Eco-Kid Project: Homemade Recycled Stickers

All kids love stickers but they do come on those little glossy sheets most of the time; glossy sheets that are thrown away when your kids are done. There’s a homemade version that you and your littles can make that creates less waste.

You need:

• 1 package (1/4 oz) unflavored vegan gelatin (or normal gelatin if you’re ok with that)
• 1 tbsp cold water
• 3 tbsp boiling water
• 1/2 tsp white sugar
• 1/2 tsp extract — I like almond but you can use vanilla, orange, lemon, whatever you like

Creating the stickers:

1. Put cold water into a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin in. It should sit about five minute.
2. Add boiling water. Mix until powder dissolves.
3. Add sugar and extract. Mix.
4. Grab a paint brush and brush the mixture onto sheets or scraps of recycled paper. Since kids will be licking this stuff be sure that you use paper that is still clean — at least on one side. This is a great idea for how to make use of scraps of paper used in previous art projects.
5. Let the paper dry for about an hour.

Later if your paper has dried and curled up just set something heavy on it for a bit. At this point if you covered full sheets with the gelatin mixture you’ll want to cut out shapes or strips — really cut whatever shapes you’d like your stickers to be. Use stencils for ideas. You can also keep the stickers abstract if using small bits of scrap paper. One cool idea is to use decorating scissors like Fiskars to give your stickers a fancy border.

Have your kids gather up all their art supplies and go to town. They can decorate the non-painted side with glitter, fabric, paint, markers, glitter glue, buttons, google eyes, and more — whatever catches their fancy.

After kids decorate their stickers they can lick them and they’ll stick to holiday or birthday cards, gift wrap, brown bags, and more. Because of the extract when the kids lick the stickers they get a little taste sensation. I suppose you could also use flavored gelatin instead of extract. I haven’t tried that but I bet it works.

This is the perfect way to reduce waste like holiday gift tags. Have your kids make name stickers instead.

Have fun!