Over the years since I wallpapered my first house, I think I've done 7 houses, so I have my wall covering system well in place, which I've written about with each house. I've always sourced my papers from Itsy Bisty Minis.com for excellent quality, great selection with well coordinated collections, and fine service. The company also has some matching fabrics, but after doing so many houses, I needed a different wallpaper source.
For the Manchester Country Home, I used a combination of digital downland PDFs from Etsy shops and scrapbook paper. I purchase my paper from Hobby Lobby and Michaels sometimes in the 12x12 paper packs for coordinated prints and plain sheets. I always try to buy acid and lignin free papers, a scrapbooking tip that I learning for scrapbooking. Of course I pay attention to size of print, trying to keep patterns in the scale that I am working with. If you want textured wallpapers you will find those as well, nice for ceilings.
For the Newbury, I've purchased digital download papers and scrapbook paper in the kitchen. You could also search for the digital printable craft papers that are offered on Esty, for there are some really beautiful patterns. So here is the pattern that I chose for the Newberry, but you can see that I had to do some editing to the correct size of print suitable for the Newbury. Some printers or computer apps will allow users to edit images for printing, but mine won't. So I googled how to customize dollhouse wallpaper size and found this great tutorial on YouTube with a tutorial on how to use CANVA to customize dollhouse wallpaper. It is very well done; CANVA is free and easy to use.
To begin, I apologize for the photo quality for it really doesn't represent true color of this digital printout.
Having said that, I print on good quality photographic paper. For the living room walls, I used the matte paper; for one wall in the kitchen, I used glossy photo paper. If you are a thrifter, check your local thrift shop for office and craft supplies. You'd be surprised what you find. I found an entire unopened pack of photo paper, for one drawback is that photo paper is very expensive and you have to buy the large box of far too many sheets for one project. Another drawback is that you can print only letter sized (8.5 x 11). Some take their purchased digital PDFs to a print shop for a fine quality print on good quality paper.
This photo show the difference in color depending on which paper you use. Printing your own wallpaper turns out to be rather tricky.
Another thing to look for is matching patterns when paper has to be seamed. This paper was impossible to match the pattern, but it is random enough that it isn't to noticeable. If you look really really close you might see where images were edited to fit together on CANVA-- again not noticeable once on the wall.
Image color will change if you change paper, so make sure that you have enough of photo paper to complete the project and a bit extra incase you have to reprint. The same goes for scrapbook paper--have some extra pages for emergencies.
One final note: photo paper is heavier, making it nice to work with. It won't wrinkle like some of the thinner wallpaper are inclined to do.
So here are some alternatives to sourcing wallpapers for you miniature houses. There are lot of possibilities
So glad you dropped by.
Ann
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