Peel-and-Stick paint samples: make your own at home

After several bad paint choices, I have learned it’s best to put samples on the walls. I live with them for a bit, checking them at different times in the varying light. But it’s not always practical to have different-colored squares of paint all over the walls (it takes me a long time to decide). While perusing Pinterest for the perfect paint color, I stumbled across a site that sells the most brilliant thing ever — 12″ x 12″ peel-and-stick samples of REAL paint from popular brands. You can move them around, put them away when company comes over, etc. Mind blown!

That got me thinking. Isn’t that what adhesive vinyl is? I’ve used it as a stencil for painting, so I know paint sticks to it. What if I used up some of my random leftovers of white vinyl and painted samples on that? So, yep, I gave it a try and it worked GREAT!

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Why I didn’t just order the peel-and-stick samples

I chose to make my own peel-and-stick samples because:

Shipping is taking longer these days and I’m impatient.
I already had several sample pots.
For some brands, the sample pots are cheaper, especially if you wait for a sale.
As a crafter, I can always use the leftover paint for other projects.
Some of my colors were from brands without peel-and-stick samples available.
I can have samples in several spots at once.
At times, I like to lighten a color by a percentage (a trick learned from decorators).
If the sample lost its sticky, I’d have to using painter’s tape to hold it on the wall. That blue messes up my color perception!
Speaking of color perception — I was able to leave the white vinyl unpainted around 3 of the edges on each sample sheet. I’ll explain more about why later.
Once I choose a color, I want to put a real sample on the wall just to make sure.

Let me share how I did it and a few tips of things I learned along the way.

Materials

I only used vinyl, paint and a paint brush. You don’t even need transfer tape. Any brand of vinyl will do, although I don’t recommend just contact paper — it doesn’t stick over and over very well. It does need to be white.

If you don’t have a Silhouette machine, then you can still do this pretty easily. You just won’t do one trick in the same way.

Step 1: Create a simple square

With a Silhouette machine

Start a new file in your Silhouette Studio software. Make sure to pick a page size that fits your vinyl and decide whether or not you want to cut on the mat. (I always prefer cutting without the mat if possible. You can learn all my secrets here). I have some 9″ wide vinyl that I don’t use much so that’s my page width.
Draw a square that will fit on your page, leaving 1/2″ all the way around it. Put as many squares as you need for the colors of paint you have, leaving a 1″ gap between them and making sure there’s a margin at the bottom.

Cut out the squares with your machine, then cut them apart. This is a great time to use the crosscutter on your Cameo 4 machine. I don’t particularly like the ones on earlier Cameo models and so don’t recommend them.

Without a Silhouette machine

If you don’t own a Silhouette machine, then you’ll just cut some squares of the white vinyl.

Step 2: Paint the vinyl

Write the name of each paint color on the back of each square (so on the paper backing).

On 3 sides of each square, paint up to about 1″ inside the margin. On the 4th side, paint all the way to the edge. You can even paint over the margin on this side. Be sure you’re matching your label on the backing paper to the actual paint color you put on (ask me how I know). I suggest using several layers, making sure to dry a good long time in between.

I go back and forth between whether I want that white margin on 3 sides or not. Fortunately, I can make samples of each color both ways.

Step 3: Prep your samples

Remove and discard the margin pieces.

There are 2 reasons we added those in the first place:

So that we could paint all the way to one edge with nice, solid coverage.
If you need to put it back on the backing paper, it’s much easier. If you’ve ever tried to get vinyl back onto backing paper, then you’ll know what I mean. This way, there are no sticky edges hanging over if you don’t get it on perfectly square.

Adding a margin is the one trick you won’t be able to use if you don’t cut with a Silhouette machine. What you can do is cut another square a bit larger, peel that off and throw it away, then use that backing paper for your painted square. Or, try wax paper.

In one corner, write the name of the paint. Lift that corner and turn it under, sticking the vinyl to itself. This helps when paint colors are very similar. It also gives you a “handle” to grab to take the sample off the wall.

Step 4: Use your custom peel-and-stick samples

Peel the vinyl off the backing and you can place it anywhere and move it around to your heart’s content! The paint gives the vinyl more body, so you don’t even need transfer tape. The white edge all the way around on 3 sides helps you to see the paint’s true color without any influence of the color the wall already is. We painted all the way to the 4th edge so that you could butt it right up against something like a countertop or cabinet and see how well the colors play together. (This is not my original idea — I got it from Kylie M. Interiors).

Keep the backing paper in case you need to take the samples off the wall temporarily. This is not an absolute if you label the corner as I suggested, but I try to keep the backing paper and the paint sampled matched with the labels.

I’ve been able to stick my samples quite a few times. (Yes, I know — I’m moving from one neutral to another. But only in this area). How did your custom peel-and-stick paint samples do?