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DIY Wednesday: Halloween Paint Chip Door Decs

alwaysaladyllc
Oct 14, 2015
3 min read

As a resident assistant, I am always trying to find new and crafty things to do for my residents. I love doing crafts, and I absolutely adore to hear the feedback from all of my residents. As a RA in an residence hall for upperclassmen, I have found that it is slightly more difficult to impress these residents. First off, they just do not need my assistance as much, and secondly, they have everything they need in their suites, so they hermit away unless it’s class and/or food time. Not only has this year been more challenging for me as a RA, but it’s also a more stressful year for me, so I have to be honest and say being a RA has been a struggle this semester, but slowly I am adjusting to my new enviroment, and feeling not-so-needed by my lovely residents.

But moving back to my creative RA-ness! One of my favorite things to do as a RA is making door decorations (or door decs for short). I try to make a new one every month or so, and defiantly one for each of the upcoming holidays. My favorite holiday to make door decs for is Halloween though! There are so many options to do, whether it be Halloween or Fall related. Last year, I made candy apples with construction paper, popsicle sticks, and glitter! This year, I felt obligated to try my hand at something related to Halloween. I found a Halloween craft made with paint chips that a mother did with her children. I had been eager to find something pertaining to paint chips because not only were they cute, but they are also relatively cheap, actually FREE! These paint chips were made to create candy corn, pumpkins, Frankensteins, and witches. I thought they would be perfect to put on my residents’ doors.

My first step was to get the paint chips. Now me being the good conscious person that I am, felt guilty just taking these paint chips from the store (I specifically went to Lowe’s because Wal-Mart did not have the right size). I suggest using the large, square chips. The skinnier ones can be used for other projects (my other RA friend used pink ones for Valentine’s Day door decs). I grabbed the dark forest green, pumpkin orange, light yellow, and plum colored ones.

In the middle of completing my door decorations. The final step is to attach the name tag portion to the bottom of the paint chips.

I used construction paper to make the faces for each individual paint chip. Thankfully I only needed to make 30 of them compared to the almost 50 I had to make last year. So to make it less painful, I would split it up into sections each evening. There are six residents in each suite, and I have five suites. So I would do about a suite a night so I didn’t get fed up with them after trying to bang them all out at one time. I went through quite a lot of glue, and I would have scraps of paper everywhere on my floor, but I did enjoy making them! To make the actual name tag portion of it, I just cut out black rectangles and used orange puffy paint to write their names. I left them to dry overnight and then glued them on the bottoms of the paint chips the next day. I later hung them up on their doors and they loved them! It was a great way to bring more Halloween spirit to my wing!