This tutorial contains affiliate links.

There are two ways to cut your stickers – manually or with a cutting machine.

When you are just starting out, there are three things that you should have – a good printer, some sticker paper and some decent packaging.

Most people these days have a printer, and sometimes you can find them in the library or a printing store and print things for a reasonable price. However, for the purpose of this tutorial, I’m going to assume you at least have a printer.

I purchased my first lot of sticker paper at Amazon. I found they were really good quality and I received the package the next day.

The problem when you are first starting out is that there will inevitably be some waste, particularly when using a cutting machine. However, if you will be selling larger, individual stickers, the waste should be kept to a minimum.

I forgot to mention that my first ever ‘stickers’ were made using normal printer paper. I added some images with a ‘die cut’ border and marketed them at children as ‘cut-out’ stickers for children to cut themselves, so you could even start this way.

Once you have set up your sticker sheet, set your printer to the highest quality settings to print them off.

Once the ink has dried, you can carefully cut around the edges of the stickers. Lots of people selling stickers on Etsy started out this way. At the end of these tutorials, I’ll add a list of videos that really helped me to get started.

One thing I should mention – it’s not absolutely necessary to laminate the stickers (before they are cut), but it will make them more attractive to buyers as they will be water-resistant and longer-lasting.

These laminating sheets from Amazon are absolutely amazing! They are much easier to put on than others I’ve tried, and you don’t need a laminating machine to use them.

Once the sheet is on, smooth it down with a credit card or similar before you begin cutting. However, if you have a laminating machine, you can purchase laminating pouches quite cheaply. Just remember to place some paper on top of the back of the sticker sheet to make sure only one side of the sticker sheet is laminated. Then trim around both sheets to be able to peel away the added paper.