How to Be Creative With Wallpaper

We all know that wallpaper can create a gorgeous effect on walls—but why stop there? Take wallpaper beyond the walls by putting it to use all over the house. It’s a great way to take advantage of leftover paper from a wallpapering project, or if you don’t have any paper of your own you can look for vintage paper and remnants at local stores or on websites like WalnutWallpaper.com and AztecWallpaper.com. Once you’ve got yourself some wallpaper, you’re ready to get started on a whole slew of papering projects (no walls necessary)!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Wallpaper remnants or scraps
• Boxes—shoe boxes, hat boxes, photo/collectible boxes, jewelry boxes (if you’ve got leftover gift boxes, these can work great, as long as they’re heavy, good quality cardboard)
• Decorative cubes or open shelves
• Cork board
• Frames
• Paper
• Ribbon
• Scissors/Exacto Knife
• Craft Glue

1. Choose your paper (or papers) and gather supplies. If you’ve got relatively large pieces you’ve got a few options. You can cover large hat/gift boxes, line the insides of open bookshelves or storage cubes, cover a piece of corkboard to create a bulletin board with pizzazz, or even frame the pieces for a graphic, modern look.

2. 

   Got medium to small pieces of paper? You can cover smaller boxes (shoe boxes or anything else small) or you could line the insides of jewelry boxes for a luxurious decorative touch. If you’ve got several different papers, use them to cover a corkboard with a pattern—try cutting the paper into diamond or checkerboard squares. These can even look great in a random, scattered pattern.

3. 

   If you’ve got smaller scraps of paper, use them to create greeting cards, gift tags or place cards. All you need are paper, scissors and glue. Or you could use craft punches in decorative shapes or craft scissors with decorative cutting edges to add an extra decorative touch to your paper. Simply cut out the designs and you’ve got stencils. With an exacto knife (and a little ambition) you can create all sorts of shapes to embellish your cards. All you need to do is cut the pieces to your liking and glue them to the paper. If you’re creating hanging gift tags, remember to add a small hole in the corner of the tag for ribbon.

Resources

• Walnut Wallpaper
• Aztec Wallpaper

[nassima]

on 12/2/2008 Great idea, but I'm looking for how to use A3 piece of papers ( Pink/ green/blue) in my office just a small touch to turn my offic eto a warm cool place. I'm not sure if I am allowed to ask questions! Help

[ArtsyPoo]

on 10/5/2008 When my family owned a home & hardware, we would sell the late edition wallpaper sample books for $5. A lot of people would rather make a profit from it, then to toss them in the trash. Doesn't hurt to ask, and you'll end up with hundreds of different styles of paper to play with.
One of my favorite uses: funkier photo matting that really pops!