Free Sticker Sheet Maker: Print and Cut Stickers at Home

A die-cut sticker is cut around its art, so its shape follows the picture: a coffee cup, a dog, a word in bold letters. Strictly, die-cut means cut all the way through the sticker and its backing; a kiss-cut sticker is cut through the sticker layer only and stays on its backing sheet, which is how most sticker sheets you peel from are made.

The cut line is the same for both. This sticker sheet maker draws it; how deep the blade goes is set on your cutting machine or by the print shop. Choose Follow the art for a die-cut shape, or a circle, square or oval when a plain shape suits the design better.

The white border is the margin between the art and the cut. It hides a cut that drifts a little, so a home cut needs more of it than a print shop does. Sticker Mule uses 0.1 in as its standard and asks for at least 1/16 in (artwork requirements). The default here is 1/8 in, which forgives a Cricut or a pair of scissors; the checks warn below 1/16 in.

Smoothing fills notches and narrow slits in the cut line so a blade can follow it, and gives a rounder, simpler shape. If a design ends up in several pieces, each piece becomes its own sticker; a wider border or more smoothing joins them. Parts narrower than 1/8 in are flagged too, because they can tear.

Size is the cut line’s longest side, in inches or millimetres, the way sticker printers state sizes. The page shows the resolution each picture prints at in that size and warns under 300 dpi, so you know before you print whether a picture will look soft.

A sticker needs a clear background, or the cut line becomes a box around the whole picture. A PNG or SVG whose background is already clear needs nothing. For a logo or a drawing on a white or one-color background, press Remove the solid background: it is free and runs in your browser. The checks flag any picture that still has a solid background.

Background removal here works on plain backgrounds, not photos. No picture yet, or a photo to turn into art? Draw it with AI opens the AI sticker generator, which draws a picture on a clear background and uses credits; its stickers come back here to print.

Choose Letter sticker paper and Home printer: the stickers fill the page less 1/4 in all round. Fit the most packs them tightly and may turn some 90° to fit more; Tidy rows puts each design in rows of its own. The gap between stickers is 1/8 in by default and never less than 2 mm, StickerApp’s minimum for sticker sheets.

To cut by hand, turn on Print cut guides: thin gray lines along every cut line, easy to follow with scissors or a craft knife. Download the sheet PDF and print it at 100% or Actual size. If the print is shifted, enter the printer offset and print again.

On Letter paper, Cricut prints and cuts up to 7.44 in wide or 9.94 in tall, but not both, because its sensor marks take the corners of the page (Cricut Help); Cricut Joy 2 takes less. Choose Cricut as the area and the sticker sheet maker lays every sticker out within 6.75 × 9.25 in, which fits, then saves the Cricut sheet PNG: the stickers at 300 dpi, clear between them. Upload it to Design Space as a Print Then Cut image and set it to the size shown next to the download before you print.

For one design at a time, the Sticker PNG is a single sticker at 300 dpi, white inside the cut line and clear outside; in Design Space set it to the size shown on the page. In Silhouette Studio, open the Sticker PNG and trace its outer edge.

We don’t add registration marks: Design Space and Silhouette Studio add their own, and Cricut says marks printed from an outside PDF come out the wrong size.

For shapes cut around the art, use Letter full sheet sticker paper made for your printer, inkjet or laser, such as Avery 3383 or 53202, OnlineLabels OL177, or Cricut or Silhouette printable sticker paper. They are all 8.5 × 11 in, so one layout fits them all.

For circles and squares with no cutting at all, use precut Avery sheets: 22807 (2 in circles, 12 a sheet), 22808 (2.5 in circles, 9), 5655 (3 in circles, 6), 8293 (1.5 in circles, 20), 22806 (2 in squares, 12) and 22805 (1.5 in squares, 24). The sticker sheet maker places each sticker on a label, warns when a sticker isn’t the sheet’s shape and size, and adds a test page to print on plain paper first.

Download the print shop PDF from the sticker sheet maker for each design: the sticker with a 1/16 in white bleed past the cut line, and the cut line as a CutContour spot color, set to overprint on its own layer, the name print and cut software such as Roland VersaWorks reads. The SVG is the same sticker in vector form, for design apps and cutters.

The colors are RGB. Ask the printer about color, the bleed they want and what they call the cut line, and look at a proof before you order a large run.