Faux Marble Background for Photography

Faux Marble Background

Have you noticed that so many food photos are on a white marble background? Well, I was about to think that my gray marble quartz countertop had been the wrong choice for my kitchen! I love my countertops and you can always tell my food images are made in my kitchen.

Now I’m no expert photographer, but I do love playing with the images. Food is not that easy to photograph! If you have been following my blog, or if you’re new to it, I want you to know that any of the food images I use in my recipe post, will be my own.

Now, I do use an occasional Canva photo for category headings, or things like that. There is even one on my home page. But you don’t have to worry about me passing off a Canva image for a pecan pie, if I didn’t make it!

The only piece of white marble countertop (and it’s not real marble) is in my laundry room…..not conducive to taking photos for sure. So I decided to create a faux marble background. Now there are professional backgrounds that you can buy, but I wanted something less expensive that I could just tuck away in the pantry until needed.

Supplies

Shopping for supplies for my faux marble background meant going to Lowe’s. I was thinking that I might find a piece of Formica that would work. But the sales clerk, bless her heart, didn’t know what Formica was))) But another clerk did, they just didn’t have what I was looking for.

So I thought about a large piece of marble-like ceramic tile, but the largest I could find was 18″ x 18 ” and you had to buy a whole carton so that didn’t work. Plus, it really would have been heavier than what I wanted and could have scratched my countertop as well.

The sales clerk asked me about wallpaper, and I thought that was a great idea. But, they didn’t have a pattern that resembled white marble. Now, I could have gone somewhere that sold wallpaper and probably found something perfect. But you know how we are when we have a project to do. We’re on a mission! A mission to get the supplies and get it done that day!

The clerk didn’t give up though and showed me some vinyl-coated shelf paper in white marble. The color was fine for my faux marble background. It was around $11 and 20″ x 15′

If you don’t have a Lowe’s near you, it’s available at Amazon too. Here’s my affiliate link: Duck Brand Peel & Stick Adhesive Laminate White Marble.

All we needed now was something to adhere it to.

Next, we found a 24″ x 24″ piece of thin plywood for around $8

Step 1

Wipe off the board and make sure it is clean and dry.

Step 2

Cut a piece of vinyl-coated shelf paper the size of the board. Peel back the paper to expose the adhesive side. This was the hardest part!

Place the paper on the board as close to the edges as possible. It took a few tries for me to get it lined up just right. Press the paper to adhere to the board. Smooth out any air bubbles with a folded cloth.

It would have been nice if I had had a board that was the exact width of the paper, but I thought a 24″ x 24″ board was really the best size. So I had to cut an extra 4″ strip of paper to fill in one side. Match up the marbling and line the edges up without overlapping.

Some of my paper draped over the edge just a bit, so I sanded the excess off. Since I had plenty of paper, I covered the back side too. It would have been nice to have had another choice of background to go on the other side. Food for thought.

Of course, I have shelf paper left over that I will probably never use, in case someone else wants to make a faux marble background))

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