
Jungle Love: French Bull and WallCandy Arts team up to create the Friendliest African Safari your baby can enjoy from her or his crib.
What amazes me about language development and early education is just how often the passengers of Noah’s Ark make an impact on our kids.
Think about it. If you’re learning to speak a new language, how often would you use the words “Giraffe,” “Lion,” “Hippo,” or “Elephant” in normal everyday conversations? I suppose that you would if you grew up in a zookeeper’s family or in a hut near the Serengeti Plain. But jungle animals totally dominate children’s literature and decor.
The end result of that? A population primed for becoming biologists, environmental conservationists or at bare minimum, the future audience for Animal Planet, National Geographic and The Discovery Channel.
One of the things that amuses me most as a parent is being continually surprised by how many astounding details my elementary school and preschool-age children know about the animal kingdom. To celebrate the recent release of WallCandy Arts and French Bull’s latest Jungle Wall Decals, our research team has come up with some amazing animal facts (via National Geographic’s Mammal files) so you’ll be prepared the next time your youngster starts a conversation.
THE ASIAN ELEPHANT
THE AFRICAN LION
THE GIRAFFE
So who knows, maybe there’s a future Jane Goodall cooing in your crib right now! If you’re a huge nature buff, don’t forget to also check out WallCandy’s Chalkboard Jungle, Elephant Chalkboard, Forest Friends, Deerly Beloved, and French Bull Jungle Party removable temporary wallpaper.
Based on all the gourmet cake and cupcake bakeries popping up in reality TV shows and our neighborhoods, it was only a matter of time before there was a 24-hour Cupcake ATM!
CNN just featured the latest innovation from Sprinkles Cupcakes, which boasts it was the originator of the world’s first cupcake bakery in 2005.
Sprinkles, which has 10 high-profile bakeries nationwide and is featured on the Food Network series “Cupcake Wars,” debuts its first Cupcake ATM at its Beverly Hills anchor location on March 9, with the rest of the chain being outfitted by the summer.
The machines will hold 600 freshly baked cupcakes each, with outdoor access for the after-hours munchies. It will only take credit cards and the price of convenience will be slightly higher: $4 a cake vs. $3.50 inside the store.
A Sprinkles spokeswoman told CNN that there are plans to eventually locate the Cupcake ATMs at remote locations where gourmet snacks aren’t readily available. A very noble pursuit indeed.
Of course, there’s another way to enjoy cupcakes 24/7 and that’s with WallCandy’s new French Bull Cupcake Land wall decal board game.
These removable cupcake wall stickers are a bit friendlier than Cupcake Wars, giving parents and kids another fun way to practice learning numbers and colors. Inspired by numerous classic children’s board games, Cupcake Land puts a freshly-baked spin on rolling the dice. You can “fly” like a butterfly, slide across rainbows and skip, hop and jump at various marked spaces.
And every game can be different since all WallCandy Arts decorative wall decals are repositionable and safe for wallpaper, paint and all surfaces.
We humbly invite America’s growing legion of retail cupcake bakeries and home cupcake enthusiasts to fly their favorite dessert colors where the whole world can see them.
By the way, if you’re also in the mood for an interactive cupcake decal that can double as the “Special of the Day” board or the Family Communication Center, check out our Cupcake Chalkboard!
Here’s the ultimate WallCandy theme for a nursery, playroom or bedroom if you don’t want to go too girly (Princess Wall Decals) or too boyey (Rush Hour Cars).
I love that word “boyey!”
Our Hot Air Balloon Wall Decals will channel your child’s imagination, sense of adventure, and hey, there’s no prettier way to travel — is there?
I personally LOVE the Plano (Texas) Balloon Festival for all the whimsical balloons it attracts to the mix — almost like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade cartoon floats. Check out the upsidedown Humpty Dumpty!
Pilots in the Plano Festival drop beanbags and try to hit a target to win prizes. Just before sunrise and just after sunset, all the balloonists also participate in a breathtaking “Glow.” When the balloons fire themselves up, the flames illuminate the canopy like lightbulbs.
