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.
BRIGHT BULBS – Night Light wall decals glow beyond energy debate!
Sep.7
WallCandy's "Night Lights 2" decals can brighten up any evening!
Not sure if you’ve been following the ugly light bulb debate in Congress, but there’s been a huge fight over whether Americans should be using traditional incandescent light bulbs (the ones we’ve been seemingly using forever) or more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. The former are much cheaper than the latter, but don’t last as long. Critics of the new efficient curly-Q bulbs say they don’t produce the same brightness or quality for reading light.
You can weigh the pros and cons yourself by clicking below on the comparison chart created by the McClatchy Tribune news wire.
But Congress has strangely overlooked a third and more attractive option: glow-in-the-dark removable wall sticker light bulbs.
Yes, it’s true: WallCandy’s Night Lights decals will add a friendly glow to your child’s bedroom without a single volt of electricity. Go ahead and unplug that incandescent blub night light – and retire it forever even. Stringing these Night Lights stickers along the wall from the windows to the hall will safely guide your little ones to middle-of-the-night bathroom trips or even a midnight snack.
BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED: Night Lights that don't require any electricity but still do the job -- in style!
You get 48 glow-in-the-dark light bulbs and 18 feet of “electrical cord” to festively string them along the wall. Did we mention that the cord also doesn’t add a penny to your utility bills?
Personally, I have fond memories of a glow-in-the-dark monster poster that hung on the back of my childhood bedroom door. The message was “PLEASANT DREAMS!” in a glowing spooky font, with the eyeballs of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and a zillion vampire bats staring at me all night long. Those monsters helped me find the bathroom for at least two of my formative years without a single stubbed toe.
Quite frankly, these Night Light bulbs are a lot classier. And if you are in full decorating mode, the WallCandy Arts classic decal gallery now includes Benjamin Moore paint color suggestions for each sticker set!
(Are you redecorating your child’s bedroom or playroom? Share your before and after pics with us at hello@wallcandyarts.com )
What to do on a Rainy Day – Five Simple Indoor Activities for Kids
Jul.25
Photo credit: Ann Kunst
“Mom, can I go outside now?”
During the summer months, my friend Ann’s two daughters pose this question as early as 6 a.m. almost every day. The youngest one, Emma, opens her eyes to begin planning her outdoor day the second the sun hits the horizon. The eldest, Jane, joins her sister an hour or two later, delayed only by the penchant for sleeping in she’s developed over the past couple of years.
The two girls are happiest outdoors and, for them, any trip to the children’s museum or movie theater must be reserved for days when torrential downpour is persistently visible both through the window and on the weatherperson’s radar. These indoor activities aren’t necessarily the markers of bad days, but Ann says her girls are definitely affected by too much time spent inside.
If you’re a parent, you’ve probably noticed an improvement in your ability to improvise. Denying kids those unique, often bizarre moments of joy that are only accessible before the preteen years hit is like locking a puppy in a closet with only a typewriter – it can feel downright cruel, whether or not your intention is to harvest self-reliance for future disappointments (or Fluffy’s ability to write your blog posts). That’s why parents pretend it’s Halloween nearly every afternoon, play 15 straight games of Crazy Eights each night, and rewrap opened birthday presents on the spot for instant, frenzied reopening.
If your kids adore the outdoors but occasionally find themselves faced with ongoing summer thunderstorms or other fun-blocking disasters, a little creative improvisation can be the cure. When you’re wondering what to do on a rainy day, start with these five indoor activities for kids:
1. Warm up your décor. It makes sense that a child who feels at his or her best while outside playing in the sunshine will feel most at home in a room that exudes warmth. Decorate your child’s bedroom or favorite play area with bright throw pillows, a whitewashed bookshelf highlighted with candid beach photos and a dried starfish or two, and a glorious sun wall decal that begs for basking.
2. Turn your bathtub into a swimming hole. Subtract the usual bathtime soap-up and there isn’t much difference between a kiddie swimming pool and the tub. Suggest your kids don their bathing suits, floaties, and goggles for some wash-free water play and marvel at how much fun they can have shallow diving for quarters.
3. Start up a family-operated seasonal restaurant in your kitchen. Help your kids put together their ideal summer menu with appetizers, salad, a main course, dessert, and drinks. Work together to redesign the dining room atmosphere and create a summer lobster shack or barbecue hut. Once you’ve “hired” a couple of cute chefs who look just darling in makeshift aprons, you’re ready to prepare a delicious meal together.
