How I Design and Create My Own Stickers
It feels right that my first blog entry on this site is going to be about how I design and create my stickers, starting with my reasoning behind creating my own stickers and moving on to getting my designs print and cut ready.
Equipment + Materials
Cricut Explore Air 2
Printer - (I use a Canon TR4520)
Canon PG-243/CL-244 Ink Multi Pack (per my printer)
Sticker Paper (Printable Vinyl Sticker Paper, Matte White, Self-Adhesive Sheets, Waterproof Decal Paper)
Drawing Tablet or Computer + required software/programs (I use the Procreate app on my iPad [and have used Adobe Draw in the past], and transfer the drawings to my laptop and format them for print using Adobe Illustrator; another program that is widely used is Adobe Photoshop)
Turning my digital work into physical products like stickers, greeting cards or prints has been something of interest to me for a while. There are many sites that allow artists to upload and sell their art on their platform, where the site acts as the manufacturer and handles the creation of the physical product and shipping. Typically on sites like these, the site takes a percentage of the profit, as they rightfully should as they're doing a large portion of the work. One of these sites is Society6, which I have signed up for and do have designs uploaded to (and this post is in no way affiliated with any such site). The products offered range from mini prints to small acrylic boxes or larger items like yoga mats or wall clocks and shower curtains, items I'd likely never manufacture on my own, which for me is part of the appeal. I haven't seen many sales from this platform, but I credit that mostly to my lack of advertising/promotion paired with my low reach. Anyways, my point in explaining this ties back to being in control of the physical product. With sites like Society6 or Redbubble, it's common that the artist doesn't get to see the physical product of their work for quite some time. The desire to have a physical product to have on hand for promotional purposes and the enjoyment of creating my own product, turning my digital work into a physical product are the main reasons I just went ahead and decided to make the move and set up a sticker shop of my own. I'm also impulsive, so there's that, too.
I had a library of drawings/illustrations ready and done, as I started drawing and creating designs before I had the idea or means to create and produce my own stickers. I went through my already created ideas and selected which ones performed well on social media (shout out to Instagram analytics) and which ones I already had in mind to turn into stickers and transferred the designs to my laptop, my program of choice being Adobe Illustrator. I'm by no means saying my method is the superior method, or that it's even the most technically correct, so please keep that in mind. I send the png file from Procreate to my laptop (and use the Image Trace feature). Once my design is expanded, I create an offset path (white, but the color is up to your preference/style) which becomes the background of the sticker. My document is 8.5"x11" because that is what size sticker paper I have to print on, which may vary at some point, and I adjust my design to the height and width I think the sticker should be and then duplicate the design and arrange them to fit as many designs onto one page. Usually I can fit anywhere from 6-11 designs per page, depending on the size of each. Don't be afraid to rotate the designs and arrange them in a non-linear fashion, but try not to get too crazy or too close together - especially if you will be cutting them yourself.
An example of one of my sticker sheets after I have transferred and formatted a design. I work with two layers showing; a plain beige layer underneath (so I can see the white background and not overlap my designs) and I have the layer with the cookie designs on top. The bottom layer gets turned off when I export the design as a PNG to create a transparent background.
There's plenty of tutorials on Cricut use out there that do a much better job than I can explaining much more than I even know yet so I'm not going to go into too much detail here. Although, I am going to share two of the biggest things I have found to be the most helpful nuggets I wish I had known right off the bat, which would have saved me some frustration and sheets of paper lost to trial and error. When cutting your stickers, if you want to cut out the design in full, meaning you're not trying to make a sticker sheet and keep the designs all together (see my Thank You sticker sheet below as an example), you want a stand alone sticker without having to do more cutting (see the below image of the single sticker), change your dial to 'Custom' and choose Kraftboard. If you're wanting to create a full sticker sheet, using the 'Paper' dial setting will not cut through the paper in full (at least, this has been how I do this - will vary by material usage), and will create a sticker sheet with multiple stickers that can be peeled off whenever.
(HUGE shout out to my girl gang of amazing artists @loolookazoo, @lexcelesteshop, @prismaticstickers and @disco.stickers in helping me navigate the world of creating your own stickers and offering their advice along the way, which is where this tip came from. Highly recommend checking out their pages and shops for some amazing stickers and art merch!)
Which brings us to the second useful thing I figured out through trial and error and help videos. When using the Cricut, you stick your paper on a sticky mat which guides it through the machine and allows the tool (blade, pen, whatever you're using) to perform what it needs to on a solid surface. Since the mat is sticky, and you're using paper to create your product, you guessed it, your paper is going to stick to the mat and you're going to have to peel them apart. To separate your sticker sheet from the mat, flip them over so your stickers are face down and bend and peel the MAT off of your paper, instead of trying to lift your paper off the mat, which will allow your stickers to remain flat and uncurled. Search a video on YouTube for more info on this.
Now that you have your stickers formatted, printed and cut, depending on the paper you use and the end result you're wanting to achieve, you could be done. Since I print my stickers on a matte paper, I have a UV-Resistant Clear Gloss aerosol spray I coat my stickers with to give them a finishing touch. I have an order of Holographic sticker paper on its way, though, and for those I likely won't be using the spray as it won't be necessary or relevant given the different product type.
And there you have it folks! Short and simple, followed by an abrupt ending. If you found anything I said helpful or interesting, let me know!
