Peel & Stick Wallpaper, Wall Panels & Tile Decals - Main Street

Flat surfaces are the easy part. Anyone can smooth a sheet across the middle of a shelf. The job is decided at the edges, where the paper has to turn, fold or stop, and where a lazy cut shows every time the drawer opens. If you want to know how to do corners with contact paper so they look factory-finished, the method is the same for a drawer, a desk or a cabinet door: work out which kind of corner you are facing, then cut for it instead of forcing the paper to bend. The three kinds of corner, and why paper treats them differently Paper folds cleanly in one direction at a time. Ask it to bend two ways at once and it bunches, creases or tents up. That one fact explains almost every tidy corner and every ugly one, so sort your project into these three before you peel anything. Inside corners are valleys: the line where a drawer bottom meets its back wall, or where two sides of a cabinet interior meet. The paper has to stop or turn into the fold. Outside corners are ridges: the front edge of a shelf, the rim of a desk, the side of a cabinet door or a storage box. The paper wraps over the edge onto the next face. Rounded corners and curves are the troublemakers: a radius on a tabletop, a bullnose edge, a cylinder. Paper has very little stretch, so curves get cut, not pulled. Main Street's 11 x 16 inch Eucalyptus Peel & Stick Wallpaper Sheets and the rest of the Classic Sheets line are paper with a self-adhesive backing, made for painted, sealed and finished surfaces according to the product pages. On anything else, the adhesive loses before you reach the corner. Tools, prep and a scrap test The brand's guide names four tools: a measuring tape and pencil, a utility knife, a damp cloth and a smoothing tool. For corners, add a metal ruler to guide the knife, sharp scissors for curves, and a fresh blade, because a dull blade drags paper instead of parting it and tears the point of the corner. Clean with the guide's mix of 30 percent isopropyl alcohol and 70 percent water, let the surface dry completely, and if the piece was painted recently, Main Street says to wait at least four weeks. Corners collect grease and dust, so run a cotton swab along the inside fold before you start. Then do the thing most people skip: cut a palm-sized scrap and practice the corner on the real edge, notch and all. A scrap costs a few square inches. A ruined sheet costs a twelfth of your pack. How to do corners with contact paper: inside corners Never bend a single sheet through an inside corner and expect it to stay. Paper springs back from a tight fold, and the adhesive at the crease lets go first. Use one of these two approaches instead. Run the first piece a quarter inch into the corner Apply the first surface, say the drawer bottom, and let it climb about a quarter inch up the back wall. Press it into the fold with a fingernail or the rounded end of your smoothing tool. Then cut the piece for the back wall so it starts right in the corner and covers that small flap. The overlap hides the fold, and the second piece holds the first piece's edge down. Or cut flush and leave a hairline If only the drawer bottom is getting covered, lay the sheet with half an inch of overhang against the back wall, crease it hard into the corner, then run the knife along the crease with the blade angled slightly into the wall. The hairline it leaves disappears in the shadow of the fold. Our guide to applying contact paper covers this crease-and-trim method in more detail. How to wrap outside corners and edges Outside corners are where you earn the compliment. The only real question is what to do where two folds collide. Cut with overhang. Leave three quarters of an inch to an inch of extra paper on every side you plan to wrap. Apply the flat face first. Peel back a few inches of backing, align the sheet, then pull the backing away slowly while you smooth from the center outward. Stop before the edge. Notch the corners before you fold. At each corner of the overhang, cut a small square out, the same depth as the overhang. Without it the two flaps stack into a lump you can feel through the print. On a thin edge like a cabinet door, a 45 degree cut from the corner works too, the same miter used to cover a book with contact paper. Fold one side, then the other. Smooth the first flap over the edge with firm strokes, then the adjoining flap, and crease each fold with the edge of the smoothing tool so it sits sharp. Trim the flaps. Run the knife along the underside or back edge where the flap ends, and press any seam closed with a fingertip. On a thick edge, say a shelf or desk more than three quarters of an inch deep, cut a separate strip for the edge first, then lay the top sheet so it folds down over the strip