Tips on Indoor Wall Vinyl Stickers and Decals

This is what I REALLY want you to know... when you read that the decal you are thinking of purchasing is "high quality glossy vinyl and will last for many years", you are quite likely purchasing from a sign company that is using the same vinyl to market to the indoor home decor buyers as they are using to make their outdoor signs. Continue reading for more details:


The word vinyl is used across a wide arena of products.  The vinyl we are talking about is a thin sticker, made of vinyl, that is a similiar thickness to 3 coats of paint.  Vinyl stickers or decals have been used for many years already for outdoor signage and banners along with vehicle lettering.  In the past few years, wall art has become popular as indoor home decor.  Here's the difference:  vinyl used for outdoor retail signs need to have stronger adhesive to withstand the rigors of temperature and precipitation changes.  Most outdoor vinyl is considered almost permanent and can take a large amount of work to remove.

So when we compare that to our indoor home decor...  We DON'T want permanent wall stickers in our homes.  We need to repaint, touch up or add new wall paper every so often.  So the stickers need to be removable without harming the wall, leaving behind pieces or taking a huge effort to remove.

So INDOOR vinyl was designed and made available.  Indoor vinyl has a matte finish so it blends with your walls and looks like paint.  Glossy vinyls are almost always outdoor vinyl as a vinyl used for retail signage needs to be bright and eye-catching. 

Indoor vinyl has an outdoor life of 2-3 years but an indoor life of 6-7 years.  There are dozens of different types of outdoor vinyls but most have a outdoor life of 6+ years.

Indoor wall vinyl has been designed to be removable.  In most cases, you can just pick a corner with your finger nail and peel it off.  A few factors that apply when you are removing the indoor wall stickers -1) the longer it is on the wall, the harder it is to remove.  -2) If the wall sticker was placed on fresh paint, it will take the paint off with removal.  The paint should be allowed to cure for 1-2 weeks at a minimum.  To always be on the safe side, use a hair blow dryer to heat up and release the adhesive when you are removing the wall sticker.

We specialize in INDOOR wall vinyl used in home decor.  You may visit us at Wall Decor Plus More for a wide variety of wall art and stickers for your home!

Room Photo Winner - Wall Circles

Every month we send out a newsletter.  In the newsletter, we feature a photo from our room photo drawing.  Here is January's photo winner:

As the winner of our drawing, you get to have a 12" x 24" sheet of vinyl cut to your specifications.  This month's winner chose our "Always Kiss Me Goodnight" wall saying.  Last month's winner chose a Kitchen Saying - red saying on a yellow wall looks SHARP!

You can send your room photo using Wall Decor Plus More's products to walldecorplusmore@goldenwest.net to be entered into next month's drawing.  To recieve our newsletter, Click HERE and enter in your e-mail address.

New items: Wall Names & Zebra Stripes

We have a new item added to the popular Zebra/Animal Print wall decor.  Zebra Stripes - available in our Children's Wall Decor section.  Each stripe is 36" long and 2.5" high.  You get 4 stripes in each package.  The ends match up so you can make one long border or stripe around your room. When they are combined in one long stripe, the total length is 12 feet which is a basic length of one bedroom wall.

Your cheapest option for these zebra wall stripes is at our website - http://www.walldecorplusmore.com/.  But if you prefer Etsy or Amazon, we have the zebra stripes listed in our stores there also.  Remember: with all our zebra wall stripes, the color you choose will be the stripe color and the white or background color in the photo will be your wall color showing through.  In the photo above, the wall color is hot pink.

The zebra stripes have an application process just like wall sayings - rub thoroughly, peel the backing, place on the wall, remove transfer tape.

Another new item added to our website: Wall Names.  The wall names are quite popular for children and baby wall decor.  The top photo shows a wall name with a fun font called Inspiration.  When you order your wall name, you choose a color, font and specify the name.  We design the name to best fit a 12" x 24" size.  We can send you a preview before we cut if you notify us.  These are also available in our Children's Wall Decor section.

How To Make Your Wall Vinyl Growth Chart Portable

This is a tutorial on how to apply your growth chart to a board so it can be portable.  This is especially handy for a variety of reasons: 
1. If you move you can take it with you;
2. If you redo your walls the growth chart isn't ruined;
3. If you move your child to a new room, the chart can go along to the new room!

So first, the tool/items you will need-  I found that aspen wood is a light weight wood so it can be hung easily.  I purchased a wood piece at Menards in a 1/4" x 6" x 4' size. 

Next, you need paint.  This doesn't require alot so some left-over paint works well. You can also purchase a small can, like 3 oz., if you want a certain color you don't have. 

