artwork  from Bright Shine on etsy.