Hot air balloons actually date back to 1783 when the first craft delighted crowds stretching their necks up at the skies over Paris. The balloon itself was made of paper and cotton — a serious fire hazard — but the pilots made it to the ground safely after an amazing 30 minutes in the clouds.
Children’s literature and entertainment is filled with hot air balloon imagery. I can recite the narrative of “Curious George and the Hot Air Balloon” by Margret and H.A. Rey — and the scenes of George hovering over the maintenance workers grooming the faces on Mount Rushmore still make me smile. I don’t want to ruin the suspense of the story for you by giving away too many details. But it’s highly recommended.
I also think that Disney and Pixar’s “UP” has done more to promote the thrill of hot air ballooning than a zillion festivals — although some of the tear-jerker themes (overcoming loneliness, infertility, aging) certainly resonate with adults on a deeper level. Last year, as a promotional stunt for its new program, “How Hard Can It Be?”, the National Geographic Channel made a 16 x 16 x 18-foot model house go airborne with the help of 300 large helium balloons (8 feet in diameter).
The house reached a peak of 10,000 feet and stayed in the clouds for about an hour!
With WallCandy’s hot air balloon removable wall decals, who knows where your kid’s imagination will lead?

Afraid of Heights? Then maybe some of these luxury skyscraper hotels aren't for you! (Source: Hemispheres Magazine - Click for more info)
So many of us have noticed the silly practice of hotels, apartment buildings and other high-rises skipping over the 13th floor — just jumping from 12 to 14 as if it were possible to simply eliminate Number 13 to calm superstitious nerves. This practice is an extremely slippery slope as any staircase shorter than 13 steps means you’ll be staying in a dollhouse.
I thought of this paranoia when I was reading about the World’s Tallest Hotels, a recent feature in Hemispheres Magazine, the official in-flight publication of United Airlines.
As the magazine highlights, the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong has 118 floors (wonder if 113 is there) and at 1,608 feet, it towers over the highest hotels in Chicago (Trump International Hotel @ 1,392 feet) and New York (Four Seasons @ 682 feet). The top floor of the Ritz-Carlton has a restaurant appropriately named the Ozone, where you can marvel whether or not the Biblical Tower of Babel will one day come to fruition.
I’m personally a fan of the sailboat-shaped Burj Al Arab in Dubai.
Remember your first glimpse of the big city?
Now your kids can let their architectural imaginations soar by erecting their own urban landscape with skyscrapers galore, traffic and even a news helicopter hovering above the Big Apple. True, we’re positioning this snazzy French Bull City Wall Stickers set as Any City, USA, but candidly, yeah, that is our tribute to the magnificent Empire State Building.
Our removable, repositionable, self-stick Made-In-The-USA city scene was recently featured on NBC’s Today Show!
Take a look and get hooked:
Think about the last time you were in the quirky company of a balloon artist. The sun was shining, its reflection dull on the balloon’s cloudy colored latex. You and a few other adults were munching on tofu pups with mustard and your kids watched in awe as someone dressed in full half-clown-half-magician garb breathed life into a long balloon, leaving just enough empty space for the air pressure to stabilize between the shape’s folds as he or she twisted a straight, puffy line into a shape begging to be decorated with a dull Sharpie marker. Was it a noodle hat, a pink elephant, or one variation of the classic dog balloon animal that most delighted the artist’s diverse audience?
Though it’s been around since cats was kittens, balloon art began popping up everywhere (awful pun shamelessly intended) and seemed to be scoring some recognition as a bonafide sculpture medium around 2008, when The Martha Stewart Show aired a feature on Balloon Manor, a 100,000-balloon Halloween mansion created by former New York City street performer and balloon installation artist Larry Moss. Although the project didn’t make it past its sixth season due to a lack of funding (it’s notable that a portion of the admissions proceeds went to local charities), Moss continues his “airigami” practice by traveling and constant reincarnating his large-scale public installations. We hope those big balloons are reusable.
