This week's Craft of the Week features Homemade Stickers. This is a super idea to create your personalized messages as decorations or as a way to tell your kids "Well Done"!

These stickers are a fabulous, not to mention inexpensive way, to brighten your children's day. They are also great as an arts and crafts project.   They can be made to adorn homemade greeting cards and other  novelties ( including notebooks).

This recipe tells you how to make the adhesive for your stickers.  The stickers themselves are made using magic markers, crayons, acrylic paints, and/or colored pencils.  The actual stickers should be created using plain white drawing paper before making the adhesive.   A ruler is very helpful in dividing the paper into same sized areas that will become the actual stickers.  After measuring out the sized stickers, ( or drawing the shape of the stickers) these spaces can be decorated with markers, paints etc... After the entire page has been made then adhesive is applied to the back of the entire page of paper.

What you do:

1. Sprinkle the gelatin in a small bowl filled with the cold water.  Let the gelatin soften in the cold water for about 5 minutes.
2. Carefully pour the boiling water into the softened gelatin and stir until dissolved. Add the sugar and lemon extract and mix well.
3. Thinly brush the adhesive using a paint brush, on the back of the paper where you have created your "stickers".   This works best when you complete a full page of stickers.  After you apply the adhesive and allow it to completely dry then the paper can be cut.if you do a whole sheet and then cut after it's dried. The page will curl up as it dries but after it has dried you can press it under something heavy such as the phone book.
4. Once the adhesive is completely dried and "flattened" then the stickers can be cut out.  Try to use the sharpest scissors available, this will give you nice clean sticker edges.
5. The left over adhesive will gel overnight.  If you place the adhesive  in some kind of container- like an old glass jar) in a pan of hot water it will return to a liquid state and you can use it again.  If you are not going to use the rest of your homemade adhesive right away,  it can be stored, sealed in a jar, in the refrigerator for months.

What you need:

• 1 packet (1/4 ounce) unflavored gelatin
• 1 tablespoon cold water
• 3 tablespoons boiling water
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
• Paint brush

Comments:

Homemade Stickers - using the sewing machine
From: Roxanne MacPherson
After making your stickers, use your sewing machine without any thread and "sew" along the cutting line of your sticker page. The kids can then tear the perforated stamps off just like a page of stamps from the post office! Sincerely, Roxanne MacPherson

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Meet the Author
Jackie Silberg
"300 Three Minute Games
Interview & FREE excerpts
hosted by Joe Spataro
Jackie Silberg presents concerts, workshops and keynote address at early childhood conferences all over the United States. She holds an M.S. degree in Early Childhood Education from Emporia State University in Kansas where she is a Distinguished Alumna. She is the early childhood leader of the Education Forum on Compuserve online service. She is the author of numerous early childhood books. Find out more.