by about a quarter inch. The seam lands on the vertical face, where nobody looks, as in the desk guide. And go slowly: the product pages describe the sheets as something you can reposition while you go, so a crooked fold can be lifted at a shallow angle and laid again. Rounded corners and curved surfaces This is where contact paper and the thick, stretchy films used on car bodies part ways. Those films are warmed and stretched around a curve. Main Street's sheets are paper, and the brand publishes no heat guidance for them, so a curve gets one of two treatments instead. A rounded corner on a flat top Many desks and side tables have a radius at each corner of the top. Cover the top with a square overhang as usual, then hold the knife vertically against the curved edge and trim flush, letting the edge guide the blade. If you would rather cut first, trace a coin or jar lid that matches the radius on the back of the paper and cut the arc with scissors. A convex curve: a bullnose, a round rim, a cylinder Paper will not wrap smoothly around a rounded lip; it tents off the high point and tends to lift. Either trim flush where the curve begins and leave the curve bare, or cover it with short darts: cut relief slits into the overhang about an inch apart, then press each tab down so they overlap like roof tiles. A busy pattern hides the overlaps; a plain color shows them. Round tables get a template and one center seam, as in our lazy susan liner guide. One place to be cautious: kitchen counters. A bullnose counter edge is a curve by definition, and the product pages ask you to keep the sheets out of moisture and wet zones. Read what a papered counter can and cannot do before you commit a pack to one. Choosing a pattern that forgives the corner Technique is half of a clean corner. The print is the other half: some designs make a one-degree error invisible and others announce it. Scattered, directionless prints are the most forgiving. Floral Sprinkles and Eucalyptus can turn a corner at any point in the repeat, and the eye never looks for a match. Wood and stone textures hide seams in their grain. Distressed Wood Grey on a shelf edge reads as a real board edge, and Wood Slat Panel works best when the slats run the same way as the fold, so the seam lands between two slats. Strong geometrics are the unforgiving test. Indigo Diamonds looks superb when the diamond rows run parallel to the edge and a full motif sits at the fold, so plan each cut to land on a line in the pattern. Two layout habits help every print: put the factory-cut edge of the sheet at the most visible corner, since it is straighter than anything cut by hand, and push seams and notches to the back or underside. If a corner lifts anyway, it is almost always prep or pressure, so clean the edge and press the fold again. For bubbles and edges that keep curling, our repair guide takes each case in turn. Frequently asked questions How do you do corners with contact paper? Decide which corner you have. For an inside corner, run the first sheet a quarter inch into the fold and start the next sheet in the corner over that flap. For an outside corner, leave an inch of overhang, cut a square notch at the corner, then fold one side and the other. For rounded corners, trim flush or use short relief cuts. How do you wrap rounded corners with contact paper? Paper has very little stretch, so do not pull it around a radius. On a rounded tabletop corner, apply the top and trim flush with the knife held against the curved edge. On a rounded lip or rim, cut relief slits into the overhang about an inch apart and press each tab down so they overlap, or stop the paper where the curve begins. Do you overlap contact paper at inside corners? Yes, by a small amount. Let the first piece climb about a quarter inch onto the adjoining surface and press it into the fold, then start the second piece right in the corner so it covers that flap. The overlap hides the crease and holds the first edge down. Bending one piece through the corner rarely holds. How do you cut contact paper around corners without bunching? Bunching happens when two flaps of overhang stack at the same corner. Before you fold anything, cut a square out of the overhang at each corner, the same depth as the overhang. On thin edges like a cabinet door, a 45 degree cut from the corner does the same job. Use a fresh blade so the point of the cut is clean. Can you put contact paper on a curved surface? On a gentle, smooth curve, yes, with a template and relief cuts; a round tabletop works with a center seam. On a tight rounded rim, paper tents off the high point, so trim flush where the curve starts instead. Keep the surface painted, sealed or finished, as the product pages specify, and keep the sheets out of wet zones whatever the shape.

