First off, so sorry for being MIA this past week.  Kids have been sick, life has been hectic, and I needed to restock on supplies .

So, do it yourself removable wall decals.  I fell in love with wall decals the first time I discovered them.  I’ve rented all my life and painting on the walls has always been a big, huge, N-O.  So I’ve gotten pretty used to having white walls.  There’s only so much wall hangings can do for a white wall and the “artsy fartsy” side of me wants paint and color on my walls.  Well, good wall decals are such a huge step toward that but most of them are still lacking in that they are only one, maybe two colors, can be very expensive for a large one, and they are a far cry from paint.  So, in a moment of, ‘Yeah… that could work!’ I picked up a roll of clear, removeable, shelf paper and made what you see in the above picture which turned into this tutorial. (oh and please excuse the nails ahead of time… I painted the wall, not the nails)

Materials:

Clear Removeable Shelf Paper ( it doesn’t have to be clear, you can experiment with colors too — think regular decals)
Scisors (or a craft knife if you need more precision)
Paint and brushes
hard, smooth edge for smoothing bubbles (I used a tupperware icing spreader — credit cards work well too)

1) On the back side of your shelf paper, draw out the design you want your wall decal to be. Remember that your actual decal will be the mirror image of what you draw on the back. Cut out the image. If you have an exact image you want, you will need to add about an 1/8″ edge around the entire thing so when you paint you aren’t painting the wall.

2) Decide where on your wall the decal is going to go and start pealing back the backing and smoothing the shelf paper onto the wall with the smooth edge pushing out bubbles as you go. Because I was using a very simple shape, I peeled off half the backing paper before I placed the shelf paper on the wall.

3) Continue smoothing and peeling till the shelf paper is in place and any air bubbles have been pushed out. At this point you can also reposition any parts that aren’t where they should be. Be careful to not reposition too much or your decal will not stay adhered to the wall.

4) Paint as desired being sure to keep about an 1/8″ buffer zone between the edge of the decal and your paint. The goal is to not pain the wall, only the shelf paper.

5) Lather rinse repeat if desired and enjoy the new splash (or bucket spill) of color.

**as a side note: I tested this specific paper on my wall for about a year and the peeled it off and had no problems with paint coming off or excessive sticky residue. My next decal project: A border on my son’s wall.**