Xyron 150

I think the Xyron 150 is a perfect tool for making stickers of delicate scrapbook and card embellishments.

"Once I got into card making, I forgot how to tell time
~Susan"

Making Stickers out of Delicate Materials

If you want to make stickers for cards and scrapbook pages, a Xyron 150 is a suitable tool to make small-ish embellishments easier to handle and adhere. You can get one of these machines from lots of craft stores and stationery supply shops. They aren't very expensive, or they weren't when I bought mine a few years ago.

This little pink number is about the smallest of a range of available machines. If you want bigger stickers, you'll need a bigger machine with a bigger price tag of course :)

There's no need to plug this tool in. It works by manual means alone. Just load up a roll of sticker tape and you're all set to go.

You can run anything flattish through the machine. In this case I decided to use a hand made paper that you could just about see through. It was so thin and flimsy I used a piece of card stock behind it while punching it out, to give it stability.

To glue down such delicate materials can be a hassle. Some glues will cause the item to shrink and curl, some will not be clear when dried, some will be pretty messy to use. You could use a glue pen (like Pritt) but another way to flatten the item out and make it easier to handle and completely adherable (is that a word?) is to use the Xyron machine to make it into a sticker.

Once you have punched your shapes, it is easy and quick to make it into a sticker. Just feed the item into the top of your Xyron tool:

Now find the end of the roll of tape in the bottom of the tool and give it a steady pull to allow the shape to be fed through the middle of the machine. Adjust the item to ensure it feeds through straight. (Mine managed to creep a little to one side but it still turned out OK).

Now tear the tape off just as though it were a sticky tape dispenser.

The next step is to rub the item to ensure all the backing has adhesive on it. Use the back of your fingernail or a flower shaping tool or the back of a spoon to rub over the embellishment firmly. See how it even says to do that on the clear layer of adhesive tape?

Now peel up the clear layer of tape and discard it. Finally, peel up your new sticker embellishment and adhere it to your card or scrapbook page.

I hope you will find using the Xyron 150 a useful tool when you want to make stickers for your paper craft projects. You can also use it to make stickers out of such things as:

• Buttons
  
• Brads/crystals
  
• Ribbons
  
• Netting/Tulle/other sewing material
  
• Toothpicks
  
• Cardstock
  
• Any other material that is flat enough and sturdy enough to fit through the machine and be peeled off the tape on the other side!

Have fun!

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