Not only does every child love stickers, but stickers are also an easy way to decorate and personalize any of your printed creative output. Whether you're making a card, letter, certificate or photo, a sticker is a fun way to liven things up!
Follow the instructions in this project to make stickers using Aunt Annie's sticker sheets, including ones for Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day! Then, with a drawing program and a few simple supplies, you can design and make your own stickers. The flexibility of the computer makes it easy to create an infinite variety of stickers by combining your own designs, clip art, and text. With a little teen or adult help, even small children can make stickers that will delight them!
Follow the recipe to make Seal Gum. Store the seal gum in a small jar—a baby food jar is ideal. The gum will gel overnight. Return it to a liquid state by placing the container in a pan of hot water for several minutes.
You can also make homemade stickers by printing on label stock. Full-sheet stickers can be purchased at most office supply stores.
Use a drawing program or a word processor with graphics capability to design your stickers. Stickers can be any shape or size, but an easy way to start is with a 1" to 2" square or oval. Draw your own design inside the border, or import some clip art. Add some short text, if you like. Balloons, party hats, and candles make good stickers with which to decorate birthday cards and packages. Hearts, happy faces, and flowers are good for envelope seals. Kids love to make stickers with funny faces. Make the stickers in color, or make black and white line drawings and use felt-tip markers to add color after printing.
Print your sticker designs, or select one of Aunt Annie's printable sticker sheets. One sheet has faces of girls and boys with different moods. (Can you name the moods?) Another has stickers of all sorts of fun and favorite things—toys, animals, flowers, hearts, and even a talking envelope! The third sheet has sticker designs for Thanksgiving and fall, and the final sheet has stickers for Valentine's Day or any time you want to show how much you care!
Patterns are Adobe PDF files. The Adobe Reader is available for free.
All of Aunt Annie's project patterns are designed to be printed on standard letter-size paper (8.5"x11" or A4). When printing from Adobe Reader, you may need to select Auto-Rotate and Center or Choose paper source by PDF page size to ensure the best fit.
Color the stickers with any colors you like. Use crayons, markers or colored pencils, but be sure the markers are colorfast—not washable. You can do the coloring step after cutting the stickers.
Cut out the stickers. Cut around the stickers, leaving about a 1/16 inch (2 mm) margin. If the sticker has an outline, you can cut on the line. Try to make your cuts very smooth.
Brush gum thinly on the back of the sticker. The sticker will curl as it dries. This is okay. When they're dry, store the stickers in a plastic bag. Now your stickers are ready for use any time you need them!
That's it! Your stickers are
ready to use!