DIY Wallpapering with Book Pages

What I Made Today - Bathroom Reveal Part 1

We have a downstairs loo off our utility room - very handy but not very pretty. It's a small window-less white box, which needed a bit of an update. I've had a bit of a thing for vintage botanical prints and repro wallpapers for a while, and was looking out for one I loved enough to buy to use in there, then realised I could do it myself!

There are some fantastic wallpapers out there, but if you are on a budget or fancy doing it yourself, here is my 'how to' wallpaper using book pages. 

What you will need

• A book of your choice - be it colour, illustrated, sepia or simply text.
• A paper guillotine, or craft knife and ruler, or pair of scissors!
• Wallpaper paste
• A wallpaper brush, or a large paintbrush
• A firm clean paintbrush
• Plumb-line (optional)
• A damp cloth

Method

Start by ripping the spine and cover off your book, or by pulling out the signatures. I picked up my book from an antiques centre for a couple of quid - try charity shops, car boots or eBay for similar.

Once you've done this you may have bits of glue or binding thread attached to the edge of your pages, so it's a good idea to trim the edges so that you have a neat finish and so that all the pages are a uniform size for when you are papering.

This is where a paper guilottine comes in handy. If you don't have one, a craft knife and ruler will work well, or failing that a pair of scissors and a steady hand! Try to cut through as many pages as possible at one time.

Now you are ready to start papering! The handy thing about small book pages is that you don't need a large wallpapering table, a small work surface will do. Using your wallpaper or large paint brush, apply a layer of wallpaper paste to the back of several book pages. It's a good idea to leave the paper for a few minutes to let the paste soak in, so do a couple at a time - but don't leave them so long that the paste starts to dry out.

Now start applying the pages to your wall. I began in the top-left corner of my wall and didn't use a plumbline - I placed them by eye - but you could use one for increased accuracy. If you don't have a plumbline, tying a key or something with a bit of weight to a length of string will work just as well. Place the first page against the wall, pressing it lightly with your hands. Now take your dry, clean firm brush and, starting from the middle of the page, sweep it towards the edges of the book page. Your aim is to fix the page to the wall without any big lumps of paste or air bubbles.

I overlapped my book pages ever so slightly - just by a few millimeters - to give me some room for movement and error, but a mismatched higgldy piggldy look could also look fab if you want to lay your pages over each other in a more exaggerated way.

You may get little bits of wallpaper paste seeping out the edge of your book pages - use your slightly damp cloth to wipe it off while it's still damp - when it dries it will leave a shiny mark and will be much harder to remove.

Carry on pasting and papering your wall until you have covered your desired area - if you come to the other end or the bottom of your wall and the pages overlap, use your craft knife and ruler to trim the excess.

The bathroom is small so this is the furthest away I can get to take a photo of the whole wall!

Next I am planning to make some artwork for the other walls to carry on the botanical print theme - watch out for the tutorial for this pack of cards artwork in the next part of the bathroom reveal!