Paint chips + wire = awesome new house plant!

[melissa!]

Last week, my dad got me a whole load of new things to play with, he's a construction worker, and his best friend is an interior designer, they both cleaned out their stashes, and gave me all of their outdated samples. So I ended up with literally over 3000 paint chips (not to mention a TON of other things to recycle), and I've been thinking of all the different things I could make, and here's the first thing I came up with.


The tree is a little over a foot and a half tall, and it's made of about 50 copper wire remains, wound together to make the tree, over 150 paint chips cut, glued, hole punched, and wired to the tree, and its in an old flower pot.
This was a serious pain! My fingers are still killing me. But what do you all think of it? Does it look fairly tree like? I can't even tell anymore, I spent so many hours working on it. Any suggestions on how I can make it better?
Edit: Some ideas I've been toying with since are making magazine leaves. It's looking really cool, and pretty much everyone has magazines to work with. Oh, and I have some fall trees in the making, and some trees that are flat backed so that they can be wall art. Lots of ideas.
If anyone else makes one I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see what they do.

[TracyInNH]

I love it!  I always try to grab a few paint samples on my way out of a store, usually for bookmarks, etc.  This is creative, can't see what else you have and what you make of it

[Jenicat]

That is really awesome!  I would love to have that in my house, for a number of reasons:

I have cats!  So they would not be able to ruin this plant.

I have a baby, and I would completely forget to water it.

It doesn't lose leaves.  Awesome.

We don't have many windows in our house (basement level), so it would never need sunlight.

I think it looks great.  I love that you made the leaves such a variety of colors, and I love that you mixed blues in too. 

Totally rockin'.

Edit:  It does look like a tree, by the way.  And also, my husband says (and I quote!), "That's awesome.  It's really pretty."  Then he added, to me, "like you."  Awwww.  What a sweetie pie.

[kirstilynne]

OH! that is amazing! I want one

It does look like a tree. What a great idea for wire and paint chips. i have tons of wire left over from various projects and could do something like this.

brilliant idea.

[nofury]

I love it! Would be a great gift for my boss who can't grow anything!!! (but why would I GIVE her anything?)

I like it. Brings a touch of nature where none can grow!

Beautiful use of throw-aways!!!

[alittletooth]

I heart it! I want a whole room full of paint chip trees now!

[melissa!]

Wow. Thanks everyone. I wasn't sure if anyone would actually like it, cause my sister says its a dumb idea. Oh well... her loss haha.

alittletooth: It would take forever to make a whole room full! Ahhhh! I spent most of my weekend working on this. I couldn't stop, once I start I have to keep going, I wanted to see if it would work.

[zenthistle]

I like it too..   I personally would get a copper paint pen and try  drawing some swirley fancy veins on the leaves..     or perhaps  try  gluing something on some of the leaves like  a couple  copper sequins..
your tree is very tree like..   

[jadco123]

I knew there was a reason I was saving all of my paint chip samples!!!  Great job!!! 

[WIPs]

That's a very cool idea!