4. Go camping in the living room. Clear a space for setting up the big backyard tent, or make your own provisional version with sheets and blankets anchored in tall places. To recreate the classic camping experience, make s’mores on the stove, teach a little learner the first few bars of your favorite sleepaway camp song, and decorate the room’s most window-happy wall with strands of glow in the dark wall decals that cast a dim firefly light.
5. Do some dirt-free gardening together. Choose a wall that could use a dose of nature’s finest aesthetics and use peel-and-stick flower wall stickers to design a wild indoor garden. Once you’ve created a colorful natural setting, cover the floor (and any favorite pieces of nearby furniture) with a few old sheets. Grab a few small clay pots (or clear out the collection of pickle jars gathering in the fridge and wash them well), some craft paint, a few sheets of stickers, and a waterproof sealant. Ask the kids to draw blueprints for the coolest flowerpots they can imagine, then help them paint and decorate each pot. Once they’ve finished, secure their work with the waterproof sealant and let the whole shebang dry on the counter overnight. Later, ask the kids to pick out a few seed packets from the grocery store for a sunnier day when you can all enjoy the dirtier aspects of gardening.
For those unavoidable icky days, parents of tiny nature lovers can always use a few good backup plans. Leave a comment and share your own ideas for bringing a little sunshine inside with creative indoor activities for kids.
Homemade Ice Cream Recipes for Planning Summer Dessert Socials
May.11
When I was a kid just old enough to navigate the dry goods in our pantry, my favorite game to play was Pretend Restaurant. My patrons (sisters) ordered spaghetti and steak, so I served them cereal and marshmallows. My middle sister, who is now a chef, liked to feign outrage, become unruly, and refuse to leave without taking an irritating nap on top of my place settings. Pretend Restaurant became much more fun during the summers, when it often became Pretend Ice Cream Parlor instead. I’d spend scorching afternoons watching my grandmother’s electric ice cream maker spin inside its little wooden bucket, ready to serve whatever manner of frozen chunky peach or mint chocolate chip ice cream would appear inside that thick metal container after hours of torturous waiting. My patrons were better behaved during the dessert course, but a surplus of sugar usually led to monkey antics at the ends of their bowls.
Wherever that little ice cream maker is, I bet it still works like new. Since one of my summer aspirations is to host a Saturday afternoon sundae bar soiree with a few pals (and maybe a sister or two, if they can control the urge to digress), I’ll need to browse a few used electronics sections to find one so comparably sturdy and loud. Decorating the adult version of Pretend Ice Cream Parlor should be easy, since I’ve long envisioned shades of chocolate browns glazed and spackled with oversized sprinkles.
One of the latest designs from WallCandy® Arts happens to be an extremely spacious ice cream cone chalk board wall decal. I got a chance to play with it during the ENK Children’s Show in March and immediately bought one the moment it appeared on the website. It doesn’t take much to get me thinking about ice cream, but an adorable person-sized space to play with sundae bar ideas is the stuff dreams are made of. Once my very real ice cream menu has been somewhat finalized and the soiree draws near, I’ll erase my blueprints and use it to display descriptions of my creative toppings for any visual learners I might invite. Or, if I’m feeling like a sharer, I could write my recipe in the sherbetest of invented fonts.
Even if summers are already pretty magical in your house, simply adding homemade ice cream to your summer to-make list will send a psychic shiver of glee down the spines of any child within a 2-mile radius. When it’s your turn to host a play date, suggest the kids decorate their imaginary ice cream shack and while you taste your way through the various stages of sorbet-making and topping chopping.
If you don’t have an ice cream maker, start with this basic single-serving homemade ice cream recipe from curvygirlguide.com to satisfy summer cravings without making a dessert run:
Ingredients
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup milk or half & half
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
6 tablespoons rock salt
1 pint-size sealable plastic bag
1 gallon-size sealable plastic bag
ice cubes
Directions
Fill the large bag half full of ice and add the rock salt. Seal the bag. Put milk, vanilla, and sugar into the small bag and seal it. Place the sealed small bag inside the large one and seal the large bag carefully. Shake until mixture is ice cream, which takes about 5 minutes. Open each sealed bag carefully and enjoy!