Now balloon art is again blowing up (sorry, it’s just too darn tempting) as a design motif for decorating children’s rooms and the spaces creative adults call home. We’ve spotted balloon animal bookends from Park Life, T-shirts depicting graffiti artist Banksy’s “Cop with a Balloon Animal” mural, and our favorites, balloon animal onesies and balloon animal throw pillows by Anais & I.
Needless to say, the balloon art bug is contagious. We’re itching to see a nursery painted in, say, Behr’s Dreaming Blue, Candy Tuft, or Velvet Slipper and accented with artistic balloon animal accessories. Of course, you’d never want to use real balloons to decorate reachable places around an infant, but a handcrafted crib mobile created with felt balloon animals is perfectly safe… and, we’re guessing, adorably dreamy.
One of our newest designs is a dog balloons wall stickers kit packed with bright peel-and-stick balloon pups that go on the wall and come off without a trace when you’re ready to redecorate. They’re also reusable, so you can move your own personal small-scale art installation to another space in need of the joy only balloon animals can bring. We’re craving a couple of tofu pups just thinking about the possibilities.
Thinking of decorating your new nursery in a balloon animal motif? We’d love to hear your ideas and see the finished project. Leave a comment or send a message to hello@wallcandyarts.com. Happy decorating!
When was the last time you practiced crafting a perfectly shaped heart with a folded piece of red construction paper and a pair of scissors? For me, it had been a while until this week, when I realized that heart-crafting is a skill that should – nay, must – be passed on from generation to generation. I gathered the appropriate supplies and sat down with my nephew, who was instantly enthralled with the idea that cutting half a shape could yield a whole shape. Alas, his interest turned to fidgety boredom a quarter of a moment later and our vintage art project was abandoned in favor of cutting a lacy doily into approximately one million teensy pieces. If I wanted to string paper hearts from my ceiling, I’d have to do it alone.
Decorating for Valentine’s Day is a surprisingly soothing way to spend a February afternoon. Once the end-of-year holidays have come and gone, winter can be such a cold, colorless drag as we draw nearer to the official day for celebrating life’s warmest experience, love. Valentine’s Day decorations can serve as an excellent reminder that love is as abundant as you make it and, like handmade paper hearts, no two loves are exactly the same. This year, take some time to augment your classic heart cutouts with peel-and-stick wall décor that stays continuously cute well past St. Patrick’s Day. Here are five of my favorite designs for commitment-free Valentine’s Day decorating:
1. Overlapping Hearts – Is your love the effervescent kind? If so, these overlapping heart wall decals are the perfect way to decorate your dearest’s daily life. Separate the warm shades from the cool shades or arrange them together for a joyfully balanced love motif on any wall and keep your love where it can’t be missed. When you’re in the mood to move things around, you can remove and reuse them without risking heartbreak over smudged paint.
2. Candy Hearts – The edible version of these iconic candy hearts might disappear from your local drugstore’s shelves come March, but you can preserve their sweet messages and pretty springtime pastels for as long as you like. Arrange these removable, reusable candy heart wall decals in your kitchen and store them on their original backing for next year when you’re ready for a change.
3. Cupcake chalkboard – Speaking of confection… Valentine’s Day is the perfect time of year to celebrate your devotion to desserts. Our cupcake chalkboard wall decal kit has plenty of room for listing the ingredients you’ll need to host your own cupcake decorating party. Ask the kids to help you arrange each sprinkle and crown the whole shebang with a cherry, choose a piece of chalk and take turns listing your ideas for the baking the perfect batch of cupcakes.
4. Luv Letters – One of my favorite ideas for decorating with oversized stick on letters is the brainchild of WallCandy’s founder, Allison Krongard. She chose letters patterned with adorable pink birds and added the words “I Am Loved” to the ceiling directly above her daughter’s bed. If there’s a lovelier phrase to wake up to, I haven’t heard it yet. Each individual letter is sold separately, so you can pick up only the ones you’ll need to get your message across.
