Nov 05 2008
DIY Vinyl Decals
First off, I’m in absolute love with these:
Found at Think Geek, I would love to put this up… somewhere. I am attempting at having a theme and decor in my main living areas, however the hall is full of geek currently. Anyway, the point is moot as these are 75 bucks USD, which means by the time I shell out for shipping I’d pay almost $125 Canadian. Yea… no.
I thought I was doomed to a life without cool decals on my walls, but then LIGHT BULB.
First of all, I came across this site at Instructables, which gives instructions on how to make your own vinyl decals like this one:
Basically you take contact paper, like what’s used as shelf liners, and cut it out and put it on your walls. They give more complete instructions, but that’s the gist of it. Also note, it’s recommended that you test that it will come off your walls before putting it somewhere obvious.
Ok, that’s all well and good, but unless there are Nintendo themed shelf liners out there, how am I going to get those stickers at home?
Well, I had a theory. Paper is white, many shelf liners are white. Can I print it out? I decided to test with this image:
I bought a roll of shelf liner that was 12 inches by 30 feet for about ten dollars. You need a type that is unpatterned, and smooth. It might also help to use the narrower type (as I found) to reduce wastage. The type I bought doesn’t have a backing, but I was able to apply it to a sheet of paper.
The next step will require some design skills. You’ll need to create the images you will be printing out, and in the right size so that they’ll match.
Then… print! Careful, the ink takes a while to dry completely. The longer you can leave it without touching the better.
As you can see there’s a small kitty print on the right side. What can I say? The cats like to help.
Other than taking forever to dry, this was amazingly simple. Enjoy!
Stumble It!
Awesome!!!
OH MY GGGGGG….!!!!!!!!!! I am so sending this to my son at college. He and his gamer friends will be immediately smitten!! :D Wonder if they make Sonic decals as well? :D This rocks!
Anything you can find an image of you can print with this method :D
As for bought stickers, they don’t have sonic on that site but I’m sure they exist somewhere LOL
This is cool. I’ll have to do this when I move into my new apartment next year.
Ooo, I found those as well and thought about getting them for my son *cough* husband *cough* around Christmas. So cool!
These are awesome! I’m going to get some for my daughter’s room…and mine. So cool, thanks for posting.
Dude, that’s totally awesome. I just might have to try this. Adding you to my RSS reader, too, ’cause…there just aren’t enough girl geeks out there. (Well, and I love you for your tagline alone, but that’s beside the point.)
You can’t take the sky from me :)
Thanks! And they work really well! It’s still on the wall where I put it and I didn’t even do it the “proper” way since I was.. well lazy.
Thanks for the add :D
that is very, very cool.
I might have to try making a few of my own for Christmas presents.
do you think i could stick this to my macbook? would it leave it all sticky? how easily do they come off? if that would work it would be like the greatest thing ever.