Never Use the Wrong Color: How to Organize Paint

Once upon a time, you made a project. And that project needed painted. And it needed to be blue. And you had five different blue paints to choose from.

You looked at the paint labels and even looked inside the bottles, and you thought you picked the one you wanted.

But when it dried, it was NOT the color you thought it was. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

Story of my craft life. Or it was, before I came up with this super simple system that makes sure I know just what paint I'm getting, despite lying paint labels! It can even help you when you go to buy more paint.

1. That whole stash of paint you have, whether it be craft paint or industrial paint.
2. Pieces of plain white paper.
3. A pen
4. A ruler
5. A brush
6. Water in a cup or other container to rinse your brush
7. Space to put your paint

So first off, gather all the paint you have accumulated over the years. I have a ton of craft paints that I have bought over a few years. I use this paint mostly for my clay works, but I also use them for other projects.

Once your paint is all gathered, sort it by color. Blues go in one pile, greens go in another, and so on. If you have ones that you aren't sure about, read the label. Sometimes the name of the paint will say something like "Lagoona Blue", so I go ahead and put those with the blue. If the label doesn't give you a hint, set it aside for the next step.

Grab your white paper, ruler, and pen (it can be a pencil). The paper HAS to be plain white. Preferably bright white like copy or printer paper. An off-white or colored paper will affect the accuracy of the system.

With your ruler, make straight vertical lines down the paper........................................................

Then make horizontal lines............................................................................

If you don't want to make your own charts, I have included charts that you can just download and print out. How could it get any more simple?

There are two charts in the document, one is a chart with more lines, but the rows are small. The second is a chat with less lines, but the rows are bigger. If you find a small chart too small to write on, use the large chart.

I made a chart for every color type of paint that I have. I have a chart entitled "Blue", one called "Green", "Purple", etc. I grouped one together that I just called "Neutrals", and this chart will include blacks, whites, greys, and off-white colors that can't quite be called brown. If you just want to make one chart (a.k.a, you don't have as much paint as I have), that is totally fine.

Now is the magical part of the process.

Once you have all your charts made (or your one chart), pick one of your color groups of paint out. Begin writing the titles of your paint on the charts in the left hand side of the first column. I have made the charts with three columns and every column has many rows in it, and every row in the column is for a separate paint color. You can write down A LOT of paint colors with this system.

I started with the Blue category. For my first entry, I wrote down "Apple Barrel Blue Cotton 21886". I include the paint's serial number just in case someday I wanted more of it and couldn't find any in the store. Then I could do a search on the internet or call the company to find out if they still produce that specific paint.

I kept writing the titles of the paints on down the column, making sure to leave some room to the right side of the column. That will be important later.

Once I have wrote down all the Blue paints, I get out another chart and begin writing out all the Green paints. You don't have to use another chart if you don't have that much paint or you don't care to have it separated into colors

Once all your paints have been wrote down, it is time for the next step..

This is the most important part of the whole thing.

Go back to the first chart you made (or the first entry). For me this is "Apple Barrel Blue Cotton". With the paint brush, I get a little bit of that paint on the brush and paint in a square or rectangle in the blank space I left to the right of the paint's name. This will help you figure out what that color ACTUALLY looks like, not what it looks like on the label. Some paints blatantly lie.

To further help the paint organization, I also paint the top of the paint lid. Just get a little bit and paint a circle of paint on the top of the lid.

Once the paint dries, it will show you what it will actually look like when dry. So much more helpful than looking at the label!

Proceed to do the same thing for all the paints that you have on your charts. Next to each name, paint the little square, and paint on the cap top of every bottle.

*Don't worry, you can' do all this for industrial paint, too*

Once you have finished your charts, it is time to organize your paint. Since this Instructable is really about the charts, I am not going to show you how to build some 'magnificent paint shelf' or 'secret storage for paint'. However, this type of organization really ties in using the charts.

It is organizing by color. You can even get super maniacal about it and organize totally according to your chart and line the paints up in the order that you wrote them down, but that will hard to upkeep. I find that organizing my colors from light shades to dark shades is much easier to keep organized. When I put a paint back I don't have to look at the chart to make sure that it is in the right spot. I just have to look at its neighbors.

I have my paint stored on a shelf and in an old chinese take out box. Personally I like to start with neutrals, go through the warm colors, then the cool colors, and then I have my specialty paints, like metallic and glitter.

To organize your paints from light to dark (or dark to light, your preference), look at your groups. I am using Blue still as my example. I look at the group of paints and just separate them into who I think is a light color and who is dark. From there I begin to make a line, with the lightest first, all the way to the darkest last.

I do this with all the colors. After I am pleased with how they are lined up, I put them on the shelf in the order I lined them up. Ta-da! Tidy and pretty.

You can now use your charts to know exactly what color you are going to get when the paint dries. To store your charts, you can hole punch them and put them in a binder, or you can put them in a folder, or you can be like me and just tuck the charts in the shelf (or box) where your paints are stored. That way it won't run away and will always be there to help you.

Another great thing about the charts is that you can take them to the store with you so you won't buy paint you already have! Granted, you can't see what the paint will look like when it is dried, buy you can make a pretty good guess if you already have a similar shade. I wish the stores would paint little test strips under the paints instead of the computer print outs so you could see what it will LITERALLY be like instead of the very possibly incorrect digital version. Since I don't think any of them are going to listen to me, though, this has to be the next best thing.

Bonus: You can also use this idea for your nail polishes. That is originally what I did when I was younger and most all of my nail polishes where blue and I wasn't sure how some of them where different from others. This can also help you see if it is a super sheer nail polish or a very opaque nail polish before you paint it and say "Oh, crude, this is gonna take a million coats" !

I wish I could say my craft space is always super organized, but I can't. Any time I get into a project things go over, pulled out of their little boxes, laying all over everything. I lose stuff that way, too.

HOWEVER.

My paints are always organized. Literally. Except for the ones that I take out and forget to put back. Unfortunately, no organization system is ever going to help that, unless I have a little robot guard installed who berates me about not putting back my paint!

This paint system really helped me a lot, and I hope it helps you, too. Now you'll know whether to use "Dazzling Blue" or "Knockout Blue" when you're painting that starry night scene.

Have a great day and go paint!