This wall treatment using vintage recipe cards in the kitchen of a Providence art space reminds us of Depression-Era interiors where newspapers were often used as wallpaper. While the results might not be beautiful in a conventional sense, they show that you can be creative about your surroundings no matter what your economic circumstances.
It's an excellent idea for re-using and displaying paper ephemera in a witty way. We're not sure exactly how these recipe cards were adhered to the wall, but you can make wallpaper out of anything from newspapers and magazines to color copies by applying them to the wall with polyurethane (one coat underneath and one on top to seal the paper).
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Comments (15)
Dots a lotsa recipe cards....
Please don't polyurethane anything to your walls. Please have pity on those who will come behind you... School glue will work just as well. Please.
If this were wall paper... and if I hankered to have a visually chaotic kitchen... I'd think this a good idea. But-- greasy, dusty recipe cards papering the wall?
And, who do you suggest should polyurethane this to their wall-- feckless renters? Insane owners?
omg... they look like the cards from The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan! If they're the same cards this may be a project only for the sick and twisted with stomachs of steel.
The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan
http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html
Hideous.
I don't like the recipe cards--I also think they might be from the Mackerel Pudding Plan. But it does give me an idea for using old postcards in a smaller space...
kind of similar to this idea ... I one time met someone (at staples, maybe?) who was having her family's handwritten recipes scanned onto white tiles to make a backsplash in her kitchen. I thought that was a cool way to personalize a kitchen.
Now you could NEVER de-clutter that space enough. It will always look way too busy!
Yikes. Never thought I'd utter (or write) these words, but .... "less IS more." This is way over the top.
Makes it look like a slum.
I agree--always think of the people who will live in that space after you; NEVER do something to a wall that will be impossible to remove.
A definite NO.
LOL...mirandabee, Yikes is the correct word. I hate it....
When recipe cards were in style I never found the pictures appetising and I still don't.
You could color-xerox them and turn them into an ironic border, but that's not exactly cheap. And who wants to re-create a Depression era shack? One or two or vintage ads could be amusing, but not the whole wall.
This could work if every other wall was stark white and it was an extremely bright and uncluttered space.
A cafe in town papers their walls with pages out of vintage magazines- it looks busy but actually works. You just have to be more plain in what you put on shelves and such.
I probably wouldn't do this to the whole kitchen, but I have a long kitchen with a window at the end. Something like this might look good on that wall, mostly because there's not actually that much wall space. I don't particularly like the recipe cards, but old postcards look fun.
Another option would be to frame a few in cheap frames and hang them on the wall.