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The time has come! The boxes are packed, the idea Pinterest boards pinned, and you’re about to decorate (or redecorate) your child’s room. And that means more than just choosing furniture and paint swatches, because kids get the chance to do something adults no longer can — and unlike midday naps, they appreciate this one! Kids can have decorated walls. Not just with posters or wallpaper, but actual pictures, dioramas, stickers, and more. Many of us remember our favorite cartoon characters or animals, lovingly painted on the wall by moms and dads of various skill levels. And while these childhood companions are still great, adhesive decals offer kids a level of customization and self-expression not available to parents with paint-stained fingers.
Decals are a great way to decorate a child’s room. They offer a ton of options and customizability while being inexpensive and impermanent. The right decal can stick with your little ones until they’re not so little anymore, spurring play, imagination, and creativity in a way a static painted image just can’t match. But like any purchase for children, it’s all about knowing where to shop and what to look for if you want quality. It’s not just a matter of “buy nice or pay twice” — any adhesive product for a child carries some risk and smart parents do their shopping with fun and safety in mind.
Pre-made or Custom Wall Decals
The first thing to consider when shopping is whether you want premade or custom decals. Premade decals come with the obvious benefit of being readily available and less costly. They already come in all sorts of fun designs and require minimum work on a parent or guardian’s part to obtain. Grownups willing to go the extra mile, however, may want to invest in custom wall decals. Good sticker printing companies have easy to use design tools that even a novice can learn in minutes and tons of available art to mix-and-match. An older child can even participate in the design process, really infusing their room decorations with their emerging personality.
Get Quality Decals
After deciding on the look of your decal, the next major consideration should be one familiar to anyone that deals with kids: durability. Simply put, kids break stuff, and you want to avoid a beloved room decoration breaking when touched and facilitating a crying fit. While decals are easy enough to replace, make sure to always invest in quality so that a decorated room stays decorated a good long time, even if kids are literally bouncing off the walls. To ensure you buy more durable decals, check the grade of the printing materials and adhesives used. In general, vinyl is more flexible and resilient than paper, and plenty of resources exist online to help buyers discern high quality materials from the cheap stuff.
Move Them Around
On that note, it’s important not to ignore one of the key benefits of decorating a child’s room with decals. Unlike stickers, wallpaper, and paint, a decal can be removed and applied elsewhere. This is great both for families that may move the child either to another room or home, or who want to encourage play through rearranging room decorations. Imagine a wall painted like the ocean, jungle, or outer space with appropriate sea life, dinosaurs, or space dinosaurs for the kids to rearrange into different stories. So when shopping for decals, try and find out how well they do when moved, how many times they can be removed, and on what sorts of surfaces.
Responsible caretakers have one more consideration when purchasing decals. To ensure the child’s safety, make sure the decals use non-toxic, child-friendly adhesives. Both custom and pre-packaged labels should state that their products are safe and non-toxic, and it is important to avoid the ones that don’t. Once safety is assured, the only limit to how your child’s room is decorated is your imagination.
Andrew Witkin is the founder and CEO of StickerYou, a global, e-commerce leader in custom-printed, die-cut products that empowers consumers and businesses to create high-quality materials for personal expression, marketing, and packaging.