For a more grown-up ice cream party, try this homemade raspberry buttermilk sherbet recipe from foodnetwork.com:
Ingredients
6 cups raspberries (5 or 6 pints)
1/4 cup 100% grape or apple juice
1 cup superfine sugar
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup heavy cream
salt and freshly cracked pepper
Directions
Puree the raspberries, juice, and sugar in a food processor until smooth. Pour through a mesh strainer into a bowl and discard the raspberry seeds. Stir in the buttermilk, cream, and a pinch of salt, then cover and refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour. Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until firm, at least 2 hours. Serve sprinkled with pepper.
I’m personally going to try my hand at a sherbet punch ice cream. I haven’t found a solid recipe yet – at least not one that includes any warnings about turning the punch into a solid ice cream – but experimenting with dessert sounds about as risky and intimidating as laying on a beach in Bermuda. I’m sure it’ll be fine, as long as no one demands a sample before my concoction’s official Pretend Parlor debut.
Toast the Royal Wedding with Hip Housewares and a Fairytale Sale
Apr.28
Only 24 hours to go! (Photo credit: Chris Ison/AP)
With Prince William’s marriage to Kate Middleton only one day away, Royal Wedding Fever is at its most contagious. If you find yourself scowling at your spouse’s sudden obsession with E!, your dental hygienist’s plan to host a WilliKate lookalike party, or your cubicle neighbor’s suspicious new accent, just breathe and remember it’s perfectly natural to find the British monarchy fascinating, if only because any governing organization that dates back to 400 A.D. makes our own political pot look so shallow. If you’ve watched even 20 seconds of The Tudors by accident (or the entire series in one shameless sitting, thank you very much), you and I probably share a category – temporarily interested, but only because it’s more tantalizing than baseball or bickering politicians. Yawn.
If there’s one thing about the Royal Wedding I’m enjoying, aside from a wicked case of gown anticipation, it’s the opportunity to save on a few Kate-inspired fashions or home accents for my own Buckingham Palace, which is slightly smaller and much more prone to hosting city mice but still my favorite place to fix up and Feng Shui. I appreciate any occasion that inspires my favorite designers to add new items to already fabulous collections and oft-visited stores to knock a few bucks off the things I’ve been eyeballing for weeks but avoiding due to a mysterious wallet drought. (If you know a few stores who are taking advantage of the Royal Wedding by allowing me to take advantage of a sweet sale or two, post a comment and clue me in!)
Brandon and his Union Jack
I admit that I never paid much attention to the Union Jack until I visited the humble abode of WallCandy®’s leading lady. I’d seen that most famous of flags numerous times on postcards and flagpoles – and once on a well-sculpted forearm – but its place in the Hall of Style Icons is hard to recognize without the proper medium. As a high-quality home accessory carefully planted among complementary shades and shy standards such as, say, a quilted maple bench purchased straight from the furniture maker’s dusty warehouse, the Union Jack truly stands out as a lovely bit of geometry done up in bright, classic colors. One of the most noticeable items in Allison’s house is the crown in her son’s bedroom, a thick Union Jack throw rug, which I daresay he’ll enjoy as a bit of warm-but-masculine décor well into his teenage years.
The Union Jack toolbox
In case you were wondering how cool the Union Jack can get, take a look at the newest addition to WallCandy’s hip housewares collection, the Union Jack metal toolbox by Alice Supply Co. What better way to commemorate Prince William of Wales’s terrific taste than to treat yourself (or your hosting dental hygienist, who just might know the secret to making homemade Aero bars) to the most stylish method possible for keeping up appearances? Use it to keep jewelry in a safe place, corral day-to-day supplies, or give an inherited tool collection a proper home. However you use this sturdy does-it-all, you’ll surely fall in love with a classic historical icon that just happens to be an effective space-sprucer all on its own.
WallCandy’s own Royal Wedding celebration doesn’t end with a groovy toolbox. From now until May 7, every item for sale on the website is 10% off – simply enter the code royal10 during the checkout process and save on a few fun things that will surely last way longer than the televised exchanging of vows.
Queen Elizabeth II prefers sprinkles.
Anyone itching to start a new season can score a pack of large whiteboard wall stickers or a chalkboard wall decal for planning a warm weather bake sale to christen the newly green front yard. Once rampant Royal Wedding Fever has subsided and we can all unglue our eyes, help your kids plan a menu of royally decorated pastries on our spacious cupcake chalkboard wall decal, throw those windows open, and let the scent of springtime baking permeate the neighborhood with the sweet smells of reality. When the first batch is sold out and everyone’s enjoying a sugar coma, it’s a cinch to move any of our reusable chalkboard decals to the playroom wall for an entire summer spent pretending to be the Royal Family’s official caterers.
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.
