Anya Larkin makes beautiful wallpaper by hand, the old-fashioned way. She began her company in the early '80s, when most wallpaper was produced on vinyl. Her wallpaper is printed by hand on beautiful Japanese rice paper. She believes that in order to create something beautiful, you must start with something beautiful. Anya's designs are translated into wallpaper with a variety of methods, including silk-screening, block printing, hand-painting, stenciling and gold leafing. Many different techniques -- including stippling, rag-rolling, sponging, brushing and sprinkling with metallic powders -- are used for hand-painting backgrounds. After the background has been painted, the paper is allowed to dry before it's taken to the gold-leaf room. The gold-leaf room is kept very still so the gold leaf won't float away. To gold-leaf a pattern on paper, the designer traces a template, then brushes gold size on the traced areas. Gold leaf is burnished onto the sticky sized areas, and the excess is brushed away to reveal the pattern. Because the manufacture of this wallpaper is so labor-intensive, it's quite expensive. Make it more affordable by using it to wallpaper a small room such as a powder room or an entryway, or use it as a border.
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