5. Chalkboard Heart – My beau and I have used this removable, reusable chalkboard heart wall decal kit in every room in our apartment. In the kitchen, we kept a running grocery list on the big heart and phone messages on the little hearts. In the hallway, we sketched ideas for our next vacation together. And in the living room, we jotted down inspirational quotes to remind ourselves that love is often a verb requiring action. Is this chalkboard the secret to a happy relationship? We like to think so.
Have you done your Valentine’s Day decorating? Show us! Send a digital snapshot of your newly designed wall to hello@wallcandyarts.com.
Having waited in line at numerous family festivals and kids fairs to spend 15 seconds with a balloon-twisting clown, I know the magnetism that animal balloons have for little children. Heck, why bring age into it? I’m blown away by how a thin latex tube can instantly be transformed into giraffes, lions, party hats, etc.
In case you missed it, I highly recommend that you check out the movie trailer for “TWISTED: A Balloonamentary,” which highlights some of the world’s most creative balloon artists. Forget one-balloon creations. These ambitious folks have created balloon suits of armor for themselves and even made a balloon lounge chair that will support the weight of the average adult:
If you like this stuff, you’ll LOVE WallCandy’s Dog Balloon Wall Stickers for birthdays or just for overall playroom or bedroom decor when you want to add a splash to a boring plain wall.
As our clever marketing copywriters suggest (hey I can’t take credit for this), these doggies will provide you with “commitment-free cuteness.” That’s right, all the fun and pleasure of owning a dog without having to worry what time you get home to let it out of the house. No messy clean-ups. No “accidents” on the new rug or scratched furniture. And no expensive food or vet bills.
Of course, I jest.
No hard feelings, dog lovers — I know in my heart that Dog Balloons will merely enhance your love for those precious pups and can never replace them.
Speaking of dog lovers, if you’re not one of the more than 6.65 million people who have seen “The Bark Side,” the new Volkswagen doggie tribute to Star Wars, you absolutely must! There’s a fantastic Internet parlor game going on to see if you can match the correct breed of dog with the right Star Wars character.
Darth Vader, Princess Leia and Chewbacca are obvious, but can you name the alter-egos of the rest of these cute pups?
December’s end calls for positive thinking. As the holiday tunes disappear from your local radio stations, visiting family members and friends return home to their busy schedules, and your trees and wreaths transition from living room to compost heap, it’s important to do what it takes to stay healthy and happy. We find the post-holiday season especially challenging because our everyday environments go directly from decorative and warm to dull and chilly. Blech.
Still, a new year inspires new goals and brings new possibilities. It also just happens to be the best time for introducing new wall decal designs for decorating your favorite spaces new and old. January might not always measure up to December’s merry frenzy, but reflection eventually leads to invigoration and making cheerful changes to our personal spaces is still as simple as peeling and sticking. Get started with six easy-to-keep resolutions inspired by our newest wall decal designs:
Explore at least one new city. No matter where you’d like to take your first-time-ever trip, you need only make a plan to get started. While you’re dreaming of corner bistros and sidewalk shopping, build your own bustling dream destination with repositionable city wall decals (shown above) that can spike a nursery, playroom, or bathroom with instant activity. Should you decide to relocate your cityscape, these removable, reusable wall stickers won’t leave shadows or smudges on your surfaces.
Start a family game night. As the old adage says, “The family that plays together stays together.” Not that the absence of a family game night is a devastating breach between parents and kids, but it sure can’t hurt to spend a few evenings every month playing classic board games or creating your own kind of tournament with French Bull’s cupcake wall decal game. This dynamic kit contains over 50 adorable wall decals you can use to design and redesign your family’s favorite new game.
Spark your own unique brand of creativity. If traditional creative pursuits such as taking a photography course or starting a novel don’t appeal to you, find a project that speaks to your style and let go of any self-imposed limitations. Imagine what the world was like before someone decided to dabble in the art form known as balloon twisting. We’re guessing things were slightly bleaker, which is why we’ve been working on a decorative wall sticker kit to encourage extraordinary art. These removable, reusable dog balloon wall stickers are a nod to all things creative, not to mention cute, cuddly, and static-free.
