Slatthult

I'm not really sure why I try. Every time I get one of those ideas... you know, the do-it-yourself-beautify-your-home ideas, it completely backfires. I end up spending way more money than I was planning and the finished project looks nothing like it did in my mind. Case in point: Slatthult. What is Slatthult you ask? Why it's Ikea's version of wall decals. "The easy to use, noncommittal way to decorate your walls. "

They are paper adhesive cutouts that are easy to remove; they don't mess up your paint (thus noncommittal). And while they went on beautifully (you don't have to be super artistic to get them to look nice), they did anything but adhere. Slowly, one by one, each piece came off and landed on my floor. Of course this was only after I had methodically stuck every piece on the wall. I have 2 dogs and so each sticky piece on the floor had collected dog hair. Mind you, these were the pieces I could actually rescue from my smallest dog...she enjoyed chewing them.

At this point, I was cursing Ikea and their Swedish instructions for everything. I pulled out my hairdryer and tried to encourage their sticking to my wall with the heat. No luck. My arms ached. I was even more angry with those Swedes. Finally, I broke down and went and bought some double-sided tape. This isn't the first time this stuff has rescued me from a mental breakdown. So after about 5,032 teeny tiny pieces stuck to each "limb", "blossom" and "bird", I found some success. I'm not ready to post a picture of my completed wall just yet. I have more details to add to it. Rest assured, I will. Because I know how anxious you all are to see it.

So my advice on my wall art journey is this: Swedish manufactures make better meatballs than they do wall stickers. Oh and, make sure you have a roll of double-sided tape on hand in your house.