Spoonflower Product Reviews offer my honest opinion of the quality of various Spoonflower products and suggestions for how to use them. As a Spoonflower artist I want people to be truly happy with the products they may buy from my shop, so I offer these reviews to help you decide what fabrics/wallpaper/products you may want to try. If you choose to buy one of my Spoonflower designs based on the review here I do receive a small percentage of the sale.

I was intrigued when Spoonflower first announced to its sellers that metallic wallpaper was now available, but I was also a little nervous. Spoonflower is not really a bargain option when it comes to craft materials and the metallic wallpaper is the most expensive single item they currently offer. So I really wanted to make sure I was happy with it as a product before I encouraged potential customers to purchase it through my Spoonflower shop.

Spoonflower does have frequent sales so I waited a bit until a particularly good wallpaper swatch sale came around and then I ordered 5 of my designs on swatches — 2 gold and 3 silver. Three of the designs are variations on some of my most popular designs with the colored backgrounds removed so the metallic wallpaper would be more prominent. Two are designs that already had white backgrounds that seemed like they would print well.

Like most Spoonflower wallpaper orders, the wallpaper swatches arrived rolled up in a tube. One of the first things I noticed was that after unrolling them, I only had to set them on a flat surface for about 24 hours and the paper relaxed into a completely flat state on its own, no weights needed. To me that is a sign of really high quality paper — and indeed the wallpaper itself does feel quite sturdy, it would likely be very difficult to accidentally rip this wallpaper while working with it. I’ll also note that I’m very pleased with the print quality — Victorian Ghosts in particular has a lot of detail and there was no bleeding or fuzziness on its lines or on any of the other patterns.

I then taped up the swatches on a blank wall in my guest room, across from the windows, to get a sense of how the metallic part of the wallpaper reacts in natural light.

You may have already noticed one of the first things I noticed, which is that the gold and silver papers are not equivalent textures. The gold paper has a very obvious texture to it and seems to be much more reflective, while the silver paper is smoother in texture and has a more subtle sheen. They are both pretty but the gold is definitely flashier and the silver is more understated. This photo of one gold and one silver paper next to each other makes it much clearer.

Now a couple of important caveats about this product. Like most of the Spoonflower wallpapers, this product is only available as a swatch (in this case 1 foot by 2 feet) or a full roll. (Only the peel and stick and prepasted wallpapers come in multiple lengths.) So if you are planning to do an accent wall or more, definitely get a swatch before you commit to the cost of a full roll. Additionally Spoonflower recommends that both metallic wallpapers be hung by a professional for best results, although they do provide full installation instructions on their website.

However, if you’re like me you are less interested in wallpapering a full wall with this product and wondering if the swatch size could have any fun crafting applications. So after the wall hanging test, I proceeded to the crafting test.

Two of these designs I have already earmarked for holiday related crafts (look for my holiday craft prep series in late summer!), so I’ve set those aside for now. I first wanted to see how well this paper worked for basic papercrafts, more specifically, making cute gift boxes. Using this printable box template from The Spruce (although I blew it up to 160% of its original size to use as much of the swatch as possible), I cut the template out, folded it and glued the edges together with Mod Podge (I wanted to test a liquid, water-based glue and it was all I had on hand). It worked pretty well!

There is a slight wonky tilt to the box (it’s more pronounced in person than in the photos) — part of this is user error, as I did not cut all of the lines perfectly straight, and part of it is that the same quality that helped the paper lie flat after it had been rolled up makes it a little less crisp at the folded edges when used in papercrafts than say, cardstock. But I was pleased with how easy it was to get the Mod Podge to hold the edges together, I really just had to press firmly for a few seconds and it was fine. Plus because the texture is slightly water resistant (there is some polyester in this wallpaper), it feels like it might last a bit longer than a cardstock or origami paper box if it were accidentally exposed to a little liquid.

Next I decided to do what I often do with fancy papers and use them as a background for typography art. For this particular project I decided to use felt for the lettering (I haven’t featured any of it here but I do a LOT of crafting with felt, so I always have some in my craft room). This allowed me to test a couple of tools on the wallpaper. First, to help me line up and space the lettering properly, I took a printout of my typography design and punched holes in the wallpaper so it would be easier to see where to line the letters up.

I can report that with a sturdy straight pin, the wallpaper was easy to punch through and that the holes did not rip or fray further as I moved the paper around. Next I used my adhesive of choice for felt projects — hot glue — to attach the letters. Even applied directly to the wallpaper (this ended up being much easier than applying it to the back of the felt letter), the wallpaper did not warp, melt, or discolor, and it held securely. I’m very pleased with the final result!

So is Spoonflower Metallic Wallpaper right for you? I can honestly say that it offers some intriguing crafting possibilities if you want to stick to swatches; I do think in the right room the wallpaper could make an amazing accent wall (or a maximalist powder room!), but it’s obviously a big cost commitment even if you wait for a good sale. If you are also intrigued by this review, I’ve created a Metallic Wallpaper collection in my Spoonflower shop, with all five designs here plus the other two colorways of the flower design (which would look great on silver).

Have you ever used wallpaper for a craft project? What did you make?