Stickers have the advantage of longer shelf life for a low one-time cost. Once you are able to print a sticker and paste it on your door or on your car, the sticker does not incur a monthly fee. Rather it would keep passing the message until you decide to do away with it or the print fades. Stickers mostly consist of graphics and are among the most versatile and cost-effective ways of getting your message out.
If you decide to print your own stickers at home, you will not only be saving the cost of buying stickers. You will also have the ability to customize your own designs while printing out exactly how many you want. You will not be needing a special sticker printer since you can use a regular inkjet printer. However, you will need to plan in order to avoid wasting ink or inkjet sticker paper. Let’s say you plan to print several hundred stickers on an inkjet printer, you have to check your printer’s documentation. This will help you see how many cartridges it will take. This is because the cost of ink may make printing on your own more expensive instead of buying one online.
Let’s see the process of printing a sticker on a home printer.
- Start by purchasing sticker paper. You have to get some quality inkjet sticker paper to print regular stickers. You can get access to this paper online or at most office supply stores. These are letter-sized sheets, which are usually sold in packs of 50. Alternatively, you can go for special sticker paper for printing vinyl stickers at home.
- Then start designing your sticker. You can design your sticker on any app you’re most familiar with. Also, You can use a photo editing app like Photoshop or GIMP, a word processor like Microsoft Word, or use any other software which enables you to write text and add images, like Microsoft PowerPoint. You can use a standard letter-sized document size. If you want to make several stickers, then you have to maximize your use of paper. Do this by arranging them on a single page, while making sure there is enough space between each sticker to cut each one out. Sticker templates can also be gotten online from sticker paper manufacturers.
- You have to watch out for sticker colors. Examine the colors used in your sticker design. Using heavy colors can take a toll on an inkjet printer’s ink supply. For example, if your design is mostly green, the green ink may run out if you are printing dozens of stickers.
- Print a test page first using a plain piece of paper to ensure your printer gives you the quality you want. Inkjet stickers may cost around 20 cents per sheet, as such it is a good idea to use inexpensive plain paper until you are certain your design comes out like you want it to. Where you are not sure which side is up and which is down, you can make a mark on one side of the paper before inserting it into the printer. When the first print is out, look at the mark to know which way to put the sticker paper in.
- Then insert a single sheet of sticker paper into the printer. For those who have a printer with a separate single-page feeder, use that. Otherwise you can place one sheet in its regular paper feed. This is because it’s thicker than regular paper. Note also that sticker paper may get stuck in the printer if you try to feed more than one sheet at a time. Ensure the sticker paper is completely flat without any bends or wrinkles. Note also that a bent corner on a piece of sticker paper can cause it to get stuck in the printer’s rollers.
- Allow the stickers to dry out after you have removed the printed page from the printer without touching any ink on its surface. Set the print on a flat surface to dry, this is because the heavy concentration of ink used in graphics can take several minutes to dry.
- Then cut the stickers out using a paper cutter if you have access to any. Or, you can use a pair of sharp scissors. Once you are ready to attach a sticker to something, just peel the backing from the corner just like you would with a store-bought sticker.