Flat-pack desks come in the same three finishes, and the first scratch usually arrives before the first paycheck. Learning how to cover a desk with contact paper fixes the look in an afternoon, with no sanding, no primer and no waiting for anything to dry. The surface you work on every day also gets harder use than any wall, so the trick is knowing what adhesive paper can take on a desktop, what it cannot, and how to lay it so the edges outlast the semester. Which desks take contact paper well Adhesive paper wants a closed, smooth surface to grip. That makes the cheapest desks the easiest ones to cover: laminate and melamine tops are factory sealed, flat and non-porous, and paper bonds to them readily. A painted desk works too, as long as the paint is sound and fully cured. Main Street asks for a wait of at least four weeks after painting before anything self-adhesive goes on, and a desktop deserves the same patience as a wall. Sealed or varnished wood is fine. The product pages for the 11 x 16 inch Classic Sheets put it plainly: painted, sealed and finished surfaces. The disappointments are predictable. A raw pine top, an unfinished MDF edge or a desk sanded back to bare board will drink the adhesive unevenly and let corners lift. For the finish-by-finish breakdown, including plywood and particle board, see what contact paper sticks to. What a papered desktop can and cannot handle Think of the covering as a decorative skin, not a work surface in its own right. A few realities to plan around before you peel anything: Liquids. The Classic Sheets and the Craft Paper line are paper with an adhesive back, and Main Street does not describe them as water-resistant. A sweating glass or a spilled coffee needs wiping up quickly, and a coaster is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy. Heat. Main Street publishes no heat rating for the sheets. A laptop that runs warm sits on small feet, but if yours gets hot enough to notice, a stand or a desk mat under it is the sensible move. Pen pressure. Writing on a single loose sheet of paper directly over the covering can press a faint line into it. A notepad, a planner or a thin desk pad takes the pressure instead. The mouse. An optical mouse generally tracks on a matte printed surface. If it skips on a very light or very glossy design, a mouse pad solves it in a second. Wear. Forearms, sleeve buttons and a wheeled chair rub the front edge thousands of times a year. That edge is where any covering ages first, which is why the layout below starts there. If the desk doubles as a craft table or a potting bench, read contact paper on countertops first. The same wet-and-hot cautions apply. How to cover a desk with contact paper, step by step You need a measuring tape and pencil, a utility knife with a fresh blade, a damp cloth and a smoothing tool. That is the full list on Main Street's how-to page, and nothing about a desk changes it. 1. Clear and clean Take off everything, including a keyboard tray or a monitor arm clamp if they unscrew. Wipe the top with a damp cloth to lift dust, then go over it with a mix of 30 percent isopropyl alcohol and 70 percent water, the prep solution Main Street recommends, and let it dry completely. Hand cream and the ghost of old sticky notes are the usual reasons a sheet refuses to bond. 2. Measure and plan the sheets Measure the top edge to edge and decide which way the sheets will run. A Classic Sheet is 11 x 16 inches (1.22 square feet), so for most desks the 16 inch edge runs across the width and the 11 inch edge runs front to back. On a common 48 x 24 inch top that is three sheets across and three rows deep, nine in all, with trim to spare from a 12-pack. A 60 x 30 inch top takes four across and three deep, which uses all twelve sheets with nothing left for a mistake, so buy two packs. Main Street suggests ordering every sheet for a project at once so the color matches. 3. Start at the front edge Lay the first row along the front edge, the one your eye meets when you sit down, and work toward the wall. Peel back only a few inches of the backing, line the sheet up with your pencil mark, press the leading edge down and draw the backing out while the smoothing tool pushes from the center outward. Butt each new sheet against the last. Our guide to applying contact paper without bubbles covers seams and repositioning in detail. 4. Deal with the edges You have two choices at the front and sides. Trim flush with the knife held against the top edge, which looks crisp and is the right call on a rounded or beveled edge, since paper has almost no stretch and will not wrap a curve. Or leave about an inch of overhang on a square-edged top, cut a small square out of each corner so the two flaps do not stack, fold the flaps down over the edge and press them hard. Trim along the underside. 