How to Make Wallpaper Art

I keep a mental list of things that I want to want to do: Laze on the beach. Enjoy live music. Go to the movies. Put up wallpaper.

None of it will ever happen (and yes, I’ve tried with concerts and movies). But I do love wallpaper, so this month I mounted some on a big store-bought canvas and hung it up as art. Turns out, it’s a great way to bring the effect of wallpaper into the room without the cost and time commitment of papering four walls. You can do it too, without any experience or special equipment.

The idea of putting wallpaper on a big canvas hit me when a friend asked if I could help wallpaper his daughter’s bedroom. It seemed like a simpler way of giving her the look she wanted while making any future redecorating easier. (My wife and I steamed old wallpaper off the walls, doors and closet floors of our first apartment. Spare yourself the pleasure.)

For similar reasons, wallpaper-on-canvas is a good fit for rental apartments and dorms, where permanent renovations may be forbidden. If you own your home, it’s a way to refresh a room when a full makeover isn’t in the budget. Wonderful paper, in both looks and quality, can be had for less than $100 a roll, and off-cuts, dead stock, and generously sized samples can bring luxurious antique and contemporary papers within reach.

Setting aside the time I spent waiting for the paste to dry, the canvas here took me under an hour to complete — a happy reminder that D.I.Y. doesn’t have to take all day, nor serve a higher purpose than one’s own enjoyment. Let’s get to it.

The Tools

• I bought a 36-by-48-inch gesso-primed canvas. You’ll want to consider factors like ceiling height and furniture placement when choosing which size is right for your space. For big canvases, it may be easiest to work on the floor on top of cardboard or scrap plywood.

• Use a tape measure to lay out your lengths of paper, scissors to trim the paper roughly to size, and a scalpel or craft knife to trim it to final size after gluing.

• I used standard painter’s tape to hold the strips of wallpaper in alignment for gluing, but I recommend that you use less-sticky delicate surface painter’s tape instead. The standard tape worked well on my practice pieces but pulled off a bit of the wallpaper when I removed it from the piece you see in the photos.

• The wallpaper I chose is the paste-on-wall variety, so I bought wallpaper paste and used a large bristled paintbrush to spread it. (Your wallpaper supplier can recommend the right paste to use.) Peel-and-stick wallpaper would also work; you’d just place it on the canvas one piece at a time, aligning the pattern and seams as you go. The third variety, paste-on-paper, won’t work with the techniques I used.

If you like, you can paint the sides of your canvas to match or complement your wall color (as I did here). Do that first and let the paint dry fully before moving on to the wallpapering.

Step 1: Cut Your Paper

Many wallpaper patterns, including the one I used, are of the “offset match” variety, meaning you have to shift adjacent strips of paper up or down to get the pattern to line up. The exact length of this offset is usually listed on the package, but for mounting on canvas it’s wisest — and much simpler — just to give yourself plenty of extra.

For my 48-inch canvas, I cut the first piece of paper to 60 inches, laid it on the canvas and shifted it around until I had the pattern where I liked it, with one of the black cockatoos near the center. I lined up the second piece with the first so the patterns roughly matched, and cut it long so that I’d have several inches extra on all sides.

Line up your sheets of paper carefully, so that their edges tightly abut along their whole length and the patterns align exactly. I found that it helped to work from the center, rotating and sliding the sheets until everything locked into place.

Holding the paper flat and still with one hand, apply strips of your tape from one side of the seam to the other, as though you’re ironing the tape on. Take care not to put creases or twists in the tape, which could allow the seam to open during gluing. Err on the side of overdoing it; I used nine strips in total.

Carefully flip the paper over so that the printed side is facing down. Lay the canvas on top of it and, with a pencil, lightly mark the paper where you want to glue it down. I suggest tracing a line around the corners of the canvas. Use the outer edges of the paper as references for keeping the canvas straight up-and-down.

Step 3: Paste the Canvas

Prepare your paste according to the package directions, then brush a generous, even layer of it over the entire front of the canvas. Pay special attention to the corners, edges and seam area.

Turn the canvas, line it up with your penciled guide marks, and lay it in place on top of the paper. Firmly press the two together with your palms, then lay books on the back of the canvas to hold everything flat while the paste sets up. You can remove the books after an hour or so, but give the paste a full day to dry before proceeding.

Step 4: Trim Excess and Remove Tape

Run your scalpel or craft knife along the edges of the canvas to trim the excess paper. Flip the canvas right side up and carefully peel off the painter’s tape. Pull the tape horizontally, rather than up and away, to reduce the risk of separating the paper at the seam.

If you do loosen the paper here and there, it’s not a disaster. Thin a bit of white craft glue with water, brush a light layer of it on the exposed canvas, and glue the paper down again.