Homemade paper paste

Here is a recipe for making homemade paste that can be used for paper coating the pieces of cardboard furniture.  I stumbled upon this recipe in an old cookbook when I was looking for a Carmel pudding recipe. 

Put 1 1/2 cups water, 1/2 cup cornstarch, 4 Tablespoons white corn syrup, and 2 teaspoons vinegar in a pot.  Heat it slowly over very low heat while stirring constantly until it becomes very thick then remove from the heat. 

At this point it needs to be thinned down by adding 1 1/2 cups more water and 1/2 cup more cornstarch.  Stir this together without cooking until it's very creamy.  It will thicken up a bit more as it cools and become more like wall paper paste.

When it's cool enough just put it into a container for use with the furniture paper coating.

If more water is added it will be like a pourable school glue.  One familiar brand name would be Elmer's.  Add the water slowly, a teaspoon at a time to avoid getting it too thin.  I'm going to save a dish liquid bottle to store some of this homemade glue and use it when constructing some of my furniture pieces.    I'll use the thicker version for the paper coatings. 

UPDATE:  This homemade glue should be kept in the fridge and used within a few days.  I wanted to see what would happen if it was left covered on a counter.  Would it last?  This is what I got after a few days.  It had started to grow green hair.

It does work extremely well as a paper paste though.   I noticed I had a lot less paper crinkles with the homemade paste than I get with the regular wall paper paste. 

I'm not sure if bugs will be attracted to the paste or not.  Some bugs are already attracted to paper, cardboard, and glues in other things around a house.  Silverfish bugs love books.  I never had a problem with bugs years ago when I had several cardboard furniture pieces.  I'm thinking the final painted finish on the pieces may have been a deterant to bugs?  I've not heard of any bugs attracted to painted surfaces either.