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    Home » Printables » Printable journals & planners

    Benefits of Printable Stickers (how to have a pretty, functional planner on a budget)

    Published: Nov 2, 2020 · Modified: Feb 4, 2025

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    Do you love having a pretty planner or journal, but hate paying tons of money for sticker books that are 50% stickers you don't even like?

    Or maybe you enjoy "no white space" planning where you cover your page with stickers every week.

    Using printable stickers can help you have a colorful, organized, and pretty planner without going to the store, waiting for the mail, or breaking the bank.

    Using printable stickers when journaling and planning can help boost productivity and keep your book organized and updated. They are cheaper than buying new packs and useful for decorating and fixing mistakes, too.

    There are numerous reasons to use printable stickers in your planning processes. There are also different types of printable stickers that will up your journaling game and keep you focused on the day's tasks.

    on the left is a flatly mockup of three printable planner sticker sheets. The front one has bright, colorful health tracker stickers. Behind are hexagon stickers and checklist header row stickers in rainbow colors. To the left in the image is the text "the benefits of printable planner stickers"

    I love creating and using printable planner stickers in my Happy Planner Classic. That's why I have a set of printable stickers included with each monthly planner printable set I create. Months created so far include:

    • October planner printables
    • November planner printables

    These planner packs always come in US letter and Happy Planner Classic. Make sure to check back for even more months soon!

    Before printing stickers, make sure to check out this post on the best paper for planner printables. If you scroll down, you'll find a whole section on different sticker papers and how to tell the difference between writable and non-writable sticker paper.

    This post may include affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.

    Why Use Printable Stickers? 

    Whether you want to use printable stickers a few times every few pages or cover each page with plenty of colorful stickers, they are a great addition to any journal. Here are just a few reasons you should use printable stickers in your planning and journaling sessions: 

    Save Money on Buying New Sticker Packs

    Whether you create your own icon and box stickers or download a PDF of your favorite checklists and symbols, it’s cheap and easy to print out your own. You don’t need to stock up on packs and can print as you need. 

    Also, there are so many options to choose from when you can print from home. You're not limited to whatever MAMBI decides to make this season or what you can find at the Target Dollar Spot. There's no need to worry about shipping or waiting for your stickers to come in the mail, either.

    They Add a Pop of Color

    Easily add a pop of color using printable stickers! They stick (haha) out on the white pages and give you a beautiful aesthetic that will make you smile each time you open your notebook. They also stand out amongst a lot of text and make each page more easy to process so you don't miss important reminders.

    With printable stickers, you can get creative and add your own personality. You can make your own stickers using free programs like Canva

    They are an Easy Way to Flag Important Dates, Tasks, and More

    Need an easy to use but hard-to-miss way to flag due dates, tasks, or other essential items? Add a sticker!

    Designate different stickers to different tasks – use an icon for chores or a star for high-priority items. You can even use a flag sticker that will stick out of the page for easy bookmarking.

    Stickers Enhance Your Planner’s Organization

    Do you have a hard time keeping your planner neat and tidy, or do you have messy handwriting that makes your pages look cluttered and untidy? You can use category stickers to help clean up the mess and keep things in order.

    Designate a different color for each subject, whether you’re writing about school, chores, exercise, bills, etc. To further enhance your planner game, write each section using the same color as the designated sticker. They’ll also help clear out some desk space. Being able to print stickers as you need keeps your desk from becoming cluttered with packs of stickers. 

    Stickers Boost Productivity

    Some stickers can boost your productivity and help focus on important tasks. Stickers like the "top three" ones let you choose the most important things you need to do each day or week and keep them at the top of the page and in your mind. These daily reminders will ensure you never miss a due date! 

    You can also use stickers to track your habits. Whether you’re tracking how much water you drink or the number of days you worked on a project, stickers keep you on task. Use icon stickers to set reminders for cleaning, laundry, exercise, or whatever activity you want to do each day. 

    No Harm Done If You Mess Up

    Suppose you messed up some penmanship or put the wrong date down. With stickers, there's no need to worry about staring at old blemishes! Have you messed up writing in your journal? Place a smiley face over it! Wrote down the wrong tasks in your box sticker? Put a new sticker on top!

    If you mess up printing a sticker – it's too big, or the ink blotched the paper – you can click a button to reprint. There's no need to wait for a new pack to come in the mail.

    Text "5+ benefits of printable planner stickers + types of functional stickers for a pretty planner on a budget." Below the left is a flatly mockup of three printable planner sticker sheets. The front one has bright, colorful health tracker stickers. Behind are hexagon stickers and checklist header row stickers in rainbow colors.

