- Andrea Tomkins
- September 27, 2011 at 7:44 am
- 10 comments
Vintage wallpaper: what should I do with it?
Once upon a time I found a roll of a fabulous vintage wallpaper at my local Value Village. This was a very rare sighting. Leftover rolls of wallpaper at ValVill are commonly the 1980s variety – too heavy on the pinks and dark greens – or something from a child’s nursery… neither of which interests me very much.
This particular roll tugged at my heart. I had to have it.
Well, that was two years ago. A tiny fraction of it has since covered a school textbook, which worked pretty well (excuse the poor lighting here):
… but that’s it. I’m not brave enough to cover a wall with this stuff, but there has to be another way I can use it.
Maybe I could make envelopes out of it. Or cut out some shapes and make wall art? Or laminate it to use as placemats? (Ohhh, there are a whole bunch of neat ideas here!) If I can’t figure it out soon my roll of vintage wallpaper will be going up on UsedOttawa. I hear it’s a fairly sought-after item. 
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10 comments!
Use it to recover the white matting that comes as default in a picture frame to make it more lively.
That could work really well, especially for kids’ artwork. Thanks!
It’s really pretty and cheerful, I like it!
You could line the drawers in your dresser or desk with it. You’d get a nice happy feeling every time you reached for a pen with a pattern like that in your desk drawer.
You could could cover a bunch of books that have interesting shapes, gilded edges, whatever strikes your fancy, and make an artful arrangement of them somewhere. I’m sure you could pick up hardcover books for a good price on this site, Value Village or garage sales.
Cover small boxes, cans, etc. and use to store pencils and other office supplies, paint brushes, or anything else.
Cut out some of the flowers and use them as appliques on a wall, on cupboards, dresser drawers, etc.
And the artwork idea from the previous poster was great. You could do a mini gallery using all different sized frames in the same colour (spray paint them if you need to). Again, these could be upcycled inexpensively.
Let us know what you do with it!
Super ideas! Thanks!
cover the back of a bookcase with it http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4mmRxhJ9C00/TLCiw8iez8I/AAAAAAAAClY/sHcl1p8H4ng/s1600/designsponge-wallpaper-bookcase.jpg
I need MUCH prettier paper for that!
I did something similar once. I received a gift with wrapping paper that was too pretty to recycle, so I flattened it up and covered the back of our medicine cabinet… so I saw the paper whenever I opened the cabinet. It made me happy every day for many years!
Take the wallpaper slap it over some pizza boxes hang them on the wall as decor
I’ve seen it done it looks like expensive art
Very pretty! Could use the wallpaper to make covers for home-made note pads, coupon books or photo albums. Cover cardboard pictures frames or use as the back drop of a collages of old colour or black and white photos all of which would make wonderful gifts.
You could do a groovy take on silhouette art… Or make pretty coasters out of it…
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[...] a bit of a show and tell over at the UsedEverywhere blog today. I show you something I bought, and you tell me what to do with it. [...]