Upcycle Photographs into Stickers: Three Methods That Really Work

 

I first published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

Upcycle your old print photographs into stickers, and you’ll unlock a whole new way to display and enjoy those magical memories!

I don’t do a lot of crafting with print photos anymore, so I was a bit dismayed recently when I found a huge stack of 4″x6″ photos leftover from my scrapbooking days. Gotta clean out my closets more often, I guess!

I recognized all these photos as ones that I have digital copies of (I’m still not ready to talk about The Terrible Hard Drive Erasure of 2017…), so I could have just tossed them all into the recycling. But yikes, how wasteful would that be?!?

Mind you, I have no problem tossing stuff that I truly want to toss, but Past Julie clearly spent time and money on this photo order, and all the photos are of my adorable babies, now almost all grown up, and our fun traveling adventures. As far as I know the Jedi Training Academy no longer even exists at Walt Disney World, so that photo of my tiny padawan winning a light saber battle against Darth Vader himself deserves a fate much more exciting than the recycling bin!

Also, there is genuine terror in her eyes in that photo, and I laugh every time I look at it. Kid was pretty sure she was fighting for her life up there!

I have fun crafting plans for most of these surprise photos, the first of which is stickers!

Here are three easy methods for upcycling print photos (and book pages, wrapping paper… just about any paper works for this!) into stickers, along with the pros and cons of each method.

Method 1: Adhere a photo to an existing sticker.

Pros: Quick, materials are easy to obtain.

Con: Stickers are low-tack.

If you’ve got a sheet of printer labels on hand, you can have your own photo stickers ready to go in minutes.

These stickers will be pretty low-tack, so cutting the photos down a bit will reduce their weight.

Use an excellent white glue, like Aleene’s Tacky Glue, to adhere the photos to the front of the label sheet. Let the glue dry, then cut out the photo stickers.

Glossy photos don’t make the best stickers right out of the gate because of how easily they show smudges. To solve this, laminate the front of each photo by sticking a piece of clear tape to it.

Fair warning: I, personally, am MISERABLE at jobs like this. One of my teenagers even installs all my screen protectors for me because she can’t stand looking at the state of my phone screen, all bubbles and trapped lint, when I do it myself. I had to cut down that photo above right because I somehow managed to trap a giant cat hair under the tape, sigh. So be super careful with your own tape lamination!

Method 2: Paint the back with Aleene’s Tack it Over and Over Again glue.

Pros: Most eco-friendly, least use of additional materials, stickers are repositionable.

Cons: Most time-consuming method, requires a specialty supply.

This is my favorite way to make stickers. It’s super easy, and I used to do this to make re-usable stickers for my kids from old book pages, toy catalogues, and our drawings all the time–tbh, I think the bottle I used for these stickers is the same bottle I was using way back then!

To make these re-usable stickers, cut your photo to size, then coat the back with a VERY thin coat of Aleene’s Tack It Over And Over Again glue. I like to do this on top of parchment paper, so I can brush excess glue off the edges of the photos and onto the paper:

Let these photo stickers dry for about 24 hours, then peel them off the parchment paper. Even though they are repositionable, I like to stick them to wax paper to store them.

Method 3: Use a store-bought sticker maker.

Pros: Makes the highest-quality stickers by far.

Cons: Most expensive, least eco-friendly.

I wouldn’t buy one of these for myself, but I do use the snot out of the Xyron Creative Station Lite that I bought for my kid back when she was a tween. She creates a lot of art, and I thought that she might like to make stickers and magnets out of her own little art pieces… and she does!

But yikes, this machine is made entirely of plastic, and each cartridge is made from more plastic. Please feel free to spam me with suggestions for more eco-friendly models!

I will say, though, that the stickers this machine makes are WONDERFUL, easily equivalent to good store-bought stickers. We’ve worked with materials as thick as food packaging cardboard, and the stickers always come out well. This cartridge even laminates the top of the sticker, so glossy photos remain smudge-free.

Ugh for all that plastic, though!

I wasn’t excited to find these photos in the back of a closet, true, but I have to say that I am excited to have a fun little way to display some of them! It definitely brings a bit of magic into my daily grind to catch a glimpse of a happy memory and a sweet kid or two.

P.S. Want to follow along with my unfinished craft projects, books I'm reading, cute photos of the cats, high school chemistry labs, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Make Magnets from Any Paper: My Three Favorite Methods

 

This tutorial was originally published on Crafting a Green World.

Magnets are a fun and easy way to show off your tiniest art, upcycle your favorite photographs, or display comic book panels, sweet love notes, or pretty papers of all kinds.

I am sooo glad that “cluttercore” is now a thing, because just between us, it’s always been *my* thing. A bare wall or surface is nothing but a spot that I haven’t put something cute yet!

To my endless irritation, my refrigerator isn’t magnetic, but I’ve made up for it by DIYing a giant magnetic wall in the kitchen, and a smaller one in the family room. I love displaying all the greeting cards, A+ schoolwork, concert tickets, and assorted other tchotchkes that one generally puts on a magnet board, but to be honest, my favorite things to display are the magnets, themselves!

Magnets are a great way to upcycle all kinds of cute little things that you’d love to have on display but that are too wee for mounting and framing. I love making all my special little mementos, from postcards to greeting card sentiments to Instamax photos to fortune cookie fortunes into magnets, so I can enjoy looking at them while they hold up other stuff I enjoy looking at–it’s cluttercore at its most decadent, lol!

