Who knew paint chips could be so versatile ?
We recently featured a musician who turned one the walls in her apartment into a paint chip gradient wall , and now we’re back with something that might just be cooler than that: a paint chip butterfly house !
TikTok user @estherandrews bridal spent a year turning her apartment into a butterfly fantasy. Let’s check it out!
Here’s what her space looked like when she started.
Pretty bland, tbh. The brown trim is pretty tragic, and the walls are that classic landlord beige. There’s lots of room for improvement here, let’s just say that.
She started collecting free paint chips from Home Depot.
I honestly had no idea you could get that many paint chips from a hardware store. If you’re a Home Depot executive reading this: please let us keep doing this, it’s free advertising for you.
She cut out every single butterfly by hand.
I can’t imagine how painfully tedious it was to cut out every single butterfly by hand. Luckily, she had a little helper named Cahoots. Or should I say, supervisor?
Slowly, she started adding them to the walls.
Esther chose to do the butterflies in gradients, letting the paint chip hues guide her. Each part of the room became a focal point for a specific color, like this yellow corner!
They were all adhered with painter’s tape.
It’s a no-brainer, but of course she used painter’s tape to get the butterflies to stay on the walls and ceilings. Gotta get that security deposit back, y’all!
Here’s a closer look at the butterflies!
From far away, it was hard to see how these could have been paint chips. Now you can see how Esther did it, and why those gradients work so beautifully together!
Her favorite corner is also my favorite corner.
I don’t even know where to start with this corner. First of all, I love the colors she chose here. But second — and most importantly — she has a frickin’ NASA SPACE SUIT on the wall!
She did all of this to distract herself from her medical condition.
Chronic pain is incredibly difficult to live with, and saps your energy very quickly. Esther worked around those energy drains and pain to create something beautiful that she can be proud of.
I do have one recommendation for if you want to try this…
If you have the funds, a cutting machine will greatly reduce the time spent cutting out those butterflies. Get a Cricut or Silhouette and have it do all the cutting for you!