DIY Lick-and-Stick Stickers

What’s more fun than stickers??? Making your own lick-and-stick stickers–that’s what! It’s super easy…all you need is some clip art (or magazine cutouts), boiling water, and a box of Jello. And it is TONS cheaper than buying stickers at the store! I used the directions here to create the “adhesive” for the back of the penguin clip-art I printed out and we had so much fun licking and sticking them to our hearts content. This will definitely be an activity we’ll do again and again! I am envisioning letter stickers, number stickers, farm animal stickers, dinosaur stickers…the possibilities are endless!

Here’s what you’ll need:  clip-art printed on cardstock (you can download the penguin clipart we used here), 1 T. Jello, 2 T. boiling water, and a paintbrush.

1. Boil a small amount of water. You’ll only need 2 tablespoons for one “batch” of adhesive. Obviously, this is not a step that your child should help with!

2. Mix 1 tablespoon Jello with 2 tablespoons of (boiled) water.

3. Let it cool for just a minute or so and then let your child “paint” it onto the back of your paper printed with clipart.

4. Let it dry for a couple hours until it is no longer wet or sticky to the touch.

5. Cut out the individual stickers.

6. When ready to use, let your little one lick the back of the sticker and stick it on! They happen to taste rather delightful! And they really do adhere well. They will slide a little right at first while still “wet” but once they are dry…they’re stuck for good!
We practiced one-to-one correspondence and number recognition with our penguin stickers today! The possibilities are endless!

Enjoy creating these fun and frugal stickers with your child!

21 Comments

  1. We tried this once with a little bit different recipe. I made up a big batch and thought I'd save what we didn't use in a sealed jar. I didn't even think about it and it set up in the jar. We used cut pictures from magazines for our stickers.

  2. Awesome idea. Always mean to put sticker paper on my list. But this is so much more fun and I have 3 boxes of Jello in my pantry right now. Thanks my kids are going to love this.

  3. What a great idea. My daughter LOVES stickers and I think I have some jello in the cabinet. I think she's going to love this. We just got a seed catalog that has tons of pictures of fruits and veggies, so maybe we'll do some food recognition and writing today. Thanks!

  4. This was such a big hit with my little girl! She was just asking for more stickers to make a sticker scrapbook, and then I read about this activity. We drew our own stickers (hearts for Valentines day, 3 pages to be exact). She LOVED it. I see a lot more sticker making in our future!

  5. Great idea! I did this with my two and three year old. I wish I would have made a sample up ahead of time. They have never used stickers that you have to lick! My three year old was confused and adamant that stickers don't go in your mouth. My two year old actually cried at one point. However, once they saw the finished product, they were very excited. We will be doing this again.

  6. What a great idea- can't wait to try it! You are amazing and so inspiring… just found your blog through Oopsey Daisy… I put your link on my blog!

  7. I used this recipe with my pre-k class and they loved it! I used kids wrapping paper and it had lots of designs to cut out.

  8. This is such a great (and delicious idea)! I've got everything on hand and this will be a fun and easy snow day activity at my house :-)I came over from ABCand123 and am so glad to have found your blog…lots of ideas to bookmark here!

  9. My daughter and I did this today. We made Chucky Cheese, care bear, princess and My Little Pony stickers (all her choices of course). It was a fun activity. The only change I made was using a silicon kitchen brush as our paint brush. It worked great, cleaned up well and I didn't have to worry about what dirt might be in the brush.

    When I was in 1st grade, we made jello pictures. We painted a picture with water and then sprinkled jello powder on top. We let the pictures dry and then later could "eat" our pictures. I always loved that project and used to use it babysitting as well.

  10. Whoops, I was doing this from memory and just came to get the jello recipe…. but I've already cut them out. I guess I'm in for a messier craft than otherwise intended. Maybe we'll just glue them this time :)

    1. We didn’t have any problems with them…but then again, we’ve only made them in the winter. :) I would think if you kept them in a plastic baggie it should be okay.

  11. Love this idea. Will have to figure out how to make it without artificial food coloring, which we avoid in this house. Thanks, as always, for the inspiration, though!

  12. Love this idea! just made stickers for about 150 kids for a Kids event tomorrow! Cherry flavored and sugar free! Thanks!!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *