How to Make Paint Palettes Using Everyday Household Items

Here's how to easily make paint palettes from items you use every day around the house. And you're reusing an item that was headed for the trash anyway.

Use plastic lids from margarine tubs, yogurt cups, coffee cans, etc.

Lid from a 32 ounce yogurt container

Use plastic bottles - any size works. In some cases this may not be cost-free, as you're losing the bottle deposit. I used a 2-liter seltzer bottle.

2-Liter Seltzer Bottle

Cut the bottom off the plastic bottle. (I was able to use regular scissors to cut around the bottom of my seltzer bottle.)

You now have a paint palette which is best for using individual colors without mixing. This works especially well when painting with children.

Soda Bottle Paint Palette

I drink more water than soda and found my favorite palette is made from plastic 1-gallon water jugs.

Plastic 1-Gallon Water Jug

Similar to the soda bottle, just cut the bottom off the jug.

I love these paint palettes made from plastic water jugs because the colors can be mixed yet there's a divider if you want to keep them separated.

Water Jug Paint Palette - My Favorite

If you have ideas for other inexpensive, DIY paint palettes, please leave a comment.

© Cindy Thomas Painted Rocks

Color Inspiration for Hand Painted Rocks

I recently came across this wonderful book containing more than 3,000 innovative color palettes including a CD with 3,286 downloadable swatch files. It's called "Color Inspirations."

Color theory is explained but what I found much more helpful were palettes for red, red-orange, orange, orange-yellow, yellow, yellow-green, green, green-blue, blue, blue-violet, violet, violet-red, pink, brown and grey.

Each page features 18 palettes for the color harmonies (monochromatic, analogous, triadic, split-complementary, complementary and other) of each color mentioned above, along with the CMYK, RGB, and HEX code to recreate the palette.

Here's a sample of what I'm talking about featuring the color green (in honor of St. Patrick's Day) and 6 palettes from each page:

Green - Monochromatic

Green - Analogous

Green - Triadic

Green - Split Complementary

Green - Complementary

Green - Other

When I'm having a difficult time choosing colors for painting my rocks, I refer to "Color Inspirations" and discover color combinations I'd never thought of using before.

Since I love bright colors, just thumbing through the book brings me joy and delight and sparks my creativity.