Preparing for the arrival of a new baby or child to the family can be super stressful. You know what makes it easier? Cute, eco-friendly, reusable nursery decals or wall stickers from the company that used to be called Koko Kids but is now One Trick Pony.
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Our Rating: 5 / 5 (See: How Leaf Score is calculated)
Product Highlights
- Peelable and reusable non-toxic, biodegradable wall decals in a variety of fun designs
- Phthalate-free, vinyl-free, formaldehyde-free, low-VOC and lead-free
- Super easy to use and packaged in compostable cellophane and cardboard
| Country of Origin: | UK |
| Materials: | PhotoTex (biodegradable, patented polyester) |
| Certifications: | LEED qualifying, |
If you’ve been fretting about nursery décor, and worrying about sticking stickers in the wrong place, reusable decals are absolutely the way to go. Best of all, you can now get beautiful reusable nursery decals that are vinyl-free, phthalate-free, formaldehyde-free, and so forth. That way, you don’t have to worry about your baby being exposed to nasty off-gassing chemicals.
See also: The 4 Best Air Filters for the Nursery
Nerd that I am, my space-themed One Trick Pony nursery decals still make me smile every time I see them. I only hope my baby grows up to love them as much as I do. If not, no worries, these beauties can be easily peeled, packed up and reused to decorate the room of another space-loving kid.
One Trick Pony reusable wall decals
Way back when I was putting together articles on non-toxic nurseries, I contacted Gill Peacock at Koko Kids to ask about reusable nursery decals. Gill was very transparent about manufacturing processes and sent me info on PhotoTex, the biodegradable, patented polyester material used to make these decals.
The PhotoTex website displays technical specifications, their most recent (2018) safety and compliance test results for lead and phthalates and their 2020 LEED certification. PhotoTex contains no glycol-ether or formaldehyde in the adhesive, no phthalates, and is also certified as low VOC. The testing also shows that the stickers have no detectable lead in the surface or substrate.
Gill was also kind enough to send me a sheet of rocket ships, comets, planets, and more to try out.
My experience with One Trick Pony peelable wall decals
Once we got the baby’s room painted with zero-VOC paint, and waited 30 days, I popped open the cardboard tube and unrolled what turned out to be a very generous array of gorgeous stickers.
Because vinyl nursery decals have been around forever, I worried that these eco-friendly decals would feel flimsy, or poor quality, and wouldn’t really be reusable. Happily, the One Trick Pony decals are an absolute delight to use and are clearly very robust and easily reusable.
I chose the Space theme decals for a dark background as we used a navy blue zero-VOC paint for the main wall in the nursery. If you have a lighter colored wall, don’t worry, Koko Kids has a Space theme version for that too! They also carry gorgeous forest, safari, ocean, circus, and woodland themed sticker sets, a variety of text graphics and other decals.
Most vinyl decals are one-time stickers, making it important to get your artistic design right the first time. Not so with One Trick Pony stickers.
I was pressed for time when putting these stickers up, so I launched (!) myself at the task with little forethought. Ten minutes later, I had a fantastic space scene decorating the nursery wall. As I said, though, the roll of stickers was impressive. This meant that my scattershot design kept expanding, much like the universe. This necessitated repositioning a few elements, which was a breeze. No scraping and scrapping one-time stickers, just pure joy at placing comets and rockets and planets and stars wherever I liked.
My one rookie error was to put these stickers too close to a forced air heating vent, which led to a handful of the smaller stickers starting to peel off. No great loss, though, as these would be far too accessible for curious little hands these days anyway. Farther up the wall, these stickers stayed stuck just fine.
A few notes on using these decals
Despite knowing better, I didn’t bother cleaning the nursery wall before applying these stickers. Thankfully, they have remained in place for many weeks now, with no wrinkles or peeling! Ideally, though, you should choose a smooth wall and give it a quick wipe with water (no soap) before applying the stickers.
Phototex also recommends that you wait at least 30 days after painting a wall before applying the stickers. This allows enough time for the paint to out-gas. Otherwise, you might get veins, bubbles and tunnels in the stickers. If you’re a planner, though, and you buy your stickers months in advance, don’t wait too long to use them as some stickers have to be ‘activated’ within a certain time.
Interestingly, Phototex notes that their products do not stick to walls painted with PROMAR 200/400 Zero VOC paint.
Finally, be sure to position the decals well out of reach of any children under three years old. Otherwise, curious hands can peel these stickers and make them into a choking hazard.
Packaging and reuse
To protect the decals and make it easy to store any that you don’t use right away or want to peel and save for reuse, Koko Kids wraps the sheet in compostable cellophane. And that cardboard tube is recyclable, though I’ve kept mine for easy storage and donation once we’re done with the space theme. There is a plastic cap on the tube, which you can always repurpose for fingerpainting and other uses.
The company clearly makes a real effort to cram as many usable decals as possible onto one photosheet. So much so that I didn’t actually manage to use all my decals! I tried my darnedest, with an array of stickers above the crib and a smattering by the change table. There are still a lot of stars and exoplanets I could add, but I’m keeping these in reserve for now. Maybe my kid will want to add to the display in a few years.
What I love about One Trick Pony decals
Koko Kids were my top choice for eco-friendly, non-toxic nursery wall decals when I was putting the course together. At the time, this was based solely on the company’s materials and processes. Now I’ve tried the decals, I’m happy to report that One Trick Pony remains my top choice!
I highly recommend One Trick Pony decals because they’re:
- Peelable, reusable, and non-toxic – making them far more eco-friendly than one-time stickers
- Biodegradable (made with a polyester material called PhotoTex)
- Free from vinyl, PVC, BPA, formaldehyde, lead, phthalates, and other toxic chemicals
- Printed with aqueous inks, not solvent-based colors
- Wrapped in compostable cellophane and shipped in recyclable cardboard tubes
- Easy to use, over and over again, for years to come
- Easy to take with you if you move house or your kid moves rooms.
I love my One Trick Pony nursery decals and am having a hard time not ordering more. We’ll see if kid number one decides on a room upgrade first though. Or, maybe there’ll be another kid in the picture soon who’ll desperately needs a woodland theme wall.
All in all, I highly recommend One Trick Pony’s reusable wall decals.