Fail

Well, my post TV drain day turned out just lovely. Funny what a little self-loathing (read: motivation) can do!

Now, time for a little Martha Stewart fun. Although, had I actually looked up how to do this by Martha Stewart, I probably wouldn't have spent 3 hours fixing my mistakes and throwing things at walls (read: learning creative development through overcoming obstacles). 

I present to you, the very amateur and hardly worth mentioning...

10-Step Display Board Creationism!

These boards are my solution for needing something elegant and up-scale for photographing commercial products and creations (read: photos for Etsy)... BUT having no money what-so-ever.

Step 1:

Go to a home decor shop and beg them for an out-dated wallpaper sampler book. Haggle for the biggest one possible. Failing that, just give in and buy a roll of what you like.

Step 2:

Go to a grocery store and beg them for some giant cardboard boxes.

Step 3:

Go triumphantly to your parents' house and rummage through your mom's old craft boxes for glue, tape and paint.

Step 4:

DON'T apply the wallpaper in a normal wet and sloppy wallpaper fashion... Smart people will note that the cardboard backing to which you are attempting to attach wet wallpaper, is not fond of water and will turn in to a gross soggy mess. Then when you think everything is flattened and set, you try to move something and it all rips apart!

 

Step 5:
When you've cleaned up the wet mess you've made and reassembled your shambly cardboard with some trusty duct tape, glue down the seams and corners of the wallpaper. Now stop and think for a second. Are you planning to keep the integrity of this beautiful, crisp, white wallpaper? If you answered yes, then for heaven's sake use white glue. It dries clear... not this crappy yellow horridness.

Step 6:
Once dry... like, really really next-day kind of dry (don't worry, being the rebel I am, I defied the overnight drying rule, just to ensure for you all that it was, in fact, a perfectly sensible rule by which you should abide despite impending impatience which will surely be followed by more frustrating duct-tape reconstructions). So... once dry... turn it over and cut seams along the back of the cardboard, where you want the spine to bend. Note that when you bend the wallpaper side, the flatness of which you've just spent several hours perfecting, it will crease and come unglued. Stay calm. You probably have more glue.

Step 7:
Turn the whole thing over again, and use a ruler to score the seams of the spine(s) on the wallpaper side. This is in hopes of it not peeling up at the creases again. HOWEVER when you score it, don't use a ruler that has previously been used for 30 years to draft pencil drawings - as the pencil will now be transfered all over your pristine white wallpaper.

Step 8:
Prepare the paint the wallpaper because you just ruined it with yellow glue and graphite stains. Since you're already at your parents' house, and have already stolen tape and glue from them, why not rummage through some more things and find some old wall paint? Your living room has a particularly nice shade, don't you think? They probably won't care if there's nothing left over for future touch ups. Go ahead, use it all. It'll be fine.


Paint big X's on the back of the cardboard so that it doesn't bend and twist while it dries. (If you only have paint on one side, it will shrink towards the side with all the paint)

Step 9:
Paint the front. LEAVE TO DRY OVER NIGHTTTT.
Use the remaining paint and your boredom to make something like this:

Step 10:
Congratulate yourself and make an incredibly long and unnecessary blog post about it.

If you're still reading, I appreciate your dedication. I would, however, encourage you to question your sense of priority and importance, as you have just wasted a significant amount of time reading about failed wallpapering techniques. May the rest of your day be plentiful and productive.