The Universal Language of Fun: Wall Stickers & Wall Decals
Apr.21
It should come as no surprise that our removable wall decals and wall stickers are popular in many countries around the world. After all, most of our themes of wildlife, flowers, forest scenes, dinosaurs, automobiles and childhood fantasies are universally cherished.
We do a brisk business across the European continent and if you notice the wide variety of magazine genres above, our overseas press coverage reflects a diverse customer base and appeal across all ages. In this newsstand sampling, we have mags covering nature, parenting, celebrity gossip and women’s lifestyle/fashion.
WallCandy Arts is a natural magnet to parenting and childcare magazines, but it’s always a pleasant surprise to see where our instincts for interior decorating take us. For example, take a glance at the shopping spread below where our retired “SophistiKit” sticker collection shares the spotlight with new bikini fashions, kitchen appliances, designer furniture, luxury skin care products and chicken or veal recipes (I can’t tell what kind of meat that is, but it looks absolutely dee-lish!).
For some reason, the SophistiKit design never really caught on. Now, I’ve never been a teenage girl — or even come close to understanding their mindset, but I think these young sleek women walking their Paris Hilton-sized dogs look quite hip and fashionable. If you’d like them to make a comeback, please start a petition drive. We’d love to hear from you about this style or any other wall sticker design.
The thing that makes me the happiest about this magazine clip is seeing the words “Made in the USA” beam out of a paragraph in a foreign language. All too often, it is the other way around, and it is personally important to me to support a company which supports American workers.
As with the teenage girls, I do not profess to have any special insights into the psychology of Jessica Simpson. But from her facial expression above, it seems to me that she would much prefer to be holding some WallCandy stickers than yet another designer handbag.
We are flattered by the company in the above magazine layout, though. But the reality is that you don’t have to be wearing gold jewelry or talk on a Giorgio Armani smartphone to afford our reasonably priced collections of adorable glow-in-the-dark owls or whimsical chalkboard animal wall stickers.
And our pediatrician and opthalmologist approved “Smarts Bees & Trees” nursery decoration set improves vision and gives babies a head start regardless of which language they may be cooing gurgling in.
Are you loving this cross-cultural wall decal experience? Please visit the media coverage section of our European distributor, Da Da Kids, for an afternoon’s worth of fun reading material!
Stickerating Flashback: Did You Collect Stickers as a Kid?
Mar.15
Rainbows, teddy bears, unicorns, hearts and roses made up the core of every girl's sticker collection
My brother and I collected baseball cards when we were kids and our little sister collected stickers. She probably wondered why we hoarded dozens of the same player — we were under the delusion that they would be paying for our college tuition — and we wondered how many rainbows and unicorns were too many. I mean, heck, don’t they all look the same after a while?
Recently, my sister-in-law Kari brought all those memories flushing back when she pulled out her childhood sticker collection from the 1980s. Kari took her collecting very seriously as you can see from this official document verifying her status as a “True Sticker Lover.”
This 1983 treasure trove was sealed for posterity in one of those horrific self-stick photo albums that congeals and yellows almost instantly. Apologies for not removing the plastic sheets to improve the clarity of these scans, but I was scared of permanently damaging her collection by peeling up the pages.
The irony, of course, is deep. Why would one ever want to stick the back of the sticker to a sticky surface when one could just use the sticker itself? I suppose that would leave you with the versatility to later use the sticker when and wherever you wanted it, but this collection clearly was for display purposes only.
As a sharp contrast, I would immediately stick stickers to lunchboxes, lockers, pencil cases, doors, walls, windows, my bike and virtually any hard surface begging for decoration. I had a particular preference for Wacky Packages stickers, which came in packs with bubble gum. “Wacky Packs,” as we called them, were spoofs of consumer products. The whole notion of using “CRUST” toothpaste was a hilarious concept in my youth.
I am sure my parents and my school would have loved for there to be WallCandy removable wall stickers back when I was a kid. It would have saved them immeasurable aggravation from the chore of removing stubborn adhesives from nearly everything I touched.
Stickerating your child’s bedroom is the ultimate nostalgia trip for anyone who collected stickers or Wacky Packages back in the day. The influential parenting site Cool Mom Picks hints that decorating with WallCandy might also even help your baby get into Harvard. The logic isn’t actually that far fetched! You can read about the research behind our Smarts wall decals by clicking here.
But back to the nostalgia factor. WallCandy’s CEO Allison Krongard was addicted to stickers as a girl (surprised?) and calls her collection her “greatest treasure.”
It has yet to be rediscovered, though. Allison suspects her mother may have thrown her albums out — but holds no grudge.
