You brought back an old, old memory of reading a Dave Barry novel about computers. In it, he describes going to a Microsoft convention in which they introduced, IIRC, Windows 95; while describing the taskbar, they apparently touted “no more alt+tab!”

I think you are, like I did, interpreting “sticky side down” as meaning “sticky side against the surface to which you’re attaching the note.”

I don’t want to speak for the OP, but I think they meant “sticky side down” as “still against the wall, but at the bottom of the note, rather than with the note hanging from the sticky side at the top.”