Personal planners have been popular for quite some time. While the evolution of the internet and various software has meant that organizer planners haven’t been as common as they once were, they’re still well-used across the world.
A lot of this is because they can have quite a significant amount of customization, with this coming in the form of planner stickers. However, buying them from a store can often be much more expensive than many of us would like.
This shouldn’t mean that you’ll have to choose between paying a lot of money for them or not having any. Instead, there’s also the option of making your own. While this might be an attractive choice for many of us, many might not know how to make planner stickers.
Though you might think that this will be quite tricky, it doesn’t have to be. Instead, there are a few simple and easy ways to make these stickers at home. Chances are you might already have many of the things that you need to do so.
There can also be a few notable benefits to making them at home, aside from saving a certain amount of money. Notable among these is that you’ll be able to customize them for your personal style and planner. This could help to make it a much more appealing option.
To take advantage of this, there are a few simple things that you can do to make your homemade planner stickers.
What You Need To Make Your Own Planner Stickers
Before you learn how to make stickers at home, you’ll first need to know what’s required to make them. While there can be a variety of things that can be suggested, there are a few that are much more essential than others.
Though you might have a few of these at home already, there’s a chance that you’ll need to pick up a few additional items. There are several specific things that you’ll need to have, including:
Planner Sticker Paper:
Naturally, you’re going to need something to print your stickers on. This is an aspect that many people may overlook, as they often think that regular paper will suffice.
However, this makes the process more complicated, as you’ll then need to find a way to stick it to your planner, among other things. Getting planner sticker paper avoids this, as you’ll be able to print onto it and then stick the designs onto your planner.
A Printer With Ink:
This is one of the more obvious things that you’ll need, with there being a significant chance that you already have one. If you don’t, however, then you shouldn’t need to worry too much.
While many of us will often want to try find the best printer for stickers, you shouldn’t need to buy an expensive one.
Instead, the majority of printers should work well, although you’ll need to make sure that you’re using high-quality ink.
A Word Processor or Photo Editing Software:
These will be essential when figuring out how to design planner stickers, as you might not be able to do so without one.
While it’s typically recommended that you get a photo editing software, such as PhotoShop or something similar, you might be able to make do with a Word processor. However, you’ll need to make sure that it has a certain amount of design capabilities and that you can use it for your stickers.
A Cutting Tool:
You’ll also need a cutting tool for once you’ve printed your sticker and want to attach it to your planner.
While you might be able to do this with a knife of scissors, these could be somewhat less effective than you might want.
Instead, it’s recommended that you choose a more high-quality cutting machine. Though these can cost more than you might want, they should help you make much more professional looking planner stickers.
Images:
Naturally, you’ll need a variety of images to create your stickers with. There’s a variety of images that you’ll be able to find online, many of which should be free. Depending on what your needs are, you can also look for pixel art, which could be more appealing than actual photos.
Alongside this, you might want to design your own images for your planner stickers, although this will require specific software and a certain amount of skills and knowledge to do properly.
Fonts:
Fonts are one of the more overlooked parts of making planner stickers, although they could be vital.
Depending on which software you’re using, you should be able to choose from a variety of these as standard. However, there’s also a large number of them that you can download from online sources.
When you’re doing so, you should also make sure that they’re compatible with the software you’re using. This should help you to customize your planner stickers much more effectively. After you’ve gotten all of the above, you should be ready to start making planner stickers.
While what to do next might be somewhat obvious to a few people, many of us will struggle with how to make homemade stickers, regardless of whether we’ve got everything we need.
Thankfully, designing and printing them should be quite easy.
How To Make Homemade Stickers
Many of us might struggle with figuring out how to design planner stickers. However, this should take much less time and effort than you may have initially thought. Typically, getting all of the required materials together can be the more time-consuming part of the process.
Once you’ve gotten this done, determining how to print planner stickers is quite easy. There are a few specific steps that you’ll have to take when doing so. However, much of this could depend on whether you’re using a Word processor or photo editing software.
While using a photo editor or design software will offer a few extra benefits during the process, these can often be more expensive than you might want. As such, many of us might want to avoid getting them, as they might not be worth the money.
