I’m old enough to remember shaking blank Polaroid photos to try to speed up their developing, which was like watching a picture fade in reverse. Shaking them was as effective as tapping your feet to make a long line move faster.

And I’m delighted to discover that old-style Polaroid film has been brought back from the dead in the Digital Age by some photography enthusiasts in the Netherlands!  Appropriately, they call themselves The Impossible Project.

The genre is super hot. Lady Gaga, recently signed on as Polaroid’s Creative Director, just posed for a giant Polaroid portrait. You’ll find it at the MIT Museum, which houses iconic photography memorabilia dating back to inventor Dr. Edwin Land.

And now, WallCandy Arts adds its stylish tribute. These removable wall decal Frames turn any wall into a nostalgic scrapbook. They look just as fashionable with 8 x 10 color enlargements taken 10 minutes ago as they do with vintage black and whites from your grandparents’ wedding album. If you are feeling extra creative, we recommend running your photos through editing software or free Web editing apps, such as Rollip.com, to give them a subdued Instamatic look.

Completing the scrapbook or bulletin board theme are pieces of yellowed Scotch tape and push-pins. The blank white area underneath the photos are meant for your witty captions with Dry-Erase markers — the same ones you use for your office whiteboard.

Some WallCandy Arts designs are clearly targeted toward specific ages and genders. For example, unless your hubby still wears Batman underwear, it is unlikely he’d be choosing these RACE ME race cars for his Man Cave.

The beauty of Frames is that they appeal to every  demographic.  Here are a few occasions and locations where decorating with them would be a huge hit:

WAYS TO USE WALLCANDY FRAMES

1. Dorm Room Decor: While your roommate sticks up the same cliched shots of James Dean, John Belushi’s Animal House college spoof, or (yuck) trendy guerrilla icon Che Guevara, you can show off the fun places you’ve traveled or hope to visit one day.

2. Birthday Parties: Doesn’t matter if the guest of honor is 1 or 100, frame the cutest moments of his or her life in wall decals.

3. Graduation Parties: These are going on all summer long! Kindergarten class photos will make your grad’s friends smile.

4. Wedding Anniversaries: We hardly open up our wedding albums any more, let alone share them with new friends. Make them the central focal point!

5. Bridal Showers: Decorate the house with action shots of the honored couple!

6. Bar and Bat Mitzvahs/First Communions: Any “This is Your Life” is an excuse to line the walls with a Time Machine tribute.

7. Adult Halloween Parties: Put blank frames up on the wall with categories for a costume contest: Funniest Costume, Sexiest Costume, Funniest Couple, Scariest Couple, etc.  Take digital shots and print out 8 x 10s on your printer and have people vote for the winners.  Give out WallCandy Arts decals as prizes

8. Going Away Parties: When a friend or family member moves, it’s another “This is Your Life” moment.

9. Childhood Bedrooms: Great place to showcase favorite family vacation pictures.

10. Office Decor: Show off the kids to your co-workers or your family vacation pics.

11. Playroom Decor: Kids are fickle. One day they love the Wiggles or Teletubbies. The next day they are “too old” for those characters and are Sesame Street sophisticates. Frames are ideal for displaying magazine pictures and children’s artwork, too.

As with all WallCandy Arts decals, there are no limits to where your imagination can take you.

We’d love to see how you’ve used WallCandy Frames. Please send us your photos and stories about your favorite decoration projects!  Share them on Facebook or drop us a line here.

When I get a bridal shower invitation from a distant relative or long-lost friend, I find myself wishing I had Emily Post on speed dial.

 “Yo, Em,” I’d say. “How important is it to stick to the bride’s registry when choosing a gift? My old college roommate registered for 25 white bath towels and a kiddie pool-sized cast iron pan. I remember when we were in college, she grew her own paprika in our dorm and only bought towels with wiener dogs on them…”

“Who is this?” Emily would interrupt. “How did you get this number?”

I’d then hang up quickly and decide to follow my gut, which tells me that there’s a chance my old roomie enjoyed shooting things with the registry gun the way she’d enjoy gum stuck in her hair. Many couples create registries to satisfy the family collective and make things easier for relatives who are planning to attend but have no idea what to get someone whose cheeks they used to pinch.

Those 25 white bath towels may seem practical, but I know they’re destined to be tie-dyed and possibly re-gifted.

Fortunately, I love picking out funky gifts for parties I’m not able to attend. I love imagining someone I once shared toothpaste with opening something unique and unexpected. I love writing on the card, “I know you didn’t register for this, but I saw it and thought of you. I hope the special things about you blend with the special things about your partner and create an extraordinary home.”

The other shower-goers are sure to envy my gift, a blue dachshund lamp and a set of garden markers. I secretly hope Emily Post is sitting closest to the bride-to-be, gathering the wayward wrapping paper and wondering who sent her such a fabulously classy gift. It was me, Emmy. I’ll call you later.

