Homemade WallPaper Paste

Homemade Wallpaper Paste Recipe

1 1/2 cups white flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp alum*
3 cups of water

Combine flour and sugar. Slowly add 1 cup of cold water and beat out any lumps. Put mixture in a saucepan. Add 2 cups of water. Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to a boil on medium heat. When stiff, remove from heat and add alum. Store in an airtight container. It should keep several weeks. If the paste hardens, soften by mixing in small amounts of warm water as needed.

*Alum is a pickling spice found in the spice section of your store. It’s a preservative.

To hang wallpaper:

Cover the surface you will be using with plastic or white paper. You don’t want to use newspaper as the ink will bleed. Spread the paste onto the back of the wallpaper.

Then “book” the wallpaper by folding pasted sides together.

Then let it sit for about 5 minutes to let the paste set.

Then hang. That’s it! Isn’t it pretty! It’s a fluke that it just happened to match my chocolate brown walls in my laundry room and I just LOVE it!! Now laundry is a pleasure (almost) to do!

One more tip. I’ve had this wallpaper for over 15 years. I used some of it in one house but not all so it’s been stored in a box all this time. When I took it out some of the edges had creased and left a line. What I did to fix it was just take crayon and maker and fill in the spots. You can see in the picture above that it just went away!

I hope you will make your own wallpaper paste now! It’s so simple and for a few pennies you can make it yourself! Even if you have to buy the alum it’s still much cheaper than $8 for a big tub of it from the store! Tawra