Thursday, January 12, 2012

The Surplus Sticker Upcycling Project




Welcome, everyone, to another fabric-less, unsewing project! Want to know what's keeping the kids occupied while I'm sewing? Read on!


This post is actually about old coloring books. I'm curious - do you have coloring books in your house? We have about a hundred. The girls get them for gifts and they will color in them for a short while and then give up in favor of those bookmark coloring sheets I draw for them. Since that first set, I've done three other, entirely new sets for them, and they still want more. I'm thinking I need to draw up Set #5 for the 22-hour airplane ride to Singapore.

Now, some of these coloring books came with pages and pages of rather nice stickers, which were hardly used. So whenever I cull our coloring book collection, I rip the sticker pages out of the filled books before tossing them. But what to do with hundreds of these character stickers? 

Turn them into something useful, that's what.

I ordered some plain envelopes

and bought some cardstock (both Michaels and JoAnn were having a 50% off sale this past week). This whole stack was $10.

This got cut and folded into cards.

Then I invited the girls to make sets of greeting cards (or, more precisely, they descended upon me while I was still cutting out the cards and started grabbing). The only rule was that they had to be in sets.

Here are some sets the girls made:



Busytown for the less pink-and-princess-inclined:


And here are some sets with peekaboo windows. Kate, especially, loved the windows, and collecting the circles that fell out. 


This is a set I made - how fortuitous that not ALL the stickers were blatant character ones.




Then we stacked them with envelopes and tied them with pretty ribbon.

The plan is to give them away to friends - possibly for Valentine's Day. We might tuck a pretty pen into each package if we can find some. 


The kids absolutely loved this activity and I was actually surprised at its staying power - they made cards for four days straight. I left out the supplies and they helped themselves whenever they felt like working on a new set of cards. Jenna, our five-year-old who adores organizing and sorting, spent hours choosing stickers and cards colors and creating her different groups. In fact, she loved one particular set so much that she extracted it from the gift pile, deciding instead to write in the cards herself to give to friends. Who would've thought something so simple could keep them occupied long enough for me to sew clothes?


When we get tired of making our card sets, we might make some card kits to give away - blank cards plus stickers - so other kids can enjoy the DIY aspect of this, too.


When the picture below was taken, we'd only made our first batch. As of today, there are 25 sets (and counting). The girls are planning to make more sets again today after tea!


20 comments:

  1. Augh, now you've given me a reason to buy those super-huge circle punches the next time I'm wandering Joann's with a coupon to burn. I love the peekaboo effect!

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    Replies
    1. YC, I have that punch too, but I didn't use it on this project because it only punches holes close to the edge of the paper. I used this:
      http://www.amazon.com/Fiskars-48027097-Ultra-ShapeXpress-Starter/dp/B0001NXDJ6

      which allows you to cut shapes out free-hand, too.

      And yes, I used my 40% Michaels coupon for it!

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  2. Wow, what a great project! And the card sets are fabulous!!

    22 hours?! UFFDA! :)

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  3. Genius!! We were busy making a letter writing/card mailing center today and the girls loved making cards and letter for their friends and grandparents. This would take it a step further and use up some of our nine billion stickers! Thanks so much for sharing such a fun and easy idea.

    xoxo
    Pink and Green Mama
    MaryLea

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  4. Have you thought about doing some with a shape in the hole. If you cut out two circles smaller than the existing one and then glue them together with a string sandwiched between them and tape the string to the top and bottom of the hole, when the card stands up there is a thaumatrope style image.
    This is a great idea and one I think I will definitely be doing, just for a rainy day. If you have double sets of stickers you could make a memory/snap game for the plane trip too!

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    Replies
    1. Mhairi - those are GREAT ideas! Yes, that memory game idea is definitely going on my To Bring On The Plane list. Thank you! And the next time the girls do a new set of cards (which will probably be tomorrow), I'll try out the hanging thingy with them. I can already see all the fun possibilities: hanging bugs, the sun, apples from a tree etc.

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  5. This is a fantastic idea, my daughter would love doing this

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  6. Super, super idea! Thanks for sharing! We also have tons of stickers and stacks of card stock. Now I know what we are doing on our day off this Monday!

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  7. My kids would all love this! Though how you got excess stickers I'll never know. Mine disappear as soon as they're aware of them.

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    Replies
    1. Ticia: hard to believe we actually have excess, I know. But that's just how MUCH (I can't even say "many" because stickers are an uncountable noun in our house) we have.

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  8. My small pile for thank you notes looks so small now! We are finishing them this weekend. Thank goodness it's a long weekend! I like the idea of having the rule to make it a set. It is nice to turn them into a useful project, too. Rather than them being stuck all over the house! A great lesson, for sure! You know what else is happening this weekend? I am taking the new sewing machine out of the box. I have been afraid to in case the kids, or worse I mess it up, but it is time to start my number one of 16! Thanks for your inspirations!

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    Replies
    1. Whoo! New sewing machine! You're in for such a fun ride. I'm excited for you!

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  9. What a fantastic project! And that cutting tool looks amazing - I've never seen anything like it!

    Maybe I should spend more time in the scrapbooking section of the craft store. Not that Mike would appreciate it...

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  10. We have three solid feet of coloring books, ha! And the kids always ask me to "print off" coloring pages (because obviously I don't draw them). Great idea on the cards! They'll be especially fun on the sticker paper doll ones; it seems you have to do something more important with them than you would regular stickers.

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  11. The shape cutter thing looks cool!
    Is it easy to use eg to cut heart shapes etc?

    Rachael

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    Replies
    1. Yes, Rachael, it is! I've used it to cut out flower shapes and other more complex shapes. The knife glad is very tiny and rotates as the tool moves, so you don't have to twist your hand at all while sliding it around the template holes. It feels like holding a mouse (a computer mouse) to draw shapes, only you apply a bit of pressure so the blade can do its work.

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    2. Oops - I meant the knife blade, not the knife glad. What IS a knife glad?

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  12. This is a great idea! I was just 'culling' our coloring books the other day (love your term for it) and stopped because I didn't want to toss the unused stickers. We will give this a try. Thanks!

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