Wallpaper backdrop for photography made with Elmer's & X-acto

A couple of weeks ago, I won Joe Rotella's 'Under the Sea' Elmer's & X-Acto giveaway! (The giveaway is over but if you haven't seen his tutorial, it's worth watching!)


This was a wonderful, amazing giveaway.   I won a whole bin full of stuff!!! I received a: 

• 9” x 12” Mini Bi-Fold Foam Board
• Designer Series Gripster Craft Knife
• Designer Series 12” Metal Ruler
• Designer Series 12” X 12” Self Healing Mat
• Designer Series 8” Scissors
• Designer Series 5” Precision Tip Scissors
• Designer Series Basic Shape Templates
• Designer Series Decorative Shape Templates
• Painters Bright Colors
• Painters Sherbet Swirl
• Dot Runner
• Foam Mounting Tape
• Thin Medium Glue Spots
• All Purpose Glue Stick
• Quick Dry Dual Tip Glue Pen
• Elmer’s Designer Tape
• Craft It! Tote

The first thing I made was rather practical, and not too fancy, but oh,so useful!

In what seems like a change of subject, did you know that paint stores like Sherwin-Williams and Rodda giveaway sample books of discontinued wallpaper samples?  You just go in and ask if they have any and they'll give them to you for nothing.  The downside is that they are huge, but the wallpaper samples are cool!

I take a lot of pictures and like having a backdrop to place my craft projects against.  I used to have a box but I managed to crush it (yes, I am not graceful, nor careful, lol!) and I'd been looking for something to use for a new backdrop.

"Aha!" you think.  "I know what she did!"

Yep.  I took that 9” x 12” Mini Bi-Fold Foam Board, and samples from my Wallpaper book and made a new backdrop!

I used metal ruler to measure my wallpaper to size and  the 5" scissors to cut it, which was silly of me, because the 8" scissors would have been faster, lol.  

The wallpaper samples were supposedly pre-pasted but the paste was either dried out or the instructions lied because I couldn't get any sticky.  

No problem because I just took the Elmer's All Purpose Glue Stick out of the bin and smeared it liberally all over foam board, one side at a time.  The Glue stick was really handy because the wide tip let me cover the board quickly, and it doesn't dry immediately so I had time to re-position the wallpaper where I needed to smooth it out.


Afterward, I placed the board on the self-healing craft mat and evened out the wallpaper edges with the exacto knife.


I used a different wallpaper sample for each of the 4 sides so I'd have a choice of backdrops.

Inside the board

The outsides of the board

You'll be seeing more of these prize items on my blog because I'll be using them a lot!  But meanwhile check out Elmer's Craft it Facebook page for craft ideas, tutorials and giveaways.


I want to thank Joe Rotella for hosting the giveway and Elmer's for their generosity!