5 Uses for Wallpaper

Hey, did you know it’s National Wallpaper Week?! Nope, I didn’t either until Graham & Brown let me know about it, so I had to jump on board as I’m a big fan of the way that wallpaper looks – I would have said “big fan of wallpaper” but then again, I’ve never tried to put any up myself (yet!), so I thought it best to leave that part be!
At my parents’ house, my sister and I lived in the attic (makes it sound all Little Princess like, doesn’t it?), the walls of which were that plain kind of MDF wood so we were allowed to choose our own wallpaper for them. I started out with a lilac/lavender purple sort of colour with a border, but when I had my room redecorated around my 18th birthday, I went for a very vintagey look with those big Cath Kidston style florals. While it may seem a little old fashioned to some, nostalgic wallpaper styles (which is today’s theme for National Wallpaper Week) are some of my favourite. I’m thinking cosy English cottage in summer, farmhouse style kitchens, herb gardens – that kind of feel.
But a lot of people aren’t big fans of wallpaper – I know Ben is one of these! I’ve been desperate to at least get one wall papered in our house and was trying to go for our bedroom, but I haven’t got him persuaded on that yet. Instead, there are plenty of other uses I can get out of wallpaper in the meantime, so I thought I’d share a few of my ideas.

1. As backdrops for photos.

This is where you find out how super sneaky I am! When I was still trying to persuade Ben that we should have wallpaper in the bedroom, I picked up a few samples of ones I liked in Next. After realising he wasn’t to be persuaded, I decided to put the samples to good use – as backdrops for blog photos! I spotted this on a blog post with Instagram tips a while ago and now it’s one of my favourite ways to get blog photos to look pretty. The one I used for my Lush photos is kind of awesome because it looks like a nice whitewashed table but is in fact just a little strip of wallpaper.

2. Back of shelving

I’m planning to do something similar to this for my sewing room (although the IKEA box shelves don’t actually have backs that you can paper). Similar to using contact paper, you can use wallpaper to give your room a bit of an uplift without having to paper the whole thing.

3. Scrapbooking

I don’t personally scrapbook at the moment, although I do own one that I want to start using. But I know a lot of friends love using scrapbooks, and wallpaper is perfect for this. If you want to zing up a page a little bit, those tiny pieces of wallpaper that are left over may be just the thing.

4. Brownies (arts & crafts)

No, not Brownies as in the food (well, I guess if you wanted you could wrap them in wallpaper, although that sounds like hard work…). Any left over wallpaper you have after finishing up your project, or any samples you’ve got while deciding, are perfect for arts & crafts, especially if you help out at your local Brownie unit (see what I did there!). We’re always needing more interesting things to add to our arts and crafts cupboard as plain card and tissue paper gets boring after a while, plus it can be expensive to keep restocking.

5. Walls!

The obvious, of course! Since my sewing room is, well, mine, I’ve been given the go ahead by Ben to be allowed to wallpaper it – BOOM! Problem is, I just can’t decide which to go for. I veer more towards greys and soft blues for a calm look like the Innocence Duck Egg above, but my sewing room is the one room of the house I want to be colourful and fun, so I’m tempted to go a bit crazier with Poppies Teal, but then again, I don’t want over the top as I want to have a shelf on that wall with my Disney prints propped up on it, so something cosier like Nautical Woodgrain Grey. Aaah, I don’t know – what do you think?!