Love, love, and love some more. Get a jumpstart on your Valentine’s Day décor and design a wall to remind you that love is free and exists in many forms, shapes, and colors all year long. Add removable, rearrangeable overlapping heart wall decals to your daily landscape and let the abundance of brilliant hearts influence your priorities every time you pass through the room.
Remind yourself there’s much more to come. The newest addition to our family of patented chalkboard wall decals is full of jungle flair. Add a wild chalkboard jungle to your kitchen, home office, or playroom walls and use the included colored chalk to create to-do lists, jot down your official vacation countdown, or schedule a movie night for snuggling with the kids. Should you need a little inspiration to get started on your latest creative project, try designing a line of evening wear to attract sophisticated chicks, elephants, and giraffes.
Plan your next big shindig. Once you’ve got a clear space on your schedule, nail down a day to invite those long-lost cousins, nieces, nephews, and neighbors over for celebrating a birthday or holiday. The newest design in our line of party wall decals is a tea-riffic tea party birthday wall decal kit that begs to be paired with crumpets, cupcakes, and coffee for the grownups. If it’s a Valentine’s Day hug-a-thon you’re hoping to hold, design a background with candy heart wall decals and watch them fall in love.
What are you hoping to accomplish in 2012? Got a specific design project in mind? We’d love to hear about your goals (and maybe lend a hand, if we can). Leave a comment or send an e-mail to hello@wallcandyarts.com.
Christmas Day is only two weeks away, but your shopping list isn’t getting any shorter. Between your kids, relatives, friends, and the lucky colleague whose name you picked from the Secret Santa bowl, there are probably still a few handfuls of folks you’d like to surprise with a little something special this year. ‘Tis the season to feel elfish, right?
Giving gets even better when it’s done without breaking your holiday budget. We’ve compiled a quick list of 10 great holiday gifts under $50, which we’ll gladly ship to any of the 48 contiguous states for free until the last day of December. When you give a gift from WallCandy® Arts, you support a small mom-owned-and-operated business that designs products proudly made in the USA with non-toxic, high quality materials that will last for years to come. So, go ahead – shrink your shopping list with universally appealing wall décor from our 10-under-$50 gift guide:
Luv Letters – $6 per letter
Help your coworker claim his cubicle with starry blue stick on letters, provide your family’s patriarch with a proud surname to display on the foyer wall, or personalize your daughter’s bedroom with peel and stick letters in a whimsical bird print.
Superstar Chalkboard – $14
Give your niece a removable, reusable chalkboard star sticker to decorate her bedroom door now (and her dorm room door later). It’s removable and reusable without damaging surfaces, so her parents and future resident advisor won’t have to worry about chips or smudges.
Mini Chalkboard Panels – $18
Redesign your beau’s office space or your son’s pretend workshop to include mini chalkboard decals he can use and reuse to manage his to-do list without damaging that cherished Mets-themed paint job.
Mini Whiteboard Panels – $18
If there’s only one way to show your child’s teacher some thoughtful holiday appreciation, it’s giving him or her a trio of peel and stick dry erase decals for the classroom, kitchen, or home office.
Watch Me Grow – $32
For your family’s littlest growers, a cheerful growth chart wall sticker provides the best way to check vertical progress daily without marking up the walls.
Design Your Own Snowman – $38
For your aunt and uncle’s family, a design-your-own-snowman kit packed with removable, repositionable winter wall decals will encourage them to spend more than a few snowless afternoons sipping hot cocoa and building snow pals indoors.
Rococo Chalkboard – $36
This regal-looking decorative chalkboard decal is gorgeous enough to fit in with your best friend’s posh living room décor and functional enough to provide your dear mother a place for working out her latest recipes.
