How to apply vinyl wall decals
Applying wall vinyl designs to a wall is one way to add interest to a plain wall, or in this case, an empty corner in a room. In this little girl's bedroom, a custom design was printed onto vinyl and then stuck onto the wall. If you aren't good at drawing and painting, using wall vinyl allows you to add creative touches without worrying about how it will look.
The design was created from ideas collected on the Internet and then printed onto vinyl by Branded, but any print company that offers vinyl printing can do this for you.
Having a custom design printed onto vinyl allows you to fill up an entire wall, but have the design printed in sections, so that it is easier to apply. This wonderful tree-scape was printed in 5 sections: tree, foliage, bird, leaves and wording.
When applying a design in layers, work from the back to the front. In this case the tree was the starting point, and layers added over the top of this.
When you have a custom wall vinyl printed, the front of the vinyl is covered with extra-wide masking, or they should supply you with this separately. The masking tape makes it much easier to apply the design onto a wall.
Before applying the design onto a wall, make sure that the top/front of the vinyl is covered with masking tape and that the tape overlaps the edges. This is important as it helps with placing the design onto the wall and makes the installation process easier. Working at the top, press down about 50cm of the masking tape onto the wall.
Slowly peel down the backing bit by bit, rubbing over the surface with the tool provided - working from the centre out towards the top, sides and bottom to ensure that the vinyl sticks to the wall and there are no air bubbles. The peeling is important and needs to be done in such as way that the vinyl design stays as flat or as close to the wall as possible.
Once the top is firmly fixed in place, you work down by pulling away the backing and rolling down the masking tape. As you work don't forget that each section stuck down must be rubbed out from the centre to remove air bubbles. You can apply a good-quality vinyl design onto a textured wall, if it's done properly.
The wording is the last part of the design and you can clearly see the masking tape over the top. For this section it was necessary to work from left to right rather than top to bottom. Again, a small section of the backing was pulled away and the masking tape rolled out of the way as more design was stuck down.