Then, you will need some hardware for the top so the growth chart can be hung on the wall.  I purchased little hooks that can be screwed into the top.  Make sure they are quite small since you are working with only a 1/4" wide board.  The hooks I used were a 17/32" size. You should decide if you plan to string a wire or a string.ribbon through the hooks or hang the hooks on nails on the wall.

So from here it is pretty simple.  Paint your board.  Allow the paint to cure 1-2 weeks before you apply your growth chart.  If the paint isn't cured properly, the application of the vinyl sticker may be more difficult.

After the paint is cured, apply the vinyl growth chart to the painted board.  Your growth chart needs to be cut in half and applied in 2 parts.  This make application simpler for one person as you aren't working with one big piece.  Line up the piece on the board to make sure you have it going straight up the board and no lettering or numbers run off the board.  I like to make a bend in the backing of the vinyl design where the edges of the boards are so I can see that it is straight and will fit.  Now follow the instructions for application or see our tutorial HERE.

Now that you have the design applied, you can insert the hooks into the top of the board.  I like to hammer the screw in slightly and then turn to tighten it.  Now it's ready to hang on the wall, either on a string hung on a nail or with nails through the screws in the wall.  Another option would be purchase hanging hardware similiar to what is on the back of a photo frame.

Our growth charts on Amazon are designed specifically with this method in mind. Click HERE to see our store on Amazon.com

Working with Wall Vinyl Decals/Stickers - some problems you may encounter and their solutions

 This post will help with troubleshooting as you apply your wall vinyl decal and even after the application.
First off, be sure you know how to apply your decal.  Read the instructions included and if you are confused (which is quite common!), watch the how-to video at our website.  Most of time, seeing is the better option to understanding.

Some common problems you may encounter with your wall sticker or decal: 

1.  Bubbles or wrinkles show up after you have applied your sticker.

           Solution:  Continue to smooth the bubble down each time you notice it.  Wall Vinyl is easily stretched so it may have been slightly stretched during application.  Also it may have gotten a wrinkle from shipping and it "remembers" that.  After a few times of smoothing the wrinkle down it will start to adhere to the proper place.

2.  It looks like my vinyl decal or sticker is starting to fall off the wall.
          
          Solution 1:  It is HIGHLY unlikely that it will actually fall off.  We use top-of-the-line vinyl and continue to test in our own homes.  I have NEVER seen a decal, made with our brand of vinyl, fall off the wall.  I  have seen a few instances where the edges look loose on close observation.  Generally this is from applying your decal to a bumpy surface, like knockdown textured walls or similiar textured walls.  So continue to smooth that wrinkle and it will soon be gone.
          
         Solution 2:  There is a slight chance your wall/surface was not clean enough or was too cold.  If the surface was not clean enough, there isn't much you can do to remedy this.  You can keep smoothing it down to see if you can eventually get it to adhere better.  If it is because your surface was too cold, most likely you had a VERY difficult time getting it off the transfer tape in the first place.  So now you should heat up the surface with a hair blow dryer and thoroughly but carefully smooth the entire design down.  This will make for a much better application.

3.  Can you apply to a textured or bumpy wall?

            Solution:  Yes, you can.  Here are some things to remember:  The smaller the vinyl decal is, the more PATIENCE you need as you apply the sticker.  Again, this is something we have tested in our own home along with friends and family's homes.  We have the usual textured walls here in our new part of the house.  I have applied growth charts to these walls.  Growth charts with their tiny inch marks can be the hardest along with tiny lettering.  That was about a year ago - they are still up with no signs of wrinkling at the edges or bubbles showing up.  Basically, if you can get the vinyl design adhered the first time, it will be adhered just fine and you are good to go =)!  Our wall sticker shapes are the easiest to apply to textured or bumpy walls.

This will be something we will continue address here - I don't want to bore you with a LONG post =)!

Welcome 2011!! New larger sizes available!

Hi everyone!  After our long absence here, working at keeping up with the orders and learning a new machine and software, we are back with LOTS of ideas.  So, our New Years goal is to find the time to get them all posted here, so you can put them to use in your home!


First off, we are excited to announce new LARGER sizes available on our website:  http://www.walldecorplusmore.com/.  This mainly affects the wall sayings category.  Our new machine allows us to cut bigger pieces thereby allowing us to offer bigger sizes to you!  We have the Kitchen Sayings page updated already with the new sizes.  We also have some larger sizes available on the Teen Wall Art page.  We still have quite a few items that can be added to the Teen Wall Art page, so keep checking back!  Some more subjects that will be added to this page soon are dancing and golf.  Feel free to contact us for a bigger size in any of the other sections, if we haven't gotten that far.  We are also able to make any size in between the large and small size offered on the website.


Be sure to check out all the wall sayings we offer.  Over the Christmas vacation, we were able to get a few new unique designs added to the website!

New item to come:  Zebra Wall Stripes


Watch for Growth Chart ideas posted here on the blog!