What to Do With Stickers: Fun Ways to Use Your Sticker Collection
If you're here, I'm sure you have a pile of stickers on your desk, in your drawers, saved in various "special places" or maybe even organized in your own sticker storage system. I suspect you'd like to use them but you've been saving them for the perfect spot or maybe you've just been collecting faster than you've been able to use them! (I'm guilty on both fronts)
But here's the thing about the perfect place for a sticker: it's wherever you decide to put it.
You don't have to wait for the perfect spot in a planner, journal or water bottle - somewhere "worthy" of the sticker. You're worthy of the sticker, no matter where it goes. Put it somewhere you will enjoy seeing it. Add one somewhere to bring a smile to someone else when they see it. Cover up something boring! You can use the good stickers!
Once you let go of it needing to be perfect, there are lots of ways to use stickers. Here are some fun ways that I've used mine.
Start with what you already use
The easiest way to start using your stickers is to incorporate them into things you're already doing. You don't need a special project.
Decorate your planner
Monthly, weekly or daily planner spreads are an easy spot to place a sticker (or ten). Fill up the margins, mark important dates, decorate around your plans or just add something fun to an otherwise ordinary day.
Try a Sticker A Day challenge
Choose one sticker every day and add it to your planner, calendar or journal. At the end of the month, you'll have a super fun page and you'll have used 30 stickers! I find this is a great place to start, because sticking only one sticker a day is not a huge commitment, if you're having a hard time getting started. If you need help getting started with this kind of challenge, follow along with us in our Sticker Challenge Calendar - a free printable download.
Add them to your journal or diary
Stickers can be a fun little accent, tucked in your writing or the whole focus of a page. I like to pick one sticker I love (the biggest one first!) and then build the page around it. Sometimes I'll build a little scene with them or just fill up a blank spot (or use it to cover something up).
Use stickers for memory keeping
Add stickers to scrapbook pages, photo albums, travel journals or anywhere you record your memories. I like to add them to photo albums but maybe I'm the only one left creating a printed photo album these days!
Make boring stuff more fun
Grocery lists, to do lists, work notes, school notes, chore lists. They don't "need" stickers, but they're certainly more fun. I don't think anything makes actually cleaning the bathroom better but a pretty sticker on the page when I check it off cheers me up for sure.
Decorate your happy mail
I like to add stickers to birthday cards, postcards and every single envelope that leaves our house! Use one as a little finishing touch, cover the entire page or my fave is to create a row of stickers on the bottom front and/or cover the envelope flap on the back.
Sticker bomb something
Pick a page, any page, and absolutely cover it in stickers. Choose a theme, a colour or whatever you have on your desk to cover the entire surface. The big debate - to overlap or not overlap? I've done both and my comment is: overlapping is faster, so you get that satisfying completely-covered look much faster but not overlapping means you can see each and every sticker in full.
Take them off the page
Once I started using my good stickers, I realized there was no good reason for them to stay *only* on my pages. Stickers stick to all kinds of things and can create tons of unexpected fun.
Decorate gifts and packaging
Make your own wrapping paper by using simple Kraft paper to wrap the box and then covering it in stickers. If that's too maximalist for you, use one as a finishing touch with your tissue paper or by decorating just one corner or side of the package.
Sticker bomb your every day items
Water bottles, storage bins, pencil cases, clipboards and laptops are all fair game. Add a few faves or keep going until you can't see what's underneath. I love to do this to give something older new life. I even covered a garbage can with stickers, which is probably the most talked about sticker item in my office.
Make your storage more fun
Cover any box, bin or container that's hanging about. They don't need to look ordinary, even if they hold ordinary things! I especially like to do this with photo storage boxes or plastic storage in not my fave colours.
Decorate for the season
Stickers don't have to be permanent. I've covered an entire pumpkin in stickers which was a really fun way to use a whole bunch of seasonal stickers at once.
Put them somewhere unexpected
Use bandaid stickers to "treat" dolls in pretend play, add faces or accessories to toys or use stickers as props in whatever you're making or playing. Sometimes the most fun use for a sticker is one that has absolutely nothing to do with planners, journals or crafts. One of our best sticker memories was covering our faces with stickers and snapping some photos. It was silly, fun and definitely a forever memory!
Once you start looking beyond the page, you'll start to see lots of new places you could put your stickers. Not everything needs a sticker but really a lot of things are improved by one!
Remember, there are no rules for using stickers. If it makes you happy, stick that sticker!