5. Press, then wait Go over every seam and edge once more with the smoothing tool, paying most attention to the front corners. Put the hardware back, but give the top a quiet evening before the monitor, the printer and the elbows return. Main Street publishes no cure time; the wait is simply a precaution. Choosing a pattern that hides the seams A desk is viewed from above at arm's length, which is less forgiving than a wall seen across a room. A busy, non-directional design such as Eucalyptus lets nine sheets read as one surface. A directional print such as Herringbone looks sharper but asks you to align every sheet to the one before it. A plank design like Distressed Wood Grey is the easy middle ground: run the boards left to right and let each seam fall on a printed joint. One upgrade worth stealing from the office supply aisle: a strip of Dry Erase Classic along the back edge of the top gives you an erasable to-do list you cannot lose under the keyboard. It is an 11 x 15 inch self-adhesive sheet, writable with dry erase markers, and it goes on the same way as the patterned sheets. Covering a table with contact paper: what changes A table follows the same steps, but the job changes with what the table is for. A console, a bedside table or a coffee table lives a dry, decorative life and is a near-perfect candidate. A dining table is a different proposition. Plates, condensation and daily wiping put a paper covering in exactly the conditions Main Street tells you to avoid, so treat a dining table as a short-term refresh at most, and keep placemats under everything. For a side table that gets wiped down now and then, the Luxury Cardstock line is the better pick. Natural Reflection is described on its product page as embossed peel and stick paper that is water-resistant, in 17.25 x 10 inch panels. Water-resistant is not the same as waterproof, and none of these papers is sold for standing water, but it is the line to reach for when the surface will meet a damp cloth more than once a week. Sizes differ across the cardstock designs, so check the product page. Round tables are their own puzzle of templates and center seams, solved in the lazy susan and round shelf guide. For dressers, cabinet fronts and bookcase backs, the furniture wallpapering guide has you covered. Taking it off a desk later On a sound factory finish, the paper usually lifts with slow, low-angle pulling and leaves little behind, which is why a papered desk is such a popular fix for dorm rooms, rented offices and a classroom desk that belongs to the school. An intact laminate top is the best case, while thin veneer and chalky old paint are the ones to test on an underside corner first. Main Street does not promise a clean removal from every finish, so read is contact paper removable before you cover a desk you have to hand back. Frequently asked questions Can you put contact paper on a desk? Yes, provided the top is smooth and finished. Laminate, melamine, sealed wood and fully cured paint all take self-adhesive paper well. Raw wood, bare MDF and textured finishes do not. Clean the surface with a damp cloth and a mild alcohol and water mix, let it dry, then apply the sheets from the front edge back. How many sheets does it take to cover a desk? Multiply the width and depth of the top in inches, divide by 176 (one 11 x 16 inch sheet), then round up and add one or two for trimming. A 48 x 24 inch desk takes nine sheets laid three across and three deep, so one 12-pack covers it. A 60 x 30 inch top needs twelve, so buy two packs for a margin. How do you cover a table with contact paper without bubbles? Peel only a few inches of backing at a time, press the leading edge down first, and pull the backing away while a smoothing tool pushes air from the center toward the edges. Small bubbles can be pricked with a pin and pressed flat. Clean, dry prep matters more than technique, since dust under the sheet is the usual cause. Can I use contact paper on a dorm desk I have to return? Dorm and office desks are usually laminate, which is the easiest surface for both sticking and removal. Test a corner on the underside first, pull slowly at a low angle when you leave, and wipe any residue with warm soapy water. Nobody can promise a perfect result on every finish, so inspect the desk before you commit. Does contact paper stick to a wood desk? It sticks to the finish, not to the wood. A varnished, lacquered or painted wood desk holds paper well. An oiled, waxed or unfinished top will not, and a sanded surface absorbs the adhesive and lets corners lift. If you are unsure, press a scrap on an underside corner and check it after a day.

