No Pain = No Gain?

Continuing with my weekend plans to re-decorate the different areas in my house that bug me, this weekend I got to work on my mantle. I've always seen pictures of other people's mantles and they are beautiful. Mine on the other hand lacked...well, it lacked a lot of things!

I love seeing the differnent vinyl wall stickers that are available. I've passed by these at Kohl's forever but kept telling myself that I really didn't need to buy one. When I was sent a $5 coupon to Kohl's I knew exactly what I wanted to buy with it!

I love the quote. It's a good one. When I first bought it I had plans to put it in a different spot in my house. But, after tons of rearranging and taping it in different places I decided that I liked it above my mantle best. So, I started to put it on my wall. Everyone has them, it's got to be simple right? WRONG! It was SO frustrating. I know now that it's because our walls have a lot of texture on them. I fought with that bad boy for a couple of hours. Every time I would try to peel it off it never wanted to stick to my wall. I had to PAINSTAKINGLY rub and re-rub and mash each and every little letter into the cracks of my wall. Maybe because it wasn't a high quality one you can order offline, but no pain no gain right? Ugh! At least I like it, or that would have really stunk, really!

I like it. I don't know if my mantle is finished, but it's definitely an improvement from the before picture. Now...if only someone wanted to convince me that ripping that tile out and replacing it would be something I could do by myself...