“First and second grade were hot for sticker trading and going to the store to buy more was the best treat,” she says. “I remember bringing my sticker book to my friend Emily’s house for play dates. She had the best stickers because she had a cool older sister, Sarah, who bought stickers with her babysitting money.”
Allison remembers being a huge fan of puffy stickers with googly eyes and was also enamored with Hello Kitty.
Hey, who isn’t?
For now, Allison and other grown-ups yet to be reunited with their childhood sticker collections will have to vicariously live through Kari’s.
You can never get enough cute teddies:
And no doubt, every little girl fantasized about President Ronald Reagan, in both his Oval Office and Cowboy incarnations:
How about an overdose of syrupy sweetness: Unicorns, Rainbows, Balloons, Teddies, Pandas, Hearts & Kittens all rolled into one? — YOU BETCHA!
This last glimpse of Kari’s collection illustrates three historical facts about the 1980s:
1. Children’s author Sandra Boynton (I love “Pajama Time!” and “Moo, Baa, La La La!”) apparently had a chocolate fixation with her hippos.
2. The hostile backlash against Izod alligator golf shirts apparently had lasting power.
3. Pre-rollerblade roller skates weren’t just a 1970s thing.
How about you? Did you every collect stickers as a kid? Do you know where your album is now? Did you also have a childhood crush on Ronald Reagan? Please share your sticker memories with us in the comments below!
Parents Magazine: Wall decals stimulate baby’s vision
Feb.15
The latest issue of Parents Magazine (March 2010) praises the style and science behind Smarts Bees & Trees
Q: What’s Black and White and Red all over?
A: A sunburned penguin.
Q: What’s Black and White and Red all over?
A: A newspaper covered with spilled strawberry syrup.
If you are decorating your first baby’s room, you likely have been spared from the onslaught of mundane jokes and riddles you’ll find on Popsicle sticks, cheese stick wrappers and Dixie cups. But rest assured, your time is coming.
In the meantime, black and white patterns should be especially relevant to you when you think about how to adorn the walls for your precious bundle.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, a newborn’s vision is most attracted to high-contrasted patterns such as checkerboards, bull’s eyes and stripes. And color recognition really doesn’t kick in until about four months.
With pediatrician and ophthalmologist guidelines in mind, we designed the adorable Smarts Bees & Trees collection ideal for both girl and boy babies. Bees are especially appropriate since it was the birds and the bees that got you in this situation in the first place!
Our removable Smarts decal set includes more than 30 inches of checkerboard, seven small bees, two large bees and six wall sticker photo frames.
We’re flattered to have the Smarts Bees & Trees decorations be endorsed in the latest issue of Parents Magazine (March 2010). And as the magazine notes, our Bees & Trees can be enhanced with a splash of color at age four months (when your baby will appreciate it the most) and with photos of your family in our snazzy removable frames.
We’d love to see pictures of how you’ve incorporated WallCandy Arts into your children’s world. Become part of our Customer Inspiration Gallery!
(But please don’t send us any riddles. Right now, WallCandy Dad is already feeling a bit overwhelmed).
Meet the New Cupid: Can wall decals really bring more romance into a marriage?
Feb.11
Monster Patrol wall decals not only engage children's imaginations and dispel nightmares, but they also heroically restore parents back to their rightful place in bed!
Meet the new Cupid! His name is Heinrich — his friends call him “Henry” — and he’s the cutest, most powerful toddler superhero in the history of childhood.
Henry is the squad leader of the Monster Patrol, an elite anti-nightmare unit dispatched to your child’s bedroom to give them the confidence that they can sleep restfully knowing the homefront is secure. His popcorn-like “Monster Pops” magically make monsters disappear in an instant!
There’s another proven way that kiddies can find safe refuge from monsters, and that’s by hopping in bed with mom and dad. Depending on how many kids you have, and their level of monsterphobia, this nightly migration can turn the grown-ups into refugees.
That’s what used to happen in WallCandy CEO Allison Krongard‘s house, when her children, Lilly and Brandon, would scamper into her bed at all sorts of ridiculous hours of the night.
“It was crazy,” laughs Allison. “Nobody ever woke up in the same bed they started in!”
Allison’s husband ironically would scrunch himself into Brandon’s WallCandy toddler bed, despite the option for stretching out in Lilly’s queen bed. She suspects the pink girly decor may have been a subconscious deterrent.
But now with the Monster Patrol on guard 24/7, everyone sleeps in their own beds — thus restoring the natural order of husband and wife elbowing each other in the night.
“Telling your kid that monsters aren’t real doesn’t work,” says Allison. “You need something imaginary to fight something imaginary.”
While we can’t guarantee that your love life will improve if you bring the Monster Patrol into your home, we’re pretty sure the imaginary monsters will be scared out of their wits!
– WallCandy Dad