Most craft drawers hide a half-used pack of patterned sheets with no plan attached. That pack is, more or less, craft wallpaper: self-adhesive decorative paper cut to a size you can handle on a kitchen table instead of a ladder. Below you will find what the term means, how the different kinds compare, why a search for arts and crafts wallpaper returns two very different answers, and six small projects for whatever is left in the pack. What is craft wallpaper? Craft wallpaper is peel and stick decorative paper sold in sheets small enough to work with by hand, meant for covering objects and small surfaces as much as walls. A roll asks you to plan a room. A crafting wallpaper sheet asks you to plan a notebook, a box lid or one drawer front. The adhesive is already on the back, so there is no paste, no brush and no drying time. You measure, cut, peel and press. At Main Street the term covers two groups of products. The first is the everyday wallpaper sheets, which the product pages list as peel and stick paper wallpaper at 11 x 16 inches: about 1.22 square feet per sheet, or roughly 14.6 square feet in a 12-pack. That is plenty for a furniture face or a handful of small pieces. The second is a narrower line sold as Peel and Stick Craft Paper, where each sheet is built to do a particular job. Inside the craft paper line Sheets you can write on Chalkboard Classic and Dry Erase Classic are sold as single 11 x 15 inch sheets. The first takes chalk and chalk markers, the second takes dry erase markers, and both product pages recommend sticking them to painted and finished surfaces. One thing Dry Erase Classic is not: a magnet board. It has no metal layer for a magnet to grab, so treat it purely as a writing surface. If you are thinking about a larger chalk wall, our guide to chalkboard wallpaper covers the bigger picture. Sheets with texture and shine The Luxury Cardstock group adds raised, embossed texture and a metallic finish. Read each label, because they are not all the same material. Very Crock N Roll and Glow Getter are listed as embossed peel and stick foil, while Natural Reflection is listed as embossed peel and stick paper. The product pages for this group describe the sheets as water-resistant, which makes them the better pick for a desk tray or anything that gets wiped down now and then. Sizes vary by design (Very Crock N Roll and Glow Getter are 10 x 15 inches, other designs differ), so check the dimensions on the exact page before you plan a layout. Craft paper, wallpaper sheets or contact paper? People use these names almost interchangeably, and the overlap is real: all three are decorative sheets with adhesive already on the back. Where they part ways is in the details. Contact paper is usually sold on a long roll, and a good deal of what is marketed as shelf liner is plastic film rather than paper. Our explainer on what contact paper is goes into the differences. Wallpaper sheets are paper printed with repeating patterns, designed to line up edge to edge on a wall but sized so a single pack also stretches to small projects. Craft paper, in Main Street's sense, is a sheet with a function: something to write on, or a texture and finish that plain print cannot give you. A simple rule: if the project is mostly about pattern, reach for wallpaper sheets. If it needs to be written on, or to catch the light, look at the craft paper line. Arts and crafts wallpaper: one search, two meanings Type arts and crafts wallpaper into a search bar and the results split down the middle. Half of them mean wallpaper for crafting, as above. The other half mean a design movement. The Arts and Crafts movement took shape in Britain in the second half of the 1800s as a push back against cheap, machine-made goods. Its best-known wallpaper designer, William Morris, had his patterns printed by hand from carved wooden blocks, and they still define the look: winding vines, stylized flowers and leaves, set in earthy greens, ochres and deep blues. You do not need an antique roll to borrow that feeling. A stylized botanical in a muted palette does most of the work. Our Block Print Floral sheets, cream flowers and trailing stems on a soft sage ground, sit comfortably in that tradition. Busy patterns like this read best in small doses, so try one behind the glass of a display cabinet or across a single drawer front before you cover anything larger. What to do with leftover wallpaper: six small projects A wallpaper project almost never ends on the last sheet. If you have already worked through the drawers, trays and frames in our Dollar Tree wallpaper ideas roundup, these six send the scraps somewhere new. 1. Bookmarks with some backbone Stick a strip of patterned sheet to a strip of plain cardstock, back to back, then trim the two together with a craft knife and a metal ruler. A 2 x 6 inch strip is a comfortable size, and one 11 x 16 sheet yields about ten of them. Punch a hole at the top and add a length of ribbon if you like a tail. 2. Photo booth props and bunting Embossed sheets make convincing party props because the texture shows up on camera. Mount a sheet on card for stiffness, sketch glasses, a mustache or a bow tie on the backing, cut it out and tape it to a wooden skewer. For bunting, cut matching triangles, punch two holes along the top edge of each and thread them onto string. 