How to make your own stickers, with or without a printer

A sticker is really nothing more than a picture with glue on the back and a sheet to peel it off. You can easily make that yourself. Then you get exactly the colour that suits your page, the word you were looking for or a drawing of your own dog. You don't need a cutting machine for it, or even a printer.

Three ways to make a sticker stick

There are three bases that almost every homemade sticker starts with.

• Sticker paper. This is paper with an adhesive layer and a backing sheet, in sheets you can print or write on. There's matte, glossy and clear sticker paper, and there are types for inkjet and for laser printers. Check the packaging to see which one suits your printer, or the ink won't dry properly.
• Double-sided adhesive sheets. These sheets have glue on both sides and two backing sheets. You stick a drawing, a piece of patterned paper or a cutting from a magazine onto it, then cut the whole thing out. That way any scrap of paper becomes a sticker. Wide double-sided tape also works for small pieces.
• Tape and baking paper. Washi tape, the thin printed paper tape, and sticky tape stick to baking paper but come off it again easily later. The baking paper is then your backing sheet. The silicone sheet from a used-up sticker sheet does the same job.

Drawing on a sheet of drawing paper and then sticking it onto double-sided adhesive often gives the nicest result. You draw on paper you know, and the glue only comes later.

Printing and cutting out by hand

If you have a printer, you can make a whole sheet at once. Here's how it works:

1. Design your stickers on an A4 page. Draw by hand and scan it, or place images in a drawing app. Use a sharp, good-quality image; a blurry picture won't get any better on paper.
2. Place the big designs first and fill the gaps with small ones. Small pictures, arrows, dates and short words are what you'll need most often in a journal.
3. Leave space between the stickers for cutting, and keep a margin of half a centimetre to a centimetre clear around the edge of the sheet. Many printers don't print right to the edge.
4. Print a test sheet on plain paper first. Hold it up to the light against your sticker sheet and check that everything lines up.
5. Print on the sticker paper and let the ink dry properly before you start cutting.

Cut with small, sharp scissors and leave a narrow white border around the design. It looks neat and stops you cutting into your drawing. A craft knife on a cutting mat works better for inside corners and straight lines.

If you want a sticker that peels easily off the sheet, like shop-bought stickers, cut only through the top layer and not through the backing sheet. By hand, you can do this with a light knife and very little pressure, but it takes practice. A cutting machine does it automatically.

Light colours often print paler than they look on your screen or in the original. So design with slightly stronger colours than you think you'll need.

Stickers from washi tape and cut-outs

Without a printer, washi tape is your best friend. Stick a few strips side by side on baking paper, perfectly straight and slightly overlapping. Now you have a sheet to stamp, draw or write on. Use an ink that dries on smooth surfaces, such as a multi-surface ink pad or a permanent marker, and let everything dry properly. Then cut out whatever you like, with a little border of baking paper attached so the sticker comes off easily.

Because washi tape is slightly see-through, these stickers look almost painted onto your page. If a stamp goes wrong, you only throw away a bit of tape and your journal stays clean. Feel free to stamp a whole sheet in one go; that way you'll always have a little stash ready.

Cut-outs are the other quick source. Cut flowers from a piece of patterned paper, words from a magazine or a picture from some packaging. Stick them onto double-sided adhesive and cut them out again, and you have a sticker. A circle of coloured paper from a punch is a sticker too, once it's on adhesive.

Making clear stickers

Clear stickers let the background show through. They look lovely over text, a ticket or patterned paper. There are two ways to make them.

With clear sticker paper, you print your design as usual. White isn't printed: anything white becomes see-through. Light colours also turn a little glassy because of this. So design with strong colours and save digital designs without a background, for example as a PNG. If you want part of it not to show through, first stick white sticker paper behind that bit and then cut it out.

Without special paper, you can use wide clear packing tape:

1. Take a print from a laser printer or a picture from a magazine. A lot of inkjet ink dissolves in water, so it won't work here.
2. Press the tape firmly over the picture and rub it down well with a bone folder or the back of a spoon.
3. Put the piece in lukewarm water for a few minutes.
4. Rub the paper off the back with your finger until only the ink is left on the tape.
5. Let it dry.

The back won't be as sticky afterwards. Fix it in place with a thin layer of glue or a bit of double-sided tape. If white fibres are left behind, rub again with a wet finger.

What a homemade sticker costs

Making your own isn't always cheaper than buying, but you do get exactly what you want. If you'd like to know, work it out like this:

• Add up what you use per sheet: the sticker paper, the ink and a test sheet if you print one.
• Divide that by the number of stickers that actually turned out well, not by the number that fitted on the sheet. A misprint or a sticker you cut wrong doesn't count.

An example with made-up numbers: say a sheet of sticker paper costs you one euro and the ink fifty cents. Thirty stickers fit on the sheet, but five go wrong. Then you pay €1.50 divided by 25, which is six cents per sticker.

With washi tape and baking paper, you work it out by the length of tape you use. If you make stickers to sell, you also need to add time, packaging and postage. Then it quickly becomes a different story.

Can you make stickers from other people's drawings?

A drawing, photo or illustration is protected by copyright and still belongs to the person who made it. That also applies to images on the internet, stamps, printables and the pictures on patterned paper.

Making something for your own book that nobody else sees is different from sharing, giving away or selling it. In the Netherlands, you're allowed to make a copy for your own use under certain conditions. But as soon as you share, swap or sell stickers, or put a sheet online for people to download, you generally need permission from the maker.

A few rules of thumb:

• With printables and digital papers, check which terms come with them. Often they're for personal use only.
• Many stamp makers say whether you can sell cards and stickers made with their stamps. Read up on it before you start.
• Characters from films, series and comics are almost always protected. For your own journal that's usually not a problem, but for a sheet you sell it is.
• If you draw or photograph it yourself, the rights are yours.

If you're not sure, just ask the maker. Most illustrators like being asked. This is a general explanation, not legal advice. If you have doubts about something you want to sell, you can also consult a lawyer.

A few things that help

Choose one theme and a few colours for a sheet of stickers. Then they go together and are easy to combine. Two colours plus black and white is enough.

Put a sticker on a flat, clean, dry bit of paper and smooth it down with your finger or a bone folder. Lay it down loosely first to see if the spot is right, because stickers on paper usually won't come off again without damage. Don't put stickers on photos either: the glue usually isn't made to sit against a photo for years.

And start with something small: a row of dates, a few words you use a lot or a single drawing. A first sheet doesn't have to be perfect. It's those slightly wonky edges that make it yours.