Warm Up Your Decor with Summer Shades, Shapes, and Wall Decals
Mar.16
We definitely need some sod for the living room. (Photo credit: Ryan L. Hyde)
This week, it’s supposed to reach the 60-degree mark on the official New York City thermometer. Lately, I’ve been wondering about that thermometer. I’m not sure where it’s kept, what it looks like (cartoonish oversized novelty thermometer, or electronic wonder small enough to fit inside a button?), or who’s in charge of checking it, but I hope he or she is strict and diligent in limiting viewing access. This winter is passing through at a frozen-molasses pace, so it worries me to think that someone has been staring at the official thermometer often enough to cause watched-pot-never-boiling conditions.
Because I just can’t wait to stash my woolly socks away for a short season, I’ve decided to take on a summer-invoking decorating project the way a kid left to call all the interior design shots might hang up the holiday lights the day after Halloween – with gusto! March is always a low-budget affair, but there’s usually a welcome delay in any financial pinch I feel while sprucing up for the warmer months. I suppose throws, insulating curtains, and thicker materials are easily more expensive than vintage mirrors, potted African violets, and pillows fit for a warm afternoon’s nap.
If you’re interested in starting your own relatively inexpensive early indoor summer, start with these five tips for an easy seasonal shift:
1. Consider the sun. As you switch accessories and adjust your color scheme, choose fabrics and hues that look best in bright, cheery light. Mirrors – especially the kitschy vintage kind – are classic sunshine reflectors, so why not hunt ‘em down and hang ‘em up?
2. Berries are best. Replace forest greens with grape, beiges with golden raisin, and reds with raspberry. Color is king from May until December – go ahead, crown your space early this year. After all that snow shoveling we did, we totally deserve a sweet color makeover.
3. Pick summer shapes. The iconic soft-serve snack inspired WallCandy’s new ice cream cone chalkboard wall decal. It’s taller than Lilly, our resident product tester and Allison’s adorable 6-year-old, so there’s plenty of space for a Saturday sundae bar menu, potential summer road trip routes, or a countdown to the school year’s official end.
4. Move flourishing greenhouse perennials to the living room. I love a few good cacti because they love a humid day, they live to be forgotten, and the cat stays far away from all tipping points. If you’d rather keep your plant life to a minimum, try enhancing your indoor creepers by adding a kit of gracefully lush flower garden wall stickers as a baseboard accent.
5. Decorate to remind your kids that winter is on its way out. Nothing’s more contagious than childhood spring fever, so adding a row of festive flowers wall decals or a mighty sun wall decal to your child’s favorite environment is sure to inspire more than a few infectious good moods.
Share your summer decorating tips – we’d love to know how you shed the winter blechs and prepare for longer, sunnier days perfect for sipping iced tea and watching the bubbles float on the breeze.
How a Heart Chalkboard Wall Decal Begat a Better Valentine’s Day
Feb.14
Craig makes it impossible to shop for him on any holiday, which becomes an even bigger obstacle when a holiday technically requires a gift with a specific romantic message. He’s a terrible consumer. If he wants something and happens to mention it in my presence, he’ll immediately talk himself out of wanting it before I can finish staking my mental garden marker in what was briefly a flourishing gift idea. I’ve done the math – six years of dating multiplied by roughly three major holidays per year equals 18 or more times I’ve gone shopping and returned with only sore feet and stress-induced hives.
This year, I decided to embrace the Valentine’s Day spirit by fusing decoration, adoration, and inspiration on our kitchen wall. I arranged a chalkboard heart wall decal opposite our front window where any passing city-dweller could see it and perhaps be unconsciously warmed, should he or she be scanning for visible décor through the windows of the overhead apartments. Thankfully, I’m no longer confined to keeping my chalkboard decals where I know Craig will see them, as he now seeks out and quickly fills all the shapes I bring home with his to-do scribbles before I’ve had a chance to finish playing with potential designs.
My plan was threefold: to decorate lightly for Valentine’s Day (the surprising number of New Yorkers who adorn their porches with lights in February is quite inspiring, although I suspect many of them have simply added strands of red to the white lights they used back in December), to add a month’s worth of meaningful appreciations to a relatively dull daylong celebration of love, and to actively brainstorm until I’d drummed up a decent gift and overcome Craig’s indulgence handicap for once.
“Don’t write on this one,” I told him, sticking the baby hearts where they’d look bubbly and supportive of the queen heart.
“Why not?” He was chewing.
