Help me recapture a childhood joy!

January 1, 2022 4:30 PM

Hi friends! Those of you who were kids (or had kids) in the late 80s/90s may remember having sticker books - the pages were glossy and stickers could be moved around and, critically, traded as currency with other children. I am struggling to find the modern equivalent, and my kid loves stickers! But is it joyful to be told "you can't stick them on the furniture or on the walls or on the floor or on appliances or on my work papers" and then to stick them on a dumb bit of paper and essentially use them up forever? Seems way less joyful. Can anyone help me track down an actual functional sticker book? Thanks in advance for much sticker pleasure!
posted by prefpara to Shopping (17 answers total)

I had one of these and loved it. I recall them being called sticker albums. If you're okay with secondhand, there are a lot of vintage sticker albums on Etsy
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 4:43 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Found albums that appear to allow you to move the stickers; the stickers we traded were scratch n' sniff, so that's what I googled. Albums listed here.
posted by emjaybee at 4:49 PM on January 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

We have similar rules about no stickers on furniture or walls but we hung a whiteboard in my daughters room and told her to go to town on it. We haven’t mastered removing stickers from it without tearing them but she enjoys decorating it monthly or seasonally.
posted by MadMadam at 4:50 PM on January 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

My mom used to make us sticker albums by covering construction paper (cut into quarters) with clear contact paper, punching a hole in one corner and putting one of those rings that open up through the hole. We could pick out the colors of the paper and swap or rearrange the papers.
posted by jenjenc at 5:14 PM on January 1, 2022 [4 favorites]

Plastic page holders should allow for easier removal. I'd put a colorful piece of paper in each one and they can stick things on both sides.
posted by soelo at 5:20 PM on January 1, 2022

If you're looking not just for sticker albums but also for ways to let kids stick and re-stick all over the place, maybe give cling stickers and gel stickers a try.
posted by trig at 5:26 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

Just FYI that cling stickers/window clings can stain white furniture and cabinets. They're really only to be used on glass.
posted by jeoc at 5:56 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

From what I can tell, apparently it is joyful to just stick them on paper. I don't really get it either but trying to show my kid other options started to feel like I was ruining a perfectly good thing, so I stopped at taping a piece of wax paper to their wall that's available for non-permanent stickering. It seems like it'd be fairly easy to make into a little saddle-stitched booklet, if the concept appeals.
posted by teremala at 6:26 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was the age for the sticker trading/collecting craze, and I remember keeping mine in a photo album (on their backing paper).

Are there surfaces on which the kid can stick stickers? School binders, notes to friends, the outside of a laptop (if they have one)?

Perhaps put up large white or black pieces of posterboard in the kid's room for them to stick stickers on, so they can be surrounded by these things that give them joy? Covering the posterboard with contact paper as jenjenc suggested might be an idea. Or wax paper as teremala suggests.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:20 PM on January 1, 2022 [3 favorites]

They are definitely still making reusable sticker books. Our kids love them. We have a few different ones from DK, they work as advertised (restickable).
posted by Wavelet at 7:58 PM on January 1, 2022 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you so much for all these great ideas! Starting with one of the books at emjaybee's link. Let the sticking and re-sticking commence!!!!
posted by prefpara at 8:02 PM on January 1, 2022

I bought this sticker release paper to help organize my planner stickers.

It comes in different sizes, so you could make whatever size sticker book you’d like.
posted by elphaba at 8:08 PM on January 1, 2022

I finally figured out what these were called in modern times after a similar search!! You want a self-adhesive photo album. I gave my kid this one for her birthday in October! They’re still magical.
posted by centrifugal at 8:22 PM on January 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

Totally different idea, but I’ve been considering how fun it might be to have a Yayoi-Kusama-style obliteration craft project, buying the cheap colored-dot stickers you get at office supply stores and, over time, covering a lamp base from the Goodwill, or a vase, or something else that could be used and fun to keep adding to/changing.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 8:26 PM on January 1, 2022 [4 favorites]

Toy company Melissa and Doug makes a number of amazing themed sticker books with high quality stickers and good pages to stick them on. One example, but there are many.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:50 PM on January 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

Pipsticks has one. You should be able to find this at other book stores too since it's published by Workman.
posted by gennessee at 10:43 PM on January 1, 2022

rrrrrrrrrt, an old like 70's thing was to take a bottle, tear up little bits of masking tape and cover the whole thing like that with the little pieces, then hit it with some shoe polish to give it a color.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:16 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]