Apartment DIY | Ombre Paper Chain

I’m SO excited to share the second installment of the Apartment DIY series! I randomly saw online where someone had created a paper chain to use as a photo backdrop and I thought- how cool would that be hanging somewhere in our apartment! I’m all about things that are different and don’t cost a lot of money, so the paper chain idea was perfect! I originally thought I would be creating a paper chain to use as a “headboard” in our bedroom, but once I saw our living room and the colors in it I knew it would be a better fit in our living room.

This project doesn’t cost a lot of money, just some time, and I’m SO happy with the way in turned out! In fact, this post almost doubles as a “Wedded Wednesday” because I plan on creating another ombre paper chain in our wedding colors to be used as the backdrop for our ceremony! So besides just a fun piece of art, it could be used as a backdrop for photos, a ceremony backdrop, a headboard piece, etc. I’m really happy with the way it turned out! -A

Materials Needed:

-Cardstock in varying colors (I purchased mine from Office Depot)

-Paper cutter

-Double sided sticky tape (I originally purchased Gorilla Glue but realized the double sided tape worked best and was WAY less messy!)

-Curtain Rod (I purchased mine from Target)

I think the total cost for the project was around $30, and it makes a big impact!

Here are the colors I chose to use, I went ahead and laid them out how I would want them, so I worked through one color at a time.

I admit, my paper cutter is pretty awful! It was on sale at Michael’s and I can totally see why! The time it took me for this project would probably have been cut in half if I had had a better paper cutter!

On the left is what the strips looked like before making them into the chain. I used the same measurement on the paper cutter for each one to insure each strip was the same width. On the right is the beginning of the paper chain. It all depends on the length that you want your chain to be, but for me I did four links for each color and 15 total strands across. For our ceremony backdrop that I am going to create, I will need to do a lot more as that chain will need to be a lot longer. I did not have an exact science to where I actually taped the paper to itself, so in the final product not each strand is the same length, but I actually like this better and think it added a little something extra to the look!

Wahoo! The chain all finished and mounted above our couch! I am so happy with how it came out!

A little close up! Here you can see how not all the strands are the same length. I was worried that people might knock their heads against is when sitting on the couch, but the way our couch is you don’t really lean back that far so no issues! Something to think about though when deciding how high to hang it and how low to let it fall.