I am so excited to share this tutorial with you! I recently discovered that I could make stickers using my Silhouette (I’m sure you can do the Cricut as well). I’ve been trying to up my planner game, and wanted to make it a bit more fun with stickers. I have also been having fun water coloring, so I decided to make some simple dot stickers using my own water color. In this tutorial I show you how to make DIY watercolor stickers with the Silhouette. You could use this method to create stickers from any type of art you do.
Here are the step by step directions written out. If you like video instructions you can head to my YouTube channel or check out the embedder video below.
Open file in Silhouette
To start you need to scan the art you will be using to make your stickers with. Then open that file within Silhouette studio. You could also create your own graphic in Silohuette (or another program).
Create your sticker shape
Next up create the shape you want your stickers to be. I used the “drawing tool” (it’s the one highlighted in blue on the left of the screen) and made a circle (you can see it in red). But you could play around with other shapes, or even make up your own if you want.
Put shape where you want it
Move that circle onto the area you want to create the sticker with. For this tutorial I’m create just one sticker, so I’m only putting a circle on one of my dots. You could also copy the circle shape and place it on the the other water color dots to make a bunch of different colored stickers.
Use the crop tool
Next is where the magic happens. First make sure you have both your shape and the whole water color PNG selected. Then open “modify panel” (the blue square by number 2). That opens up the modify panel, which you will then select crop (see number three).
It’s cropped!
By using the crop tool you get rid of all the background. It’s pretty amazing, and I wish I had known about it earlier. Now you have your sticker. I ended up brightening it up a little (using the editing tools in Silhouette), then making it smaller.
Add registration marks and fill page
Obviously you are going to want more than one sticker, so you need to fill the page. Don’t worry, this is super easy to do! Start by adding registration marks by hitting M on your keyboard. This is important since your Silhouette will read those marks so that it knows where to cut when you send your stickers to your machine. You want to avoid putting anything in that area. To fill the page go the butterfly-like icon (it’s the square that is blue on the right), then select fill page. You’ll get now get the whole page filled (like below).
Print your stickers
Now you want to print your stickers (on your sticker paper), by going to file then print. Make sure whatever sticker paper you use is compatible with your printer. You’ll see that you have the registration marks on your paper, as well as every sticker printed.
Time to cut!
Now that you have your paper ready, it’s time to cut your stickers. In the send menu make sure you have sticker paper selected. Then double check that you have the cut option selected, and the proper blade is selected.
I use an auto blade, and it works fine. The default cut setting for sticker paper work great, and cuts what is known as a “kiss cut”. This means it cuts the sticker out, but not the back of the paper. Make sure that you have the paper lined up on your mat, like it is in the picture of the mat in the studio, then send it.
Now you have DIY Watercolor Stickers with the Silhouette!
Now you have a sheet of stickers!
Do you like using stickers in a planner? What is your favorite way to use stickers?