Straying from the bridal registry is safer when I’ve found gifts that anyone would love, such as a piggy bank for grown-ups, a stylish metal toolbox, or a pack of removable chalkboard decals for writing honey-do lists or sickly sweet newlywed love notes.

If the registry is longer than War and Peace and I’ve started to have nightmares about my renegade gift, I go with dishes. Everyone needs dishes, right? Everyone could use a coffee service set or sturdy serving tray, especially if they’d complement any kitchen décor.

 The worst thing that could happen is a desire to return the gift for something else (which, by the way, could happen with a registry item – not everyone wants a neon red duvet cover two months in a row). If the bride is unhappy, that’s okay. I’d be glad to give her Emily’s number so she’ll know what to do.

Let your dears know you love them by decorating with our irresistible deerly beloved wall decals. The soft-eyed pink and blue deers with hearts, flowers and mushroom decals are sure to melt all hearts this Valentine’s Day. And your wallet will love our $40 sale price.

Want to bring some luv home for Valentine’s Day? Surprise the ones you love with a message spelled out with our luv letters wall decals. If you really want to spice it up, stick the vinyl decals on the ceiling. The letters can be bought individually so that you can spell out whatever you want, And because they are removable wall decals, you can change the way you express your love any time you want. Get the letters in pink with birds or blue with stars – or mix things up and get a few of each!

Our chalkboard wall decals are the perfect place to write a love note. Surprise a a spouse, child or even a dear friend by writing a note on the chalkboard decal and then sealing the package back up again. And they will love you even more once they see how they can use the removable wall decal chalkboards every day to jot down notes, write plans for the day or just for doodling. For a child, roar of your love on one of our chalkboard animals.

- Allison

Our new website is all about helping you transform your life! Our new site, which we unveiled this week, has more products, streamlined shopping, more imagery and a great new look. We’ve also added an inspiration section, where you can find out what we were thinking about when creating some of our decals, and get ideas on different ways to use them.

We love to see what you’ve done with our products, so we are putting together a new flip book feature on our site where you can show off how you’ve used our wall decals creatively. We’ll tell you what we think! So often we get our best ideas from you. Please email your images to marketing@wallcandyarts.com.

And we now have everything that you need to complete your space. When you see a room on our site that you love, you’ll be able to buy the modern coordinating furniture, lighting, rugs and more.

Please stop in and tell us what you think, we value your feedback.

And now, when you check-out and pay, you can send a $10 coupon to a friend to help others reinvent their rooms too!

www.wallcandyarts.com

- Allison

Top 10 ways to use WallCandy Arts to get organized for 2010

1. Write your New Year’s resolutions on our flat-packed white boards with wipe off markers. If your resolve weakens, you can always erase it!

2. Jot down a list of things to do on our removable wall decal chalkboards. Have your kids write their own lists of things to get done in the new year on our animal chalkboards.

3. Clean up the kids’ clutter with our delightful super buckets. They are perfect for small toys and books and can be toted from room to room. And it makes cleaning up at the end of the day easy! Or use them in the closet for small items, like socks and underwear that always seem to get lost in drawers. Use our large wash tubs in the mud room to capture hats, gloves and scarves when you come in the house. Throw another one in the corner of each room for laundry. The buckets and tubs in cute pink birds, blue stars and colorful flutterflies will be an attractive accessory for any room.

4. Alphabetize your life with luv letters. Put up the luv letter wall decals around the house to add a fun flair to organizing. Put up a letter T over a basket of towels in the bathroom. Or stick a letter C over cookbooks in the kitchen.

5. Everything will have its place in the plygrid horizontal bookcase. Display favorite knickknacks, books, vintage records or toys in the bookcase. Or get some baskets and put them in the cubby holes to neatly hold all the little things in your life.

6. Lay out your makeup, perfumes or everyday jewelery on a tetra accessories tray to clean up your dresser top. Or save space and cut down on clutter in baby’s room by using the tetra tray as a changing table. It sits securely on a tetra 2 unit and fits a standard changing pad.

7. Organize your clothes with the tetra 4 horizontal drawer unit. The 10 multi-sized drawers are perfect for separating out things like socks, T-shirts and PJ’s.

8. Once you clean up your house, start saving for a vacation away from home by stashing your spare change in our modern ceramic piggy bank. The piggy bank comes decorated with bold black and white numbers, graphic chicks or flowers.

9. If your kids love to draw but can’t seem to keep their crayons and markers in one place, check out our doodle drawer desk for an easy and attractive solution for keeping your kids and their things in one place!

10. Grab our giant ceramic cup to capture keys and mail when you walk into the house to cut down on clutter on the kitchen table.

- Allison