Wallpaper Design Notes Extract.

The text below is a bit I extracted from a site called BNET, It advises people on business, strategy and all about different industries but it also had this really interesting article on handprinted wallpaper and gave me an insight into wallpaper before the days of today.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1026/is_2_162/ai_90112808/

'Before the invention of the roller printer, which revolutionized both the wallpaper and textile industries in the mid-nineteenth century, making wallpapers was a laborious task achieved by painting the background color onto the paper, and then transferring the pattern onto the paper one color at a time by means carved and inked woodblocks. Because continuous rolls of paper were not in widespread use until the middle of the nineteenth century, wallpapers of the appropriate length were created by gluing sheets together before painting the ground and printing the pattern. This process always left a horizontal seam in the wallpaper'.

The article then goes on to explain that in 1999, wallpaper specialists Chris Ohrstrom and Steve Larson Adelphi Paper Hangings, a company devoted to re-creating wallpapers produced between about 1720 and 1860 with utmost fidelity to the originals. 

They used paper made of cotton (not acid), cotton is much more durable than paper made from wood because the cotton fibres are much longer. (Perhaps my own paper made with cotton would be suitable for my wallpaper designs then?)

It's a good read explaining wallpaper, how it was made and gave me a better understanding of appropriate materials i should use within my project. I was eager to try there explanation of how to put wallpaper together, but it even says within the article that it's only recommended this method for museums and historic houses.