Here are my favorite ways to DIY magnets from any paper!

Method #1: Mat Board and a Button Magnet

For this method, you will need:

• paper to display
• adhesive (archival glue or double-sided tape, AND E6000 or similar epoxy glue)
• mat board or book board
• button magnet
• ruler, craft knife, scissors

Cut roughly around your image, leaving a border that you can trim to size later. Then, use archival-quality glue or double-sided tape to adhere your image to the back side (not the pretty colored side, unless you want to chance the color being visible through the front of your art!) of mat board.

Use a ruler (a metal one is better than the beat-up plastic one I’m using in the photo below) and craft knife to trim the image and its mat board backing to size:

To seal the front of the image, I like to either laminate it in packing tape or cover it in Diamond Glaze or several coats of Mod Podge. Here, I used packing tape:

Any other fans of My Life as a Background Slytherin out there?

Use E6000 or a similar epoxy glue to adhere a button magnet to the back of the mat board. You can also add additional embellishments like gems and stickers to the front, Sharpie the edges, poke holes at the bottom and add tassels, and do whatever else you can think of to pretty up your magnet further!

Method #2: Sticker/Magnet Maker

For this method you will need:

• paper to display
• Xyron Creative Station Lite or similar machine, with a magnet+laminate cartridge installed
• scissors

If you’ve got (or can borrow!) a store-bought sticker/magnet maker, it makes creating magnets from your own papers SUPER easy.

I own this specific Xyron sticker/magnet maker, but I’ve also got teenagers and their friends who all use the snot out of it, so it gets a lot of use. If you don’t want to buy a whole entire one all for yourself, it’s worth checking out your public library’s DIY or teen space or asking your local Buy Nothing group for one to borrow.

To use a machine like this, you feed your paper into it and let it add adhesive magnet sheeting to the back and laminate the front:

The laminating is especially nice for papers that are glossy or ink that’s water-soluble. Kid art made with washable markers can be so delicate! It’s also an easy way to make a magnet out of an entire photo for display on my gigantic magnet boards.

Method #3: Adhesive Magnet Sheets

For this method, you will need:

• paper to display
• adhesive magnet sheets
• scissors

This method is best for papers that don’t need lamination, Diamond Glaze, or Mod Podge. I like it for my comic panels and my collection of vintage space-themed stamps, but basically anything commercially printed or printed on a laser printer could get away without lamination.

To make these magnets, roughly cut around your image, stick it to the adhesive side of an adhesive magnet sheet, then trim it to size.

Crafting this magnets is a fun kid project, especially for tweens and teens. Give them lots of magazines to cut from, plenty of adhesive magnet sheets, and let them have at it! The finished magnets make sweet handmade gifts for friends and family.

Pro tip: these easy magnets are awesome for the front of a college student’s mini fridge!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, road trips, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

DIY Washi Tape with Upcycled Materials and Simmering Holiday Resentment

 I ran out of washi tape this week, smack in the middle of trying to get out a bunch of Pumpkin+Bear orders (all of which are packaged using washi tape!).

I really didn't want to go out and face the post-Thanksgiving shopping hordes just so each of my packages can contain its customary three inches of washi tape, and also I'm very much deep in the Consumerist Pit of Despair at the moment, fueled by having done almost all my holiday shopping and OH MY GOD WHY DO THINGS COST MONEY?!?

And then I remembered "Syd's" sticker maker...

In the photo below I've got a wallpaper sample, comic book page, and scrapbook paper, and Syd's Xyron has the Permanent Adhesive cartridge installed:

I squared up each piece, then cut them into quarter-inch strips:

It actually made a lot!

I'm currently storing them in a binder clip tacked to my study wall, and I'm very curious to see how long they last before I get to try out some new papers:

I've just noticed all the washi tape of years past on that wall, lol!

Alas, I finished packaging all my Pumpkin+Bear orders before I had the idea to upcycle ephemera into washi tape (but do not be sad, because I used my favorite measuring tape tape to package my orders, instead), so I couldn't test drive my brand-new washi tape on the packages.

Fortunately, that Pit of Consumerist Despair that I'm wallowing in DOES mean that I've got another very important use for DIY washi tape!

Also, Matt committed my #1 Co-Parent Gift-Giving Foul: when I thoughtfully informed him of the latest Christmas gift that I selected and purchased and wrapped for our children (the one in this photo, actually!), his response was NOT "Thank you so much for this burden of emotional labor that you are lifting, and for the magical memories you are ensuring for our precious children. I've also been thinking about what gifts the kids would like, and my contributions will be wrapped and ready for the tree soon, with their recipients and dollar amounts recorded in the Excel spreadsheet so we can make sure we're under budget."

Nope, instead he wrinkled his nose and replied, "Where are we going to put THAT?!?" He insists that this question, asked whenever I come home with any object, whether it's a refrigerator box or a roll of washi tape, is asked purely for informational purposes, but you and I both know the truth. You and I also both know that from now on, there's only one person in the house who's going to know the contents of 99.9999999% of the Christmas gifts under the tree this year and Matt can be just as surprised as the kids to see the presents that they open.

And THEN he can figure out where we're going to put them!