Because there is such a demand for personalized stickers

Making Stickers with A Printer

In recent years, making stickers with a home printer has become very easy. For stickers that will have any kind of workplace or promotional use, using a printer is the method to choose. The resulting stickers will look cleanly designed, and the same image can be reproduced as many times as needed. Available in packs of sheets cut to the proper size, sticker paper passes through the printer as easily as copy paper. Once the sheet of images prints, it is cut into individual stickers. Sticker paper works in either inkjet or laser printers. Each has its advantages.

Ink-Jet Printers

Inkjet printers can inexpensively produce stickers that look professional and uniform. Yet the ink is not waterproof, and will run when exposed to moisture. Neither does inkjet ink hold up well when exposed to the sun. Ideally, stickers made on inkjet printers will be kept safe from the elements.

To make inkjet-printed stickers that stay fast around water, transfer the page to sticker paper in a color copier. The photocopy, produced with a laser or LED printer, will be more stable than the original.

Laser Printers

While color laser printers are becoming increasingly popular, they tend to produce a more limited range of colors than do inkjet printers. However, their inks will not fade in the sun or run in the rain. For stickers heavy on text or including only a few colors, a laser printer is a good choice.

Contact Paper for Stickers

The idea of printing on relatively inexpensive contact paper is an appealing one. Unlike sticker paper, however, the surface of contact paper will not accept inkjet ink. The printed image will appear, but it will not be permanently fixed, and it will smudge. Printing on contact paper with a laser printer, however, is possible.

Making Stickers by Hand

While contact paper will not work for inkjet printers, it is perfect for making handmade stickers. These stickers look less commercial than printed stickers, yet they offer more scope for expression. Making stickers by hand has long been a favorite project with children, who like that the finished product is something they can use.

Homemade stickers can simply be permanent marker drawings on contact paper. Permanent markers, once limited to just a few colors, now come in such a variety that they can make stickers as bright and vivid as any printer. Another possibility, one that produces a series of nearly identical images, is to use a stamp with a permanent ink pad. The stamped image can then be further decorated, either colored in or traced, with marker.