How to make your own stickers

This is yet another post on how I put my Silhouette machine to work! I have two little boys (little G man and little B man) and they LOVE stickers. What kid doesn’t? My favorite part about how much they like stickers is that they keep them quiet during church!

The problem with stickers is I have a hard time spending money on them when I know one sticker will only last for less than a second and once it’s stuck to that paper it is basically rendered useless (aside from the quiet it brings). Whenever I go to Michaels or Joann’s or look at Amazon.com I am always tempted to buy their super cute stickers, but then get very turned off by the price. Yes, you can find pretty good sales and use 40% off coupons, but the ones you want when you want them are always the most expensive (talking about specific themes for preschool or the favorite cartoon character for the week).

To save some money and make sure I always get what I want when I want it, I usually always make my own stickers now. Granted they aren’t slicky and “water proof” like the fancy store bought stickers, but they are perfect for my two little boys.

In the Silhouette Studio I import the picture or image that I want for the sticker. Sometimes I find them free on Google images and sometimes I use photos that we have taken.

When printing stickers, you have to use the ‘Registration Marks’ (upper right corner, second icon from the end if using Silhouette SD). I always end up adjusting the margins, just make sure the registration marks stay within the printable area.

Then I either cut a simple shape around that image (circle, square, heart, etc.) or I trace the image so that the sticker is cut along the outline of the image.

[stickers for little G & B man’s cousins]

[ABC & number stickers for preschool]

[teeth for preschool, T = tooth]

Then you copy and paste until the whole screen is filled with the stickers you want. Then print. It should only print the registration marks (3 corner marks) and whatever your picture is…not the cut lines (red lines). I use half sheet shipping labels,which I actually purchase to use as shipping labels for my business but grab a few sheets every now and then to make stickers! They do sell full sheetstoo.

I don’t know how to make the next step easier, or if it is just the way it has to be done. But what I do is then go through and erase all the pictures or whatever was just printed but leave what I actually want to be cut (just the circle or outline of the image). If you leave the picture it will also cut that out…it’s happened to me a few times when I forget to erase them before I cut – frustrating. *If you know an easier way to do this, please do share your tips and tricks!! So when you cut, your screen will just be the registration makes and the shapes or outline to be cut.

**UPDATED FEB 2014: I learned an easier and more correct way to do the above step. Rather than delete all the pictures or images (in this case, letters), you can leave them in place. What you need to do instead is click on the ‘OBJECT’ tab & then ‘CUT LINE SETTING’.

Then it will show you all the lines that the Silhouette will cut – they will be in thicker red. Since we are talking stickers, you obviously only want the outer edge cut (in this case the circles), so you click on the image you want on the sticker, then click ‘NO CUT’ on the right side toolbar. (I clicked on a bunch of the letters to show you how it will look…the letters are no longer outlined in the thicker red.) Do that to all your images/stickers & be sure to save so you can easily print then cut next time, without having to make any other changes. **You can even do that step before you copy and paste a bunch, then you only have to do it on a couple stickers.**

If all is set up correctly, the Silhouette should detect the registration makes and cut the stickers out perfectly (although very rarely, sometimes, for some reason, it just doesn’t work out for me…oh machines.)

[Mr. Yuk stickers for preschool –> Y = yuk]

Here are a few more of the stickers I’ve made:

[Valentine’s]

[bribes for potty training]

[Tooth stickers for teeth brushing chart]

[stickers for Girls on the Run snack]

I’ve done a bunch more, but those are just a few.

I keep a lot of the stickers I make for the boys in this notebook with a pouch on the front cover. It is always in the diaper bag and they usually only get it out during church. They love all the different kinds of stickers they get to use. I love that I don’t spend an arm and a leg for them!

Sticker Supplies:
*Silhouette (SD or Cameo)
*Sticker paper – HERE
*images/pictures you want as stickers
*printer (unless you want it solid white, ie: TEETH stickers above)

latest signs

Two more name signs that I sold. I love cutting these! In a design proof they look alright, but cutout they look (and are) awesome!

 [not the best picture quality to show how cool the finished product looks]

Tribute to Boston

I am running the Salt Lake City marathon this Saturday and because of the bombing at the Boston marathon I have some anxieties, but also more reason to run it. On facebook there is an event going around – Runners United to Remember – which is a virtual race to be completed anytime until May 5th. The SLC marathon will also be my virtual race. And in honor of Boston, I made this shirt for my marathon.

Thinking of Boston and all those affected by the tragic events on 4-15-13.

Shirt Details:

• Heat Transfer Vinyl (Spectra Eco-film - Cyan)
• Jerzees cotton/poly t-shirt (at Joanns on sale – Safety Green)
• Image – from Runners United to Remember
• Silhouette (reverse image, speed 9, thickness 4)

personalized story book

I’m a fan of books, especially for the kiddos. They love books with pictures of themselves so these personalized photo story books are the way to go. I recently made my fifth book for these boy and if they were cheaper I’d make them all the time! I only make them when they are on sale (as in FREE). Here is my most recent book:

I left out a few pages but you get the idea. They are just fun books. I mostly love looking at the pictures of my sweet boys!

These are the other books I’ve made:

*’The Z Zipped Up’ and ‘I love my dad’ are from Paper Coterie (free!) and the others are from Shutterfly (free or groupon deal).
Sign up for their emails and you get all the good deals!

 

 

FEATURED ON:

Rainy day fun – RICE (and wheat)

The whole family has been down and out this week. It started with a cold and then little B man and Grant got a bit of pink eye to go along with it. It has been cold outside and we didn’t want to spread it to anyone else, so we were in the house A LOT this week. That means some very antsy kiddos.

Little G man didn’t get hit as hard as the other two so he was constantly needing some entertainment. [Unfortunately] we watched a lot of movies and cartoons, but we also did some preschool activities and other random stuff. He begged for me to pull out the rice/wheat for him to play in it. Along with playing in the kitchen sink, this is one of his absolute favorite inside activities. 

Growing up, my mom had a couple large Tupperware containers filled with rice that we could play with. It really is fun, like playing in the sand at the beach. But it does make quite the mess with little kids. When little G man was really little, I made him do it on the floor on top of a huge plastic table cloth. That way I could just pick up the table cloth and dump all the spilled rice back into the container. He is getting a lot better now that he is older and knows how to keep it in the bowl and pan.

I let little B man join the fun the next time we pulled it out and resorted to the tablecloth on the floor. Surprisingly it works really well and they keep most of it on the tablecloth.

I did have to threaten little G man a few times, “Everything not on the tablecloth gets swept up and thrown away”. He did a pretty good job keeping it on the tablecloth, and even though he dumped ALL of it out on the tablecloth, it was really easy to clean up. The rest of it on the floor was swept up and thrown away.

I added wheat to the rice because we got A TON of bags full of red winter wheat a couple years ago from the local university ag research program that was giving it away. So I figured why not use that to play with (since we obviously aren’t using it to make whole wheat bread…that’s a lot of work!).

I just need to get some fun toys for him to play with when they’re digging in the rice/wheat, like THIS or THIS. Not many things keep these guys entertained for very long, but playing in the rice is definitely one that they loves when, especially when they are stuck inside.