Here is a happy and easy indoor project that can be adapted for family or friends and for all sorts of activities. Read on for some ideas.
A few years ago, we moved to a new city, leaving our home of 36 years. A move like that requires a lot of adjustments. It was important to us to bring some familiar elements into the new house to help us make it our home.
My husband Harvey Kogen has had a full and interesting career as a professional musician. He faced the daunting task of moving decades of files, music and instruments into his new space, and somehow making them feel like they belonged. I was looking at the hallway leading to his new music room. In all honesty, it looked kind of gloomy. I wondered how I might pep it up. At the same time, I could tell Harvey was feeling a bit at sea – we both were – and I wondered what might serve as an anchor in these new waters. Maybe something to remind him of where he’s been musically, while he works on where he wants to go next.
I thought about hanging framed photographs or posters from his career, but that seemed stiff and formal. Harvey’s career has been way more freewheeling than that. And how would we choose what to frame? He’s done so much: musical theatre, rock’n’roll, children’s plays, cabaret, international tours, night clubs, jazz clubs, dinner clubs, radio shows, festivals, advertising jingles, movie shoots, symphony concerts – even a couple of stints at strip clubs in the earliest years.
And then I remembered the file drawer upstairs, jammed with old programs. That’s it! A giant wall collage! With tongue firmly in cheek, I dubbed it The Wall of Fame.
How was I going to attach this stuff to the wall? New digs nicely painted – I really didn’t want to be nailing it up, or gluing it down, and I remembered past misadventures with tape pulling paint with it when removed. Aha! Remember your school days when the teacher put up posters and what-not with Blu Tack? It still exists, sometimes blue and sometimes white, under a variety of names: Blu Tack, reusable adhesive, mounting putty, poster putty, Fun-Tak, Tac’n’Stik, UHU Tak (not the glue stick!), Sticky Tack, Poster Tack.
The type that I have used for years is LePage’s Fun-Tak. I don’t know how old my package is, but it seems to last forever. The stuff stays good and usable and reusable and saveable. My Fun-Tak is blue and having used it on several different surfaces including painted walls, it has always come off cleanly and has never left a stain. You might want to be careful on wallpaper though. If in any doubt, try it somewhere inconspicuous first, and leave it for a few days to ensure it’s okay on your surface.
To use it, take a piece and pull it like bubble gum for a few moments until it is soft. Then roll a small piece of it between your fingers, apply it at the corners on the back of your picture, and push your picture onto the wall. When or if you take down your picture and a bit of Fun-Tack remains on the wall, simply take another piece of Fun-Tack and roll it over the offending remnant, and it will come off cleanly with no residue.
I had a great time going through that drawer of old stuff. (Note if you are doing a wall collage on your own career: before cutting apart and/or discarding your paper items be sure to note your jobs, workplaces and other details for your work resumé!) I found programs, table cards from restaurant gigs, flyers, newspaper ads. I chose items that had a lot of colour or great graphics – usually the cover of the program, but sometimes things from inside too.
The largest items went up on the wall first to provide a base around which the smaller things could be arranged and interspersed. I made sure I had a variety of sizes and balanced them throughout, so the collage would be neither top- nor bottom-heavy with all large pieces in one place and all itsy-bitsy ones in another. Try placing your pictures at different angles too and overlap things to provide cohesiveness. Pretty much anything goes, really.
I did notice some important programs were missing and had to get creative. I found some backstage passes hanging on the music room doorknob. I found an opening night note from Sharon Lois and Bram when Harvey was touring with them in the USA; and there was a closing night note from the conductor of one of the theatre shows. If an item was too small or too big for my purposes, I grabbed a photo of it and printed it out at the size I wanted, using my office printer. I found myself digging into old scrapbooks too, to photograph maybe a picture that ran with a review.
There was one memorable event where I could find nothing in our archives. Marlene Dietrich played Toronto’s Royal York Hotel Imperial Room and Harvey was in the Orchestra. We all remembered it: Marlene had insisted that copies of the very handsome poster of her lined the entire length of her trip from her suite to the stage, including her private elevator car. She was 74 at the time, and her erstwhile lover Yul Brynner happened to be in town performing in The King and I at the Royal Alex Theatre. He sent over gigantic and very beautiful bouquets that were presented to Marlene nightly at the end of her performance. Even her dress was memorable. And yet there was nothing in our file drawer or scrapbooks.
In our digital age, paper ephemera is becoming increasingly rare. But thank goodness for the internet! I was able to find a photograph of the divine Dietrich performing on the Imperial Room stage in her memorable dress. I printed it out and put it into the Wall of Fame (below, on the left).
Here are some ideas for your own Wall of Whatever. We have seen refrigerators covered with sticky notes and business cards, mirrors with photos tucked into the frames, bulletin boards with kids’ art tacked up. Any of these could become a Wall of Fame. Has your business served some awesome clients? Put them up in a Wall of Fame. (Think Sardi’s in New York with its caricatures of movie stars lining the walls. Or maybe yours will just be their business cards which have become quite handsome and creative in their own right in recent years.)
Hilarious greeting cards could be a theme. If you are a foodie, how about exceptional recipes, photos of your best dishes, or screenshots of spectacular menus from your favorite restaurants. Kids’ artwork or poems or stories. Athletics: marathons you have run; games attended. Amazing concerts, stubs of the tickets you were able to nab at the very last minute. Special celebrations? Grab screenshots of the messages, GIFs and goofiness that you received. Print them out. Wall collage them. Travel plans? Or travels completed? Maps, photos and memorabilia of all kinds will work. I have small brooches, a couple of small plaques, and even a wonderfully artsy tea towel Fun-Tacked onto my office wall. Big dreams? That definitely calls for a wall collage!
And the beauty is, you can change it up or take it down, any time you want.
Fabulous idea Peggy! Love how the use of Fun-bak ‘saves’ your walls & makes moving/ taking down times effortless…
Debby Phillips (Mel’s wife)
Thanks, Debby! Glad you like the idea. And nice to “meet” you! Cheers.