Baseball is Berry Berry Good to Me
Sep.14
Major League Baseball is entering the final crunch toward the World Series and you need to get those brackets up and running. There’s no better way to keep track than by using Wallcandy Arts peel and stick whiteboard or chalkboard wall decals.
They’re large and can be removed easily and taken to the office to put on the wall near the community fridge… and then removed if the boss objects. (When he or she leaves for the day, just put it right back up and keep on bracketing – it works for me!)
I also like to use WallCandy’s reusable Frames wall decals – they add a retro Polaroid look to pictures of my boy, Derek Jeter, or anybody I think will bring me good luck during the run to the Series. Kurt Gibson and Lou Gehrig are favorites, too.
These removable wall stickers are tailor-made for the sports fan, so check ‘em out!
How to Decorate a Nursery Using Destination Inspiration
Sep.8
We were pretty stoked to see a WallCandy® design in the Fall 2011 edition of Pregnancy & Newborn Buyer’s Guide. The magazine featured our peel-and-stick frames wall decals in a spread suggesting a few ideas for holding a couples-friendly baby shower that doesn’t overdo it on the baby pinks and blues.
Frames are truly among our favorite removable, reusable wall decals because of their decorative versatility. They can be captioned and recaptioned with a dry-erase marker, and just like the Polaroid camera resting quietly among the dustbunnies in your attic, they make any image look coolly vintage.
As kids armed with our own Polaroid cameras, we loved dabbling in landscape photography. While portrait shots of our parents, grandparents, and childhood doggies needed time to appreciate in aesthetic value, photographs of backyard sunsets and mountaintop views from Girl Scout campgrounds were always instantly amazing. Those Polaroid-captured lookouts got us thinking about the places we’ve been and how each destination could potentially inspire us as we were deciding how to decorate a nursery. Any of the following five decorative destination ideas could be pulled together with a few carefully chosen snapshots displayed on the wall in Polaroid style, but we’ll let you use your imagination:
1. Nashville, Tennessee
You won’t need to fly all the way to Music City to find a few country-inspired items for decorating a nursery. Paint the room in shades of moody blue, pose your guitar in the corner near a cozy rocking chair, and add a framed poster of the Parthenon shot during a semi-rare winter blizzard. If you’ve got time to do some hunting, you could easily add a row of baby-themed country records on one wall. Give yourself a big country kiss if you can find “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On” by Conway Twitty, “Baby Let’s Play House” by Elvis Presley, or “Baby on Board” by The Oak Ridge Boys.
2. London, England
Start with a search for crib bedding and textiles in just the right shade of Tower Bridge blue and top with throw pillows printed with the Union Jack or graphic renditions of famous London landmarks. Add touches of Royal Botanic Gardens with clusters of colorful flower wall stickers near the baseboards or on the wall behind the changing table. Pull the nursery’s theme together by using removable and reusable wallpaper in a London bus print to create an accent wall that doubles as an ode to the oh-so-stylish Brits.
3. New York, New York
Anyone who declares the city to be no place for babies has never fallen asleep to the soothing din of muffled afternoon traffic. If you can paint squares and straight lines, start your city chic nursery with a handpainted black-and-white-checkered skyline. Design your own rush hour motif with peel-and-stick car wall decals that could potentially highlight a crib repainted in taxicab yellow. Complete the look with a removable, reusable apple chalkboard wall decal for displaying a few lines of “Mannahatta,” Walt Whitman’s plush poem about New York City.
4. Eugene, Oregon
If your idea of serene is lined with tall trees, keep Eugene in mind as you prepare the nursery for its peaceful little inhabitant. Choose nursery furniture made with natural wood, and cushy textiles in leafy greens and chestnut browns. Continue building your forest room with a reusable tree wall sticker you can arrange and rearrange to resemble a sweet spring sapling. If you’d like to add some adorably watchful nighttime critters to your baby’s abode, try a few owl wall decals in a kit that happens to also contain a silvery shade tree and matching night sky.
