What's a cheap way to get stuff to stick to my walls?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is my goal: my students find a favorite quote each week. I want to display these on my walls to that by the end of the school year my classroom is completely covered in words.

I used to be in a room that had been soundproofed at one point and so had cork walls. It was lovely–we just stapled. However, the Powers That Be moved me to a different classroom a couple years ago. My current room is NOT cork or drywall–the building was built in 1938 and I think it’s some sort of plaster over concrete, but it may actually just be 100 layers of paint over concrete.

I need something that I can use a cheap adhesive to stick to the walls because I want to hang 1000s of separate sheets of paper. That spongy double sided wall tape will hold, but it’s too costly. Scotch tape falls off in a matter of days: masking tape makes it maybe a week. Rubber cement was epic fail.

Is there any sort of paint that tape likes to stick to? If I buy the paint and pay a bribe, the custodians will repaint my room this summer. I thought about wallpaper, but I have these 20 foot ceilings and I 1) don’t think the custodians would put up paper (or even know how to) and 2) I cannot possibly do it. I still can’t wrap a package or fold a blanket neatly.

If paint won’t do it, can anyone else think of a way to cheaply get stuff to stick to concrete/plaster/paint?

2

There is a putty made for this. College students use it in their dorm rooms.

Here is some advice:

3

Get some beeswax from a craft store. Carefully melt it and stir in some mineral oil. You have to experiment with the ratio.
It makes a cheap and effective substitute for that Blu-Tak stuff and should work well on concrete as long as it isn’t too dusty.

It will probably stain some papers.

4

You may want to try liquid starch. I know it will hold fabric on a wall. Fill a spray bottle, squirt and attach.

5

Keeping in mind the immortal words of Blood, Sweat & Tears, you’ll need it to be easily removable as well. Blu tack has worked very well for me, and you only need the tiniest dot for each piece of paper.

6

Buy some magnetic paint

7

You can get magnetic paint in any color you wish anymore. It’ll cost a few extra bucks, but it may be a good solution for you.

And on preview, scooped.

8

What about a can of spray adhesive?

9

Thanks for all the responses! I am definitely going to try some of these things out–though I am going to have to hope magnetic paint goes down dramatically before it’s practical–I’d like to cover probably 600 square feet. The blue tacky stuff is likewise too expensive in these quantities. but if I can make it myself, that would be awesome. I will let people know what works.

Thanks again, and please keep them coming!