How to use left over wallpaper

Searching for ideas on how to use wallpaper around your home? We have ideas in spades. Here we show you how to use even the leftover scraps.

Remember our make over on our niche? Then we covered old books to display in our living room... well, now I have another idea for you so you can use all of your wallpaper leftovers.

It is no secret I enjoy using up everything around our home... why not? I hate to see things end up in landfills, or just laying around being unused. I am not one to follow trends because they never last. I just know what I like and have built a home around those items which for the most part, I would consider a traditional style. I had a little bit more of the wallpaper left over and I decided I had the perfect project for it.

When we were making over our niche' there was a metallic brown charger plate in the bottom of the corner that sat in there for years. The niche had become kind of a catch all of items I was not sure where to put. Who buys one charger plate that matches nothing that she has? Apparently this gal... I am not even sure what my logic was at the time or when I picked it up... I can tell you it was $.68 so I am sure that had something to do with it, bargain shopper that I am.

Since I have no idea what the original plan for the charger was, it did not make it that hard to come up with a new plan for it. I traced around the charger plate base to create a pattern on white paper. Then I used my pattern to trace onto the left over wallpaper.

Plain scalloped charger plate

Trace scallop around plate

Trace pattern onto wallpaper

Cut pattern out

Once I had a new pattern, I peeled a small part of the wallpaper back and began applying it to the face of the plate, leaving the scallop of the plate in it's original material. After I had the plate covered with the wallpaper, I liked the look of it. I looked at it for a while and decided now what? Great, I have a plate that has a lovely scalloped edge, and a coordinating paper to go with the color of the plate and our living room... woo hoo, yeah for me!

Peel back wallpaper and apply to plate

Charger with wallpaper accent

It wasn't enough for me so I decided to delve a little deeper in my ole' brain to take this a step further... I decided to make a purchase and was pretty excited when these bookend covers came... I added four of them to the plate as pictured below... do you see where I am going here? And... when you order them, 100 come in a package for a wonderful price. Know what is awesome about that? We can put them on the ends of our antique/vintage books to keep the ends looking nice and think up more projects around here to share with you!

Do you also see where I got a little too much hot glue on one end, no worries, you will not see it later on...

Bookend applied to plate front

Then I added a photo of my great grandmother and my grandmother as a baby... you can change out the photos when you like by slipping them in and out of the metal ends. I looked high and low for the stand I had in mind to use as a way to display the plate, but could not find it... I hate when that happens... so I put mine on our end table to display, but can you imagine an entire wall of these? I would need to start collecting in order to make a wall of them, but I thought it was a fun and unique way to display photos. Black and whites are my absolute favorite! I could have used the black tabs of days gone by, but I feel like the metal tabs elevates it a bit...

Family photo showcased on charger

I enjoy displaying photos of our family around our home. For me, it is sentimental, I never want to forget those loved ones, or maybe it is not that I would forget, but that I want to hold those memories near and dear to my heart... and seeing them throughout our home makes me remember... memories shared... good times, fun vacations... family cookouts, reunions, just living life as a family on a whole... do you display family photos throughout your home? Something so small brings me a lot of joy around here...

What do you think? I am happy with this project and more color sprinkled throughout our living room is an even bigger plus... we have gone with a lot of neutrals in our home so we can change out items every now and then if we choose.

The teal even pulls the colors out of our stained glass lamp. As you can see, I display this mercury glass tree all year long, I love it! I do not mind that winter is far, we surround ourselves with the things we love around here...

I thought this was a unique way to display photos since you can change out the photos if you decide to... although, I think Grandma looks just fine where she is...