This is true if you’re only planning on designing and printing a few planner stickers and not much else. As such, it can be more cost-effective to use a Word processor. There are a variety of free or affordable options to choose from, which should mean that they’ll be more appealing.
As such, a lot of this will focus on how to create printable planner stickers with a Word processor. However, much of this should also apply if you’re using photo editing software, though there’ll be a few minor differences.
Get Your Images
Choosing the images that you’ll be using for your planner stickers is the natural first step for many of us. There are a significant number of sites to choose from when looking for these images, so you shouldn’t have much of a problem finding them.
Typically, these websites will have a download button for the images, so getting them should be quite traightforward. Alternatively, you’ll be able to use the ‘save image as’ function on your computer to download them. Before you do so, however, you’ll need to make sure that you’re allowed to use them.
While many image sites will give you free access to these images, others wouldn’t. Occasionally, you’ll come across ones that you’ll have to pay for. If this isn’t something that you want to do, then you might want to consider finding another image that you can use. This should also apply to any specific fonts that you might want to use.
Setup Your Page
Setting up the page for your stickers can be the more complicated part of designing and printing planner stickers.
With a Word document, this should be relatively easy to do and should only take a few seconds. Typically, it’s suggested that you set the margins of the page to half an inch.
This will make sure that you’re able to use as much of the page as possible but without risking any ink bleeding during the printing process. Y
ou should be able to do this by navigating to the ‘Layout’ section of Word before going to ‘Margins’ and then choosing ‘Narrow .5″.’
This could be slightly different in older versions of Word, although the setting can typically be found under the ‘Page Setup’ or ‘File Menu’ section. Once you’ve done this, your page should be ready for you to start designing.
Insert Your Images & Font
Now you’ll need to start adding any images and fonts that you’ll want to use in your stickers. When you gathered the images that you’ll be using, these should have been saved in an area that’s easy to access. This should make things quicker and easier when you’re designing the stickers.
To add them to your page, you’ll need to click on the ‘Insert’ menu before choosing to add a photo. This is usually done through the ‘Add Photo From File’ option.
Once you’re prompted, you should then pick any image that you want to use in your stickers. You’ll need to repeat this process with any other images that you’ll be using.
The fonts you’re using should be relatively easy to choose from. In most cases, you may be using one that already comes with Word. If this is the case, then it’s simply a matter of picking this font from the appropriate drop-down menu.
If you’re using one that you’ve downloaded, then you’ll need to add this to Word before you can use it.
Resize & Rearrange
The next step is to resize and rearrange the images that you’ll be using. This can vary drastically, depending on how exactly they’ll be used in your planner. For example, some of us might want to have a sticker that’s relatively small, though you could also choose one that’s quite large.
This should mean that you should resize it to whatever your needs are. Word should tell you the size of the images when they’ll be printed, which should be helpful.
If you’re having trouble with this, you could also click on the ‘View’ menu and then click ‘Add Rulers.’ This should add more detailed measurements to the page, which should be useful.
Put The Sticker Paper Into Your Printer & Print
Once you’ve got your page designed to the point that you like your stickers, then it’s time to print it. As such, you should place the sticker paper into the printer. While this is obvious, it could be easy to make a mistake with it.
This is because which way the sticker paper should be put in can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. As such, you’ll need to follow any instructions that come with the paper. As a rule of thumb, you’ll need to make sure that the ‘sticker’ side of the paper is facing the right way.
Once you’ve done this, it’s time to print.
Cut Out Your Sticker & Start Having Fun
Now that you’ve printed out your homemade sticker, it’s time to start having fun. The first step in this is to cut it out to an appropriate size and get rid of any unwanted bits of paper. Once you’ve done this, you’ll be able to start having fun and adding it to your planner.
Conclusion
Learning how to make planner stickers doesn’t have to take as much time as you may have imagined. By following each of the above steps, you should be able to make quite a large number of them in almost no time.
While you might still have to put a certain amount of energy and time into it, it should provide a variety of advantages. Naturally, the most obvious is that you could save quite a large amount of money by making them at home.
Alongside this is the extra customization that you should be able to see. This could prove to be the more important reason for making planner stickers at home. The majority of this is seen in your being able to design whatever stickers you want for your planner. This could mean that the only limit is your imagination.
As such, what’s stopping you from making your own homemade planner stickers?