    Types of Printable Stickers

    There are many types of printable stickers available. Whether you’re looking for cute decorations to add to your journal or want something useful for planning, here are a few types of printable stickers to consider, along with a few examples: 

    Icon Stickers

    Icon stickers come in all sorts of shapes, from dumbbells to bills.

    Their small sizes make it easy to put anywhere on the page and designate as reminders for workouts, chores, homework, and more. For example, use a cake icon to remember birthdays or add a plane sticker to a travel date. If you don't care to plan, use them as cute decorations in the sidebars.

    Printable Icon Planner Stickers

    Icon stickers can be cute, functional, and a whole lot of fun with these printable planner icon listings from Etsy designers! They're also way more affordable than printed stickers - most are only a couple of dollars.

    Workout Icons

    Photo Credit: ThePlannerShack

    Bye, boring workout icons. These lovely workout, health, and fitness related icons look beautiful in your planner and have different stickers for weight training, cardio, yoga, spin, and more.

    Weather Icons

    Photo Credit: plannerologystudio

    These cute little weather icons are easy on your ink.

    If you have a foiling machine, these stickers are easy to use because they come with a black overlay. Don't know what that means? No worries - they're easy to print on a regular printer and use as black line art icons.

    Work & School Icons

    Photo Credit: ThePlannerShack

    Adulting is more enjoyable with these cute work and school icons including images for class, meetings, pay day, bill due dates, and more.

    Weather Round Icons & Photo Doodles

    Photo Credit: HappyBeesCraft

    These hand drawn weather icons are adorable! They're also easy to print and cut with a cutting machine because both Silhouette Studio cut files and a png for Cricut are included.

    Everyday Planner Line Icon Set

    Photo Credit: NatalieArtShopCo

    I LOVE these unique, elegantly drawn line art icons.

    This listing does cost a little bit more than the other printable planner icon sets, but you receive the editable EPS and Adobe Illustrator files in addition to the PNGs for easy sticker printing. You can resize the stickers to make them as big as you want without loosing quality and the designer has other icon sets including gardening icons, travel, holidays, and more.

    Box Stickers

    Box stickers are useful for productivity, creativity, and decoration. They come in quarter, half, and full sizes and are best used for weekly spreads. Use your imagination with these or find a practical use, such as:

    • Blocking out time
    • Highlighting essential events or tasks
    • Layering with other stickers for a neat aesthetic

    Many printable box stickers are designed to fit Erin Condren or Happy Planner Classic. EC full sized are slightly shorter, but fit fine in the HPC weekly spread pages. HPC full sized boxes are a little long for the EC area and may stick into the box above or below a little bit.

    If you have a different planner system, make sure to read sticker listings carefully and measure your planner boxes to see how compatible they are with your pages.

    Printable Box Planner Stickers

    As noted above, make sure to read listings to ensure you're getting stickers that will fit your planner easily. Erin Condren and Happy Planner Classic box stickers are generally pretty compatible, but other planners may need different sizes.

    100 unlined full box planner stickers

    Photo Credit: TheDigiRainbow

    These lined full box planner stickers with a white interior are a classic planner staple. Use them for note-taking, lists, or even as a canvas for more of your favorite stickers!

    Half Box Stickers

    Photo Credit: ellums

    These classic half box stickers are colorful and useful for a variety of purposes like to-do lists, gratitude lists, appointment reminders, or even a fun place to doodle.

    Gratitude Planner Box Stickers

    Photo Credit: PaperLovingMommy

    Remember to practice gratitude with these colorful gratitude planner box stickers in a variety of colors and printer-friendly greyscale.

    Happy Planner Inspirational Quote Full Box Stickers

    Photo Credit: MintFoxStationery

    Have pretty, inspirational box stickers in your Happy Planner without the crazy MAMBI sticker book price tag with this lovely sticker set.

    Hobonichi Box Stickers

    Photo Credit: PDPrintAndPlan

    Hobonichi users rejoice - there are printable box stickers for you, too!

    FitBit Tracker Box Stickers

    Photo Credit: PDPrintAndPlan

    Remember to record your steps each day with these FitBit tracker box stickers.

    Holiday Printable Planner Stickers

    Photo Credit: StarCityDesigns

    Never miss a holiday again with these printable holiday planner box stickers! Even the holidays of Star Wars Day (May 4, in case you don't know) and Back to the Future Day are included.

    Checklists

    Checklist stickers help organize to-do lists in a fun and simple manner. Whether you want to make a note of the most important things you need to do or have an ongoing list of tasks, checklist stickers are easy to use and great for keeping track. The best part? If you mess up or need to replace your list, just put a new sticker over the old one!

    Checklist stickers are frequently box stickers with lines already added. You can also find vertical flags with circles to check off, vertical rows of check boxes, and even tiny individual circle stickers to add a checkmark spot next to any line in your planner.