5. Corea, Maine
Spend one afternoon in a maritime museum and you’ll likely emerge an expert on how to decorate a nursery in a nautical theme. Begin by designing a focal wall covered with peel and stick wallpaper in blue and cream stripes. Use the leftover wallpaper to line bookshelves where jars of sea glass can share space with a few decoratively displayed books, such as Lois Lenski’s The Little Sailboat, or Jerry Pallotta’s The Boat Alphabet Book. Add lamps that cast a seaside sunset glow, then create spaces for snuggling with schools of stuffed fish, lobsters, and mermaids.
What’s your destination inspiration? Leave a comment and share your own favorite places and nursery decorating ideas.
Surprise Wall Decals and Other Inexpensive Ideas to Boost Bunk Décor and Sleepaway Camp Experiences
Mar.31
Photo credit: Cammy Ambrosini
We weren’t Girl Scouts, but my sisters and I once found ourselves 50 miles from our home in Smyrna, Tennessee, at an official Girl Scout sleepaway camp. We were outsiders unfamiliar with the creeds, songs, and preexisting friendships. (The cookies, we knew.) Our father, bless his little pea-pickin’ heart, would’ve been fine with only his toothbrush and a pair of sweatshorts, so he wasn’t much help regarding what to bring to summer camp as we were packing only one tiny bag between the three of us the night before. Since children typically aren’t interested in what-to-pack lists and have a limited idea of exactly what they need in order to feel comfortable outside of food, shelter, bear, and blanket, we’d packed only leftover Easter candy and summer clothing. What would’ve been perfect for one night at Grandma’s was a bag of horrors for a week at sleepaway camp – the candy and clothing melted together, as candy and clothing tend to do in severe humidity according to the laws of childhood physics.
Even if your child has been to sleepaway camp before and found it to be a fantastic experience, night-before nerves are as natural as a walk in the woods. If packed carefully and correctly, the suitcase or backpack can be an antidote to that anxiety, especially if it contains little surprises for the child to look forward to once you’ve driven away. Presents make everything a little more bearable, as does the ability to claim a space and personalize it for the week ahead. This year, try the Christmas-in-July approach and include these five pieces of bunk accessories for your child to discover at that crucial moment just after arrival:
1. Bath accoutrements that fit easily into a mildew-proof, easy-to-carry shower caddy can counter the stress taking a shower at camp will likely muster. Bathing is a huge part of everyone’s comfort level, including the folks in our near vicinities, so giving a child a few unexpected grooming luxuries is a must. Pack a travel-sized sample of Mom’s favorite summer-scented shampoo, a soft loofah (even if your child doesn’t typically use a loofah, the gesture is sweetly memorable), and a couple of extra character toothbrushes. I personally recommend some method of marking the outside of a shower curtain to let outsiders know it’s occupied, such as a laminated sign equipped with a hook for a standard shower rod. Camp showers are typically noisy and other campers may not realize that the stall is in use. A moment of exposure can be devastating for a child – trust me.
2. Open up a pack of peel-and-stick chalkboard tiles and use smudge-proof chalkboard ink markers to write a lovely encouraging message on the package’s top tile. Your child can stick the decals to a bit of blank wall space near the bed and use the remaining two to doodle or write little reminders (such as, “Next year, pack all chocolate in a sealed plastic baggie.”) Don’t forget to include the chalk! Once your child meets a few pals, he or she might just decide to move the wall decals to a more common area so everyone can scribble silly messages.
A collection of souvenirs from home.
3. Scan three special photographs and print them as 8″x10″ copies perfect for fitting inside our Polaroid-style frames wall decals. Kids can fill any remaining wall space with comforting, familiar images and decorate each frame with the included tack and tape accent decals. If your child is worried about losing a cherished bear or blankie, perhaps a safe photograph would temporarily replace the real thing while he’s away. Since all of our wall decals are removable and reusable, it’ll be a cinch to bring them back home without upsetting the camp counselors by tearing up the bunk walls.