3. A desk set that matches Wrap a cardboard magazine file, a pencil cup and a pen tray in the same pattern and a cluttered desk suddenly looks planned. Smooth, coated surfaces give the adhesive the best grip. Raw cardboard is more absorbent, so test a corner first and press each piece down firmly. 4. A running list inside a door A narrow strip of Dry Erase Classic inside a pantry or closet door turns into a shopping list or chore chart that never goes missing. Stick it to the smooth, painted face of the door, at eye height, well away from anything damp. 5. Lining a keepsake box The inside of a lid is a surface almost nobody thinks to decorate, which is exactly why it is fun to open. Measure the base and the lid separately, cut each panel with the backing still on, and press from the center outward. A metallic sheet makes a jewelry box feel more expensive than it was. 6. A test patch before the big wall Planning an accent wall for later? Put one leftover sheet somewhere discreet on that wall and live with it for a week or two. You will see how the color reads in the evening light and whether your paint and the adhesive get along. Main Street's how-to page asks you to wait at least four weeks after painting, and it steers you away from textured walls, brick, ceilings and damp rooms, so pick a test spot that meets those terms too. Cutting and sticking small pieces cleanly Small projects forgive less than walls do, because every edge sits close to the eye. A few habits make the difference: Cut with the backing on. The liner keeps the adhesive clean and gives the blade something firm to work against. A sharp craft or utility knife, a metal ruler and a cutting mat beat scissors for straight lines. Clean first. Main Street's prep step is a wipe with a damp cloth. For a deeper clean, the how-to page suggests 30% isopropyl alcohol to 70% water, then letting the surface dry completely. Soften the corners. On anything that gets handled, such as bookmarks or box lids, a slightly rounded corner is less likely to catch and lift than a sharp one. Press from the middle out. A smoothing tool, or the edge of an old plastic card, chases air toward the edges instead of trapping it. Keep paper projects dry. The paper wallpaper sheets are not sold as water-resistant, so keep them away from sinks, steam and anything headed for a dishwasher. Bigger ambitions? Our furniture guide walks through dressers, tables and cabinet fronts. Frequently asked questions What is craft wallpaper? Craft wallpaper is self-adhesive decorative paper sold in hand-sized sheets for small projects: covering boxes, notebooks, drawer fronts and shelf backs, as well as small areas of wall. The adhesive is pre-applied, so you cut it to size, peel off the backing and press it down. No paste, glue or drying time is involved. Can you use wallpaper for crafts? Yes. Peel and stick wallpaper sheets are well suited to crafts because they are already sized for small work and need no glue. Cut them with a sharp knife while the backing is still attached, stick them to clean, smooth surfaces, and keep paper projects away from water. Test absorbent materials like raw cardboard on a corner first. What can I do with leftover wallpaper? Leftover sheets are ideal for bookmarks, party props and bunting, a matching desk set, the lining of a keepsake box, or labels and lists. You can also stick one sheet on a wall you are thinking of covering and live with it for a while, which shows you the color in your own light before you commit to a bigger project. Is craft paper the same as contact paper? Not quite. Both have adhesive on the back, but contact paper is usually sold on a roll and is often a plastic film, while craft paper sheets are designed around a purpose, such as a chalkboard or dry erase surface, or an embossed metallic finish. Check each product page for the material, because it varies between lines. What is Arts and Crafts style wallpaper? It is wallpaper in the style of the Arts and Crafts movement, which began in Britain in the late 1800s. Designers such as William Morris favored hand block printing and nature-based patterns: twisting vines, stylized flowers and leaves, in earthy greens, golds and blues. Modern botanical prints in muted colors are an easy way to borrow the look.