How to Make Homemade Stickers

If you spend time with children regularly, you're likely well-acquainted with stickers.

Stickers are an incredibly popular plaything for kids of all ages—and honestly, many adults enjoy using them from time to time as well. But it’s not uncommon to search unsuccessfully for stickers featuring a favorite character or to run out of a beloved sheet of stickers before you can blink. The solution: DIY homemade stickers, which allow you to make the same stickers again and again.

Here, we’re sharing how to make homemade stickers with your kids without any special tools or machines—and with no artistic skills necessary. Take my word for it: I made the stickers shown below with my 3-year-old , and I have zero artistic ability to name!

Materials Needed for Homemade Stickers

Here are all the items you’ll need to make homemade stickers.

• Wax or parchment paper: This will be the backing for your stickers.
• Packing tape: You’ll use packing tape twice. First, to serve as the sticky back of your stickers, and second, to seal over the top of your stickers and make them waterproof and unable to tear.
• Paper images: The images on your stickers can be anything you want them to be! These can be pictures you or your children draw, online images you print out, or even photos. I used the photos we took on my son’s first day of preschool .
• Scissors: There is a lot of cutting involved in making homemade stickers.
• Optional: Glue stick
• Optional: Double-sided tape

Steps for Making Homemade Stickers

Follow these simple steps to make DIY stickers, and see throughout for my tips for success after giving this process a try myself.

Step 1: Select and Prepare Your Images

Choose what you want your stickers to look like, print out the images if needed, and cut them all out. At this stage, you can cut out the images pretty tightly, since your finished stickers will be a little larger than the images are at this point.

Step 2: Lay Out the Wax or Parchment Paper

You don’t need to, but it is helpful to tape the paper down to the table so it doesn’t move.

Step 3: Make Your First Layer of Tape

Using strips of the packing tape, cover the wax paper with tape, sticky side down. It’s okay if the strips overlap; overlapping is better than leaving empty spaces.

Likewise, it’s fine if the wax paper bunches or folds beneath the tape. In fact, this makes it easier to ultimately peel off the wax paper when you are ready to stick the stickers.

You can do this step with double-sided tape if you are only making a few small stickers, but if you are making a large amount, it will be easier to use packing tape, since the strips are so much bigger.

Step 4: Place the Images

Place the images on top of the tape, leaving at least an inch between each. You don’t need to stick the images down at this point, but if you want to, you can use the glue stick or some double-sided tape to hold them in place. This way, they won’t move at all during the next step.

Step 5: Make Your Second Layer of Tape

Do the same thing as step three, this time covering all your images with strips of packing tape, sticky side down. Again, overlapping is better than empty spaces, but you do want these strips of tape to be as smooth as possible.

Step 6: Cut Out Your Stickers

At this point, you’ll have made four layers: wax paper, tape, images, tape. Lift up everything in one piece and cut out your stickers, leaving a small tape border around each image to ensure they stay sealed.

Step 7: Enjoy!

To stick your stickers, simply peel off the wax paper backing and stick them wherever you like. In my experience, it seemed like the wax paper made the packing tape slightly less sticky than it was to start, so you may be able to reuse your stickers if you are sticking them to other surfaces besides paper. Feel free to get creative with your sticker-making—after all, the possibilities are endless!

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Read the original article on Parents .