HollysRosesandSlipcovers's Profile

If you want easy removal later... great in rentals or if you move often, use liquid starch (as in starching your ironing) as your glue. You can buy it undiluted by the quart and 1/2 gallon in the laundry aisle at the grocery. Use it straight not diluted.

It is strong enough that I've not only used it to put up thick papers but also in one apartment, where I had a high ceiling behind my bed, I bought a couple of King size sheets, soaked them well in the starch, anchored the top corners with staples (because of the weight) then smoothed the fabric to the wall with a squegee. (I cut off the hems that met in the middle of the wall and slightly overlapped the two edges...you couldn't see a seam!) Everyone LOVED IT! The washed sheets were reusable for curtains at the next apartment.

I also bought a few old books in French that had calligraphic writing and did my dining room. I used the same starch, however after the application layer dried, I added some dye to more starch and brushed it on for more effect. And I covered one wall in my office with old maps of different cities and countries I have visited or lived in.

Buy the way, this is much easier and faster to do if you use a BIG PAINTBRUSH or foam PAINT ROLLER. (I can't begin to imagine how time consuming this would be with a little credit card!)
Brush or paint an area of the wall with starch while the pages or fabric are absorbing starch, be generous, and then you can easily put up your pages, push them around in the slippery starch for placement, and smooth them down with the brush or roller.

When it's time to move, rough up a few edges and start peeling. If it doesn't want to easily come off, spray it with lukewarm water to rehydrate the starch and it will peel right off. Then just spray the wall with a little more water and rub down with towels or rags and you're ready to move with a walls that haven't been damaged. The last time I used a Swiffer wet mop to quickly wash them down top to bottom.

P.S. to the person who suggested Elmer's white glue, sorry but it won't rehydrate once it's thoroughly dry.
Another gluing method is to mix up flour and water like we used to do for kites and paper mache projects as kids.
By the way, I learned to do this from my mother at the tender age of 4/5 as an Air Force Brat moving around. Getting new cheap walls of my choice (some where from coloring books which I could then actually color on the wall :), was my reward for not complaining about having to leave my friends behind so often.