HOW I MAKE MY STICKERSSSS! (Patreon)

Lemme show you how I make my stickers, besties! Come come!!

MATERIALS: 

• Waterproof Sticker Paper - $73.64

They sell smaller quantities of the sticker paper, don’t get overwhelmed by the price hehe I think they have like 25 and 10 pcs per pack

• iPad Pro 12.9 inch

• Holographic Transparent Overlay - $9.99

• Cricut Explore 3 - I think it’s like $299 when I bought it? Pricey, but it’s a great investment! I recommend buying the cheaper ones first! They also said silhouette is better but i’ve only had cricuts so i dont have much knowledge to compare the two.
  

• Cricut Mat

• HP officejet 8620 printer 

• Cutter

NOTES:

• MAKE SURE YOU CALIBRATE YOUR NEW CRICUT MACHINE! I probably wasted a whole pack of sticker paper before I found out that you need to calibrate it first! 
• Not recommending my HP 8620 printer hahaha I just got it free from my work and it’s heavy and bulky and probably pricey too but I can’t let it go because it still prints well. 
• I’m using a fine point blade in my cricut

STEPS STEPS STEPS: 

1. Make a simple sticker! (Canvas size: 8.5x11) The simpler the better for your first time! Complicated patterns will just get you frustrated if the cricut machine isn’t calibrated well yet.

For the white outlines, if you have a super simple shape, you can just maybe paint around your image with a clean brush, but if you have a more complicated shape… i’ll show you how I do it at the end of this post! Don’t want it to get too crowded right away lol 

Cricut also has an option to do this outlines stuff but… i haven’t explored it yet! 

NOTE! make sure you have clean edges!! 

2. Save your image (transparent background!) You can directly use the cricut app to print it and cut, but the ipad app has been shitty to me, so I do this extra step (which makes me extra suffer). After I save the image, I’ll upload it to my ipad cricut app and then open the cricut program in my desktop.

Here’s what the app looks like, there’s the calibration option on the side! Click Canvas: 

click UPLOAD, and that’s all my uploaded images from my ipad cricut app! Then choose the sticker you wanna make!

The max size my machine can handle is 6.75x9.25, can be bigger if you have a bigger (and more expensive) cricut cutter. So i’ll adjust it to that size and just click MAKE IT!

It will show you where to put the paper on the mat. It will also print this black border, that’s normal don’t worry, it’s just like how the machine detects the border hehe then CONTINUE

Send to Printer to Print your Sticker!

Put it on your cricut mat! (If you want a holographic overlay, you need to stick it on your sticker paper first before you put it on the mat.) 

With overlay:

Then it will ask you to choose what kind of base material you’re going to cut. You’ll need different settings for different kind of stickers you want to make. And it also depends on the sticker paper you’re using, so you just have to experiment. 

For my sticker paper, here are my settings:

This kind of Individual stickers: PRINTABLE STICKER PAPER (WHITE) - Pressure: MORE

Individual sticker but with holographic Overlay: HEAVY CARDSTOCK 100 lb, Pressure: MORE

Kiss Cut Stickers: WASHI SHEET, Pressure: default 

Now load your cricut mat, press the up and down arrows button

It will detect the borders first, and  when it stops, press the blinking right arrow button beside it.

and tadaaaa, stickers!

I’ll check if I have enough ”footage” hahah so I can make an exclusive reel for you guys! 

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Here’s how I do the white outlines for complicated shapes!

1. Duplicate layer. Select the bottom layer and turn on alpha lock.

2. Fill the layer with white, or any color you want for your outline.Turn off the alpha lock.

3. Duplicate the white layer.

4. Select the top white layer and then ADJUSTMENTS > GAUSSIAN BLUR, adjust it depending on how thick you want your outline. Higher blur = thicker outline.

5. Move the original white layer and the gaussian blurred white layer.

6. Click the select tool > AUTOMATIC. It will look like this, you should be able to see a transparent space around your image

7. Click INVERT and the outline should be blue!

8. Then go straight to brushes and find a clean brush (no textures!) You can see on the upper right that the select tool is still on! Don’t click on other stuff other than the brushes. 

9. Paint over your image, and it should only paint on the outline part!

10. You did it!! i did it we did it lets fucking goooo 

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That’s it besties!! I’d be super happy to help you guys if you ever buy your own cutting machine, i’ll share my lil knowledge of making stickerz hehe so just message me anytime!!! Even if you guys don’t stick around for next month, just dm me on instagram if you need any help, okayyy?