Will S.'s Profile

Speaking from experience, the blade method works best.
The key for me is to cut a very clean, small, straight line and then burnishing carefully towards the slit on both sides to let the air out. Once the bubble is gone, I take a plastic spoon or something smooth to burnish the "wound" flat.

I love contact paper for their faux wood prints. I've recently covered all 6 drawer fronts of the Ikea Alex unit in it and they look amazing :)

I agree with the above comment. The way I like to do it is to peel off a small section so I can stick down about a 4 inch strip to anchor it, burnish that section with a plastic spreader like this one http://www.dickblick.com/products/awt-plastic-spreaders/
Then I pull the rest of the paper-backing parallel to the sticking surface so the contact paper is as flat as possible, and burnish towards the pull in 1-2 inch strip sections at a time. So it goes like this; pull, burnish, pull, burnish.... until you've pulled all the paper off.
I find it much faster and easier than trying to align a fully peeled large piece of contact that's curling in on itself and sticking to everything. It's also easier to fix since you're doing sections at a time. Don't pull until the peeled section is clear of bubbles.

Hope that helps.