Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Contact Paper was all the rage among crafters. You bought a giant roll of the stuff in a cute pattern (like orange daisies or brown owls - this being the 1960s and the 1970s after all) then looked around for places to use it.
It was strongly adhesive, which sounded great until you actually tried to apply it. This was a one-shot process. The instant it touched something, it stuck there forever. Woe betide the crafter who put it on slightly crooked. There was no way to pull it up and lay it down again.
It was originally designed to line shelves. I don't know why you would need to put a layer of Contact Paper on a shelf or inside a drawer, but there you have it. No one ever saw it, and it always peeled up at the edges, and you could never lay it down quite right so there was always a bubble in an inconvenient place that would trip up your can of baking powder as you tried to slide it in there.
If you have ever moved into a place that had Contact Paper on the shelves, you no doubt have cursed the stuff. It never comes off, and over the years it develops a permanently sticky feel from a combination of years of dripping cans and the plastic slowly deteriorating.
But Contact Paper was the rage, so everyone did it.
You could do other things with Contact Paper, too. Like….?????
My grandmother had some tin cans that had been wrapped in Contact Paper. She used them on her desk as pencil holders. They didn't fool anyone. They were very clearly tin cans that had been wrapped in Contact Paper.
Our love of Contact Paper has been revived in recent years with the fad for washi tape. But at least washi tape comes in cuter patterns?
Image courtesy Flickr/SportSuburban
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