Hello friends and welcome back to another blog post, this time for Day 7 of the Blog Along with Effy (details below).
Today I wanted to share some photos of what I’ve been doing over the last few days not because what I’ve been doing is very interesting – it’s not – but because of the art journal fodder I discovered while doing it! I’ve been stripping wallpaper in one of the bedrooms. I thought this would be a simple job as it seemed to be peeling off at some of the corners of its own accord. So I just started to help it along a little, thinking it would come off cleanly (oh how naive I am) and then I could just paint the walls since I don’t really like wallpaper much.
The house is 120 years old. Previous owners have wallpapered (shocker). No one bothered to remove the previous layer of paper before adding their layer of wallpaper (double shocker). The four previous layers of paper do not want to leave, they seem to be stuck to the walls with some amazing ancient substance that works much better than modern wallpaper paste. I really regretted not just painting over the top most layer of wallpaper. Now I have a bigger job to do than I planned for and it’s going to take much longer. *sad face* Here is another interesting layer under the mint coloured layer. This post could easily have been called a Short History of Wallpaper lol!
The one on top of the mint layer however, is my favourite. Not that delicate florals are my thing but I think it goes with the room and the style/age of the house so I would have been happy to keep that if the top layers had come off cleanly, but they didn’t. Look – I even made a cat in the ceiling! [icon name=”cat” style=”solid” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]
But anyway, after I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I started to look at it in a different way. It’s very thin, very delicate and very old but I managed to save some of the floral wallpaper, most of it came away from the backing paper though making it even more fragile.
I want to preserve it and since I can’t have it on my walls I have saved these pieces to use in my art journal pages for collage. Look how pretty it is…
So you can expect to see them in an art journal spread soon! Let me know what you think in the comments, and as always, thanks for reading!
Challenges
Blog Along with Effy – Day 7
Links to all the days of the April blog along
April 1st – Day 1 – You don’t have to be perfect to be amazing
April 2nd – Day 2 – Cat hammocks and sneak peeks
April 3rd – Day 3 – Favourite Children’s Books
April 4th – Day 4 – Green Crochet Socks Story
April 5th – Day 5 – A Short Family History of Scones
April 6th – Day 6 – Happy Tartan Day
This month I decided to join in with Effy Wild’s blog along – 30 posts in 30 days and hope I can think if enough things to say. every. day. I’ll do my best to keep up. The idea is to blog every day (obvs) but also to comment on other people’s blogs to keep the conversation going. There is a facebook group where you can link your posts and find other people’s to go visit and comment. During April you can find all the Blog Along posts linked on my home page for convenience. If you leave a comment, I’ll be sure to return the favour!
Ingredients
wallpaper!
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Awesome. Old wallpaper is a magical ingredient for sure
That wallpaper is soooo pretty! It will make perfect journal fodder!
I love the journey through the whole wallpaper experience! Thanks for sharing!
I don’t envy you the task of stripping all that paper, but how fun to see what people loved through the ages. It’s a wonderful idea to use the salvageable bits in your art journal!
Old wallpaper is a bear, but there’s such a lovely charm to these photos!
oh my, that is indeed a lot of work to remove wallpaper, but even more if there are layer after layer of it. I am glad though that you could save some of the one you find pretty and salvage it for your art journal 🙂
I love that you have found another use for such lovely wallpaper. I’m sorry that the project ended up being so much more involved though. Thanks for sharing!
What a brilliant re-use of old wallpaper! It IS pretty!
Yes the wallpaper and what you’re seeing in them are pretty. I mean really pretty. Never would I have thought of seeing it the way you did. Very creative!
I adore old wallpaper for arting. I’m always on the lookout for rolls of it in antique shops and flea markets. For now, it still sells for practically pennies – but once the word gets out and creators start nabbing it, the price will go up!