Chalkboard Heart – $36
No kitchen is complete without a peel and stick chalkboard heart for jotting down phone messages, grocery lists, or love notes. This spacious chalkboard wall decal is the perfect place to write “I adore you” all year long.
Surprise your dear mother with a screened-in porch decked out in glow in the dark wall decals that emit just the right amount of moonlight without electricity or recharging. Each peel and stick strand is removable and reusable, so she can easily transfer her design to the guest bedroom in case visiting grandkids need a little nighttime light.
My Sunshine – $48
Know a nursery or playroom in need of some warmth? This all-in-one sunshine kit comes with a brilliant sun wall decal and the celestial accessories to keep blossoming babies always looking on the bright side.
Need your gifts by Christmas Day? Order with ground shipping by Dec. 16, or with expedited shipping by Dec. 20. We can’t guarantee that orders placed after those dates will arrive in time.
Happy holidays!
Listening to people describe their holiday decorating schedules is pretty interesting. Some folks get it done by the end of November (or, in one case we can recall, right after dessert on Thanksgiving Day), while others wait until they’ve got presents in need of a shady resting spot. Your aunt Martha might throw a noisy tree-decorating party the first weekend in December, but the lady two people ahead of you in the grocery store line prefers a lazy evening spent stringing popcorn and cranberries with her two grown daughters home from college.
One member of our staff likes to invite her young nieces and nephews over for some homemade macaroni and cheese, which they eat while a Frazier Fir from Home Depot unfolds in the living room. After dinner, she helps the kids hang the ornaments and they watch Miracle on 34th Street until their parents return from a night out to reclaim their little ones. Once the kids leave and the silvers, golds, reds, and greens are all in place, she admits to experiencing a twinge of sadness that there’s no more decorating to do until next year.
We know the feeling and it’s exactly what inspired our holiday wall decal kits. Well, that and these five reasons to decorate a December (and maybe a bit of January and February, too) with peel and stick holiday wall decals:
1. It rarely snows on schedule. If only the Snow Miser could save his frosty antics for those long weekends when leaving the house wasn’t on the agenda anyway. And what school break isn’t made sweeter by a few inches of snow in the yard? For days when your hankering for some snow fun is hampered by a clear forecast, a couple of design-your-own-snowman and design-your-own-snow-woman kits can come in handy. Make a batch of hot chocolate, gather the kids, and spend an afternoon designing the kind of snowpeople that never melt and always have sunglasses to match their outfits.
2. Restyling trees and wreaths can get complicated quickly. Most adults don’t mind static, unchanging holiday decorations. They look lovely and require about as much upkeep as a cactus, so even the Queen of Christmas Trim can enjoy her season without adding a whole new list of to-dos to the next 30 days. Kids, however, crave any occasion to change things up, which is why every room they enter looks so different once they’ve left it. Add removable, repositionable build-your-own-snowperson wall stickers to your kitchen or playroom and, voila, you’ve got an interactive holiday decoration that doesn’t ever have to look the same and won’t require a drop of maintenance.
3. You could easily set up that holiday party well before next December rolls around. To create a festive background before the cookies are finished baking, simply add peel and stick holiday wall decals to any room and transform it into a celebration haven. Once the party’s over, remove and reuse them to decorate another room or re-stick them to their original backing and store until your next soiree.
4. Real do-it-yourself gingerbread house kits require throwaway bed sheets and more willpower than most of us can muster. Instead of fighting your inner icing demons and chopping crudités to counter your kids’ inevitable sugar intake, work together to design your own gingerbread house with nearly 150 sugar-free, interchangeable decorations. No mess, no fuss, and no extra calorie intakes required.
5. There is no way you’re spending your winter months repainting. Decorating is all fun and games until you pull those holiday cards down from the doorframe and find chipped paint beneath each piece of tape. Removable, reusable wall decal kits won’t damage surfaces, so you can deck your walls with cheer and never worry about chips or smudges.
What’s your favorite way to decorate for the holidays? Leave a comment or send us an e-mail at hello@wallcandyarts.com.

