Have you tried going into the "Desktop" folder and removing the shortcut you added that started the problem ?
Try temporarily moving everything out of the Desktop folder to a temporary folder somewhere .. then see if adding a single new item shows up. If it does, start adding stuff back from the temporary folder until they disappear, then undo the last item.
Hope that made sense .. if nothing else it'll rule in/out whether it's being caused by a desktop icon, or if the problem is more complex.