“Because I’m gonna use it to write you a little love note every day this month. It’s part of your Valentine’s Day gift.”
He paused between bites of bran flakes and said, “You don’t have to do that.”
I told you not to get me anything.
(Photo credit: The Sydney Morning Herald)
I’d prepared myself for this exact infuriating response, which came from the same place that won’t allow him to buy himself a new pair of Levi’s but once every decade. My response was simply to write “I love you because…” at the top of the heart, leaving space for the first of my daily reasons – “I love you because you’re slightly easier to shop for than the Dalai Lama.”
I wrote a different reason every day for the first two weeks of February. I praised his dedication to nailing a perfect Marge Simpson impression. I celebrated his clam chowder recipe, as well as his admirable work ethic and ability to remove mysterious laundry stains. It’s been a unique challenge to come up with a new and true sentiment for each day, so I recently gave myself a break and instead drew a picture of two doting stick figures at a movie theater, a mountain of fluffy yellow popcorn parked between them.
Craig stood in front of my hasty chalk art for a moment, again munching his morning bran. “Remember that time we left after watching one movie and decided to turn right around and go see another?” he said. “That’s always been my favorite date of ours.”
With that, my chalkboard project led me right where I’d wanted to go. For his official Valentine’s Day gift, I made him a Cinema Night kit complete with microwave popcorn, an economy-sized resealable bag of peanut M&Ms, and a pack of movie tickets thick enough to put us through Oscar season and beyond. It was an easy, stress-free spree.
I plan to see my daily love notes through to the end of the month. Once March 1 arrives, our heart chalkboard decal will become open for his reciprocated affections, fondue recipes to try, running lists of must-see coming attractions… all the lovely things its shape inspires.
Invaluable Advice for Storing Your Removable Wall Decals
Feb.2
Any guess what this is?
Perhaps a futuristic barcode? Some kind of post-modern art?
Once you pan a little over to the right, you’ll get a few more clues!
The elongated rectangles are the light beams and the identical lemon wedges are the sun from WallCandy’s vibrantly upbeat “My Sunshine” removable wall stickers.
I foolishly threw away the slick paper backing from my “My Sunshine” kit and so when it came time to take advantage of the removable and reusable features of the wall decals, I was up the creek without a paddle.
My solution: Find a blank hallway wall and use it as a temporary storage canvas. So far there have been no complaints from family members about the unorthodox decoration style, but at some point I will have to figure out another way to salvage the sun.
Moral of the story: SAVE YOUR STICKER SHEETS!
In a pinch, you can also stick the reusable decals on your refrigerator. I’m a fan of displaying WallCandy’s Polaroid-style Frames on the fridge. You can put photos or kids’ drawings in there for a slick retro presentation.
But back to the mysterious barcode at the top of this post. Maybe scrambling up the pieces of WallCandy sticker sets could be the basis for a new game show. Stay tuned!
Cupcake Chalkboard Wall Decals Have No Calories!
Dec.20
Maybe I watch too much late-night TV, but I have dreams of giant cupcakes dancing in my head.
Cupcakes are now possibly enjoying their highest popularity in the history of baked goods. Most major cities and college towns have their own boutique cupcake shops where the lines are out the door. Many school districts are scapegoating cupcakes for the childhood obesity problem and are banning them from classroom birthday and holiday parties.
And the infomercial for Big Top Cupcake, silicone bakeware that promises to produce “colossal cupcakes up to 25 times bigger than normal,” seems to be playing three or four times an hour.
If a cupcake is really the size of a cake, then is it still a cupcake or just a dome-topped cake?
Thinking back to comedian George Carlin’s oxymoron routine, “giant cupcake” is just like “jumbo shrimp.”
There are going to be many sugary temptations this Christmas season, with cupcakes being only one option to gorge yourself into gastrointestinal oblivion.
That’s where our Cupcake Wall Decals come in.
It’s the perfect decoration for above the dessert table, with plenty of room to describe the delicious offerings below. Bakeries and coffee shops can also use this design to add a little pizazz to their specials of the day.
If you really want to celebrate your sweet tooth this Christmas, why not add a few Sweet Dream Fairy decals with an assortment of magical macaroons, ice cream pops and jellybeans. Or drape yourself with the Wall Candy sterling silver or 18K gold Cupcake Necklace with white sapphires.
Best of all, both our cupcake wall stickers and necklaces have no calories, which means there will be more room in your stomach for a Gingerbread House or two. Yum, yum!
(Cupcake images via BigTopCupcake.com)