    Printable Planner Checklist Stickers

    Many checklist stickers are compatible with basically any planner, but full sized box stickers may be more planner specific. Make sure to check the description, especially if you use a system other than EC or HPC.

    The "worst" part about checklist planner stickers is that there are so many different useful options and printable stickers are super affordable so it's easy to fill your hard drive with tons of sticker packs. 😅

    Photo Credit: ellums

    HP Ombre Checklist Planner Stickers 

    I love ombre sticker boxes! They're lovely and add color to your page without being overwhelming. These full sized sticker boxes are specifically sized for Happy Planner Classic, which is great since the boxes are a little longer than other popular planner boxes.

    Photo Credit: ellums

    Half Box Checklist Stickers 

    This set is the same lovely ombre fade, but in a half sized box with three rows to write on. They're made by the same designer as the set above so the colors match for a lovely planner!

    Photo Credit: KateLaurenDesign

    Square Checklist Stickers

    These colorful square checklist stickers are on a white background. Cut the strips to size so you can have as many checkboxes as you need for your list!

    Photo Credit: TheDigiRainbow

    Checklist planner sticker box

    These box checklist stickers look like cute little notebook pages. The header space is blank so you can fill in your checklist title.

    Photo Credit: TheDigiRainbow

    100 square checklist printable planner stickers

    These vertical flag checkbox stickers have squares to check off and come in 100 differnet colors. Wow!

    Photo Credit: TheDigiRainbow

    Blank half box checklist stickers

    These three row half box to do list stickers feature hearts and an incredible 100 colors!

    Photo Credit: lilygrovedesigns

    501 To Do List Checklist Blocks 

    These to do list blocks come preprinted with "to do" on the top so you don't need to place a second header sticker!

    Photo Credit: ilove2print

    Circle Checklist Printable Planner Stickers

    Turn any line into a checklist with these cute little round checklist stickers.

    Photo Credit: SeptemberWindStudio

    Heart Checklist Printable Planner Stickers

    These lovely vertical flag checklist stickers feature hearts and come in 3 and 5 rows.

    Functional Planner Stickers

    Functional planner stickers can belong to any of the categories listed above. Functional stickers might be icons, checklists, to-do reminder flags, box stickers, or banners.

    Functional stickers are stickers that help you stay organized and don't "just" decorate your planner. Of course, many pare pretty to look at, too!

    Because functional stickers are so useful, you can frequently find functional sticker sets in specific color themes and styles to suit your planning needs.

    Headers and Dividers

    Header and divider stickers help you divide pages and create sections. You can write on divider tabs or use them for decoration. You can also find pre-labeled header stickers for things like to do, today, and this week.

    Printable Header Stickers

    Although many planner header stickers are cross-compatible, check the width of your planner boxes to make sure they're a good fit.

    Photo Credit: JumpToItDesignsInc

    Headers Today To Do Urgent Work or Custom

    Many printable sticker packs feature just one title on a variety of colors. This header sticker pack comes with multiple headings and colors so you only have to get one listing.

    Photo Credit: lilygrovedesigns

    School Planning Stickers 

    These school planning header stickers have a white background so they don't use so much ink!

    Photo Credit: DesignLovelyStudio

    Multicolor Header Planner Stickers 

    These planner stickers come in a variety of colors with functional headins like today, to do, and personal.

    Photo Credit: TheDigiRainbow

    Appointments Header stickers

    Help important appointments stand out with these colorful header stickers.

    Photo Credit: TheDigiRainbow

    Scallop Header sticker decorative sticker scallop | Etsy

    Photo Credit: ColoriveStudio

    Solid Outline header planner stickers

    These header stickers have white space to fill in your own caption.

    Photo Credit: TheDigiRainbow

    Lace Header stickers rainbow header printable header | Etsy

    Add decoration to your header rows with these pretty lace header stickers in rainbow colors.

    Photo Credit: PaperLemonadeCo

    Daily header stickers

    Label your days without tons of writing using these printable daily header stickers.

    Photo Credit: TheDigiRainbow

    Tinted Header stickers

    These tinted header stickers are easy to write in, but more colorful than boxes with a white fill.

    Symbols (Stars, Bullets, Etc.)

    Like icons, symbol stickers are little shapes that you can use to attach meanings to your stickers. These come in stars, bullet points, and other conditions that can help you highlight important tasks or make a note of something. Use a checkmark sticker to notate a completed job or add an Asterix next to a quote you want to remember.

    Conclusion

    Printable stickers are an easy way to keep track of your life with your favorite planner planner. Stay organized and focused, or create a beautiful page using different stickers. Printing stickers at home saves time, money, and storage. No need to wait for your stickers to ship to you, and you can easily print as you need.

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