Wall Decal Review- BlankCanvasDesigns

by Adrian How

Coincidentally, about a week and a half after getting my sample from SomethinUrby.com (read my review and experience of their decal here), Joanne from BlankCanvasDesigns approached me to review their product, hence this post- HowsHouse.com’s second official review of a Malaysian online retail store for wall decals.

BlankCanvasDesign was also kind enough to allow me to select my choice of decals. However, the entire transaction was done backend by the BlankCanvas team and my decals were delivered to me by courier 2 days later, hence I am not able to provide my opinion and experience on their website’s handling of transactions. The decal of my choice was Cyberflowers, which is part of the ‘Classics’ range. The good thing about BlankCanvas is the myriad choices of colour schemes available for most of their decals. Unfortunately the downside is that they do not have a colour preview which would’ve been rather useful.

I knew just the place to set this decal up- our master bedroom, just above the bed headrest on YinLeng’s side of the bed. It’s a wall i’ve always wanted to put something but just never got around to doing it. Here are some pictures of the unboxing:

Front of package

Back of package- with generic ‘how-to-apply’ instructions

Entire decal comes in four large squares- when I first saw this, it immediately dawned on me that I might have a daunting task ahead

Squeegee included- made of plastic, much like your credit card, only without the magnetic stripe,chip card and purchasing power.

Now, because this was a floral pattern, we really had total freedom on designing the layout of the decal as it was not restricted in any way at all. Whilst promoting creativity, it could have a downside too for those who lack imagination might struggle to piece together the decal into an attractive form. YinLeng, being the more creative of the two, cut out the vinyls into smaller, more manageable pieces and laid them out on the floor to create a design which we both agreed on.

The aim was to have the decal start at the intersection of two walls, and flow towards the centre of the wall that we have our bed up against (You’ll soon see what i mean in the pictures to follow). Here are some images after we laid them out on our bedroom floor. We both democratically agreed on the layout- though secretly, I was wondering how the end product would look like.

Next we transferred our design to the wall. We taped the individual decal pieces against the wall in order for us to get a much clearer picture of how our finished product should look.

We decided to have a few loose cyberflowers, away from the branches to cover more wall. Right after we were happy with the final layout, it was time to start squeegee-ing and sticking the decals. I wiped the wall down and YinLeng, at 39 weeks pregnant, looking agile as ever, started with the lower corner whilst I went straight for the loose flowers.

The squeegee was very effective and the transfer paper was rather thin but sticky. We didn’t have any problems sticking the decals on at all. Occasionally, the decal might not come off the transfer paper and onto the wall, but with a bit more squeegee-ing, it’d come right off and stick perfectly on the wall. I was extremely satisfied with the quality of the vinyl. For review purposes, i deliberately tried to remove one of the decals to check for staining- there was none; and re-usability- I’m guessing it isn’t advisable by the manufacturers but the decal stuck on well anyway for the second time.

Overall, I liked that we decided to have the decal start from the right wall and flowing onto the main section of the wall we have our bed up against- i reckon it gives it some character. I am thoroughly impressed with the outcome and this would not have been possible but for the high quality and ease of application of the decals from BlankCanvas. We took a little more than an hour to complete the entire process (it might’ve taken longer if not for our experience with the Winter Sakura decal). It’s hard to tell whether it’s a sticker or if it was painted unless you look at it from a very close range and run your fingers through.

I’d like to thank BlankCanvasDesigns for graciously providing HowsHouse.com with a sample for review.

Here’s a list of pros and cons from my experience:

Pros

Package came totally intact- well designed and made of thick card paper, all decals were stuck onto four large squares of backing paper
Multitude of colour choices to select from for each decal. This would enable the user to tailor the decal to most any existing wall colour combination
Freedom of design- due to the nature of the design, it required us to be creative and design the layout of the decals ourselves. In truth, we did sneak a peek at the website for some pointers but once we got started, it was pretty easy
Decals are of high-quality and do not stain the walls upon removal. Extremely easy to apply
Squeegee was effective- made of plastic and was tough enough to effectively transfer the decals from transfer paper to wall
Price- BlankCanvasDesigns retail their decals from about RM85-RM149 in general. Many may find it expensive paying for ’stickers’ but in truth, it you look at it from a time-cost basis, it’s not at all pricey. Would cost more if one were to buy an artpiece for the wall or use wallpaper.

Cons

Despite having a multitude of colour choices, it would’ve been great if their website had colour previews for each of the choices available
Some might find it difficult to piece together the decals and create a suitable design. Would’ve been nice if the package comes with some examples for those of us who lack a little creativity. Nothing worse than screwing up the application of the decals!
Instructions were very general. I’m not certain I would’ve been totally comfortable with the simple instructions had it been my first time applying decals. It’d be nice to see model-specific instructions but I suppose that comes at a cost to the BlankCanvas team as well

Overall, the entire experience from start to finish was pleasant- nothing too confusing that we could not overcome- and we are very thrilled with the outcome. The pictures in this blog post do not do it any justice but believe you me, the effects are quite marvellous. Go check out BlankCanvasDesigns now and pick a decal to beautify your home. Decals are the modern equivalent to expressing art on the walls of your home.

Click here to jump to Blank Canvas Design’s official site