4. Handmade satchels of dried lavender, peppermint, and honeysuckle can be fantastic mood boosters and effective suitcase fresheners. Since scent is an essential part of human comfort (just ask brain doctor extraordinaire Dr. Daniel Amen) and campsites can quickly become stinky once dozens of children are in their playtime zones, a sweet-smelling gesture for a better night’s sleep might be in order.
"Dear Mom and Dad: Camp smells delicious!"
5. It might sound silly, but seed packets can provide your child with a unique activity for sharing with any would-be camp buddies during free time. Leave a note suggesting she make the campground a prettier place, the way she’s made your life extra beautiful.
The trick to packing a soothing suitcase is to combine new surprises with familiar comforts. Don’t forget to include something special from home that could stand to be soiled or even lost, such as an extra pillowcase in a recognizable pattern from Mom and Dad’s bedspread, or a cozy sweatshirt from Big Brother’s stash for those few uncomfortable minutes after exiting the lake or swimming pool. Oh, and make sure any edible treats you pack have a super high melting point.
Handy Wall Stickers Support a Manageable 2011 To-Do List
Jan.7
Today, I finally finalized my list of five New Year’s resolutions. (Stop procrastinating? Not on the list. Never, ever on the list.) I know what you’re thinking – ugh, more resolutions – but this list is a bit different. It took so long to come up with a final draft because I wanted it to be realistic instead of gut-wrenching, fun instead of dull and self-deprecating, and succinct instead of obscure and complicated.
Like most of my better life improvement projects, my list requires some light shopping. In fact, I designed it that way because I know that spending what little extra cash I have on cool new things is what pumps me up for a future job well done. For example, when I decided to run the 2010 NYC marathon, a trip to the sports store for some swanky new socks was what kept me from choosing to spend my afternoon running a Mad Men marathon instead. Those socks weren’t going to sweat in themselves.
This year, I’m going to use a few of WallCandy’s handy home helpers to give me the boost I’ll need to carry out my 2011 to-do list:
1. Send more thank-you cards. On my kitchen wall sticks three new removable whiteboard panels, one of which holds a running list of loved ones I’d like to thank for various things. I’ll thank Grandma and Grandpa for the Christmas cash, which I spent on a secondhand wooden desk. I’ll thank my mother for being such a treat and helping me wrap gifts during my visit home. I’ll also thank a number of hosts and hostesses for inviting me over for wine, cheese, and Scattergories. Thank you, thank you, and thank you!
2. Use less electricity after I’ve fallen asleep. My beau often asks me if I have stock in Con-Ed, to which I reply, “What’s with your Nicholas Cage obsession?” Truth be told, I don’t care for the darkness and all the toe-stubbing, what’s-this-fuzzy-thing-next-to-me action it brings. My environmentally responsible remedy is to install a set of glow-in-the-dark night lights along the border of my ceiling and bedroom walls, cabana-style.
3. Take more baths. I love a good soak, but it’s hard to relax when the ceiling is boring and all I can visualize is how my upstairs neighbor might look crashing through it. Dragging the television or my computer into the bathroom is a recipe for disaster, so instead I’m going to cluster a batch of mesmerizing focal points on the ceiling above the tub with WallCandy’s Dottilicious kit.
4. Make my desserts the healthier, homemade kind. What was once a foray into the dark world of miniature Hershey bars fished from a crinkly plastic bag will now be a few weekend hours spent making fudgy brownies from scratch – with applesauce. A cupcake chalkboard on my pantry door will help me plan recipes ahead of time and avoid crinkly plastic guilt.
5. Take and display more photographs. Because I’m truly out of spare space for stand-up picture frames, the wall will have to incorporate a few of my favorite faces. I refuse to poke holes through my ocean-blue paint job, so I’ll use removable, reusable, captionable Polaroid-style frames and display them anywhere and everywhere I could use a better view. After all, a gal needs the option to revise now and again.
Instant Gratification: Polaroid-Style Frame Decals
Jul.22
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.
