How to Make Waterproof Stickers with Cricut: Step-by-Step Guide

Regular stickers curl, fade, or peel the moment they meet water, but a waterproof sticker holds its color and its edges no matter where you stick it. Making waterproof stickers at home is easy, and a Cricut makes the whole process a lot easier.

This guide walks you through the most reliable method for making waterproof stickers with a Cricut, using printable vinyl and a waterproof laminate sheet. We will also cover a few other materials that get you a similar result if you don't have the specific combo on hand, along with how their durability compares once your stickers are out.

Materials You'll Need

● Printable vinyl sheet

● Waterproof laminate sheet

● Inkjet or laser printer

● Cricut machine

● Cricut cutting mat

● Weeding tool (optional)

● Old gift card

Printable vinyl sheet (or printable vinyl sticker paper) is the most reliable and commonly used material for waterproof stickers. Just make sure to buy the right one for your printer. There are other materials too, and we'll cover more about them later in the article. Pair it with a clear waterproof laminate sheet to seal the stickers and make them completely waterproof.

Step-by-Step Guide on How to Make DIY Waterproof Stickers

Step 1: Design Your Stickers in Cricut Design Space

Open Cricut Design Space and upload your artwork or build it from shapes and text. Since you're printing the design rather than cutting layers of colored vinyl, you can go as detailed as you like.

Next, add an offset around your design. Simply select the offset option from the toolbar, adjust the distance and corners, and keep weld offsets enabled.

This creates a border that gives your Cricut a clean line to follow when it cuts, and it also helps stop the edges from lifting over time. Adjust the width and corner style until it looks right, then set its color.

Step 2: Flatten and Arrange Your Design

Select your design along with the offset layer and click Flatten. This merges everything into a single printable image and switches the project to Print Then Cut mode.

Duplicate your design to fill the sheet, keeping every sticker inside the printable area and leaving a small gap between each one.

Step 3: Print on Printable Vinyl

Next, click Make It. Cricut then adds a black registration box around your layout, which the machine uses to line up the cut later, so don't remove or resize it.

Load the printable vinyl into your printer with the printable side facing the right way, then print at your printer's highest quality setting. If your printer offers a media type setting, choose the one closest to vinyl or photo paper for the sharpest result.

Let the sheet dry fully before moving to the next step, since wet ink can smudge under the laminate.

Step 4: Apply the Waterproof Laminate

This step is what actually makes the stickers waterproof.

The vinyl itself already resists water, but the ink sitting on top of it does not. Regular inkjet ink is water soluble, so a splash on an unlaminated print can smear or bleed even though the vinyl underneath is fine.

The laminate seals that ink layer, which is what makes the finished sticker fully waterproof rather than just water resistant.

Peel the backing off the laminate sheet and line up one edge with your printed sheet.

Press it down slowly from that edge to the other, using a craft scraper or an old gift card to push out air bubbles as you go. Take your time here, since laminate is difficult to reposition once it grips the print.

Step 5: Cut Your Stickers on the Cricut

Place the laminated sheet on your cutting mat and load it into the Cricut. Select the matching material setting in Design Space so the blade depth and pressure are right for the extra thickness the laminate adds.

Run a test cut on a small section first if this is your first time working with this material combination, since the extra laminate layer changes how the blade behaves compared to plain vinyl or paper. Once the test cut looks clean, go ahead and cut the full sheet.

Step 6: Peel and Apply

Peel each sticker off its backing and press it onto a clean, dry surface, working from one side to the other to avoid trapping air. Give it a firm press along the edges, since that's where water tends to sneak in first.

That's it. Your stickers are now sealed against water, sun, and everyday handling.

Other Ways to Make Waterproof Stickers

The printable vinyl and laminate combo above is the most reliable method, but it isn't the only one. Here are a few other options worth knowing about.

Sticker paper and laminate: This is the most common DIY combo, mostly because sticker paper is cheap and easy to find. The laminate seals the surface, but the paper underneath still absorbs moisture at the cut edges over time, so this option is water resistant rather than fully waterproof. It works fine for a phone case or a planner, but skip it for anything that gets soaked regularly.

Transparent sticker paper and laminate: Same laminate principle, but the clear film base doesn't soak up water the way paper does. This holds up much better outdoors or on anything handled with wet hands, like a water bottle, and transparent stickers have the bonus of showing your background through the design instead of a white edge.

Permanent vinyl: This is the most durable option of the three, but it works a little differently. Standard permanent vinyl, like Oracal 651, isn't designed to be printed on. Instead, you design your artwork in a single color in Cricut Design Space and let the machine cut the shape directly out of the vinyl sheet, so there's no printer involved at all.

Order Custom Waterproof Stickers From Vograce

Making waterproof stickers at home works great for a handful of designs, but getting consistent results across a full batch takes a lot of practice. Moreover, mismatched cuts, air bubbles during lamination, and slightly off colors between print runs are extremely common.

So, if you'd rather skip all the trial and error, Vograce makes custom waterproof stickers from your artwork, with options including clear, holographic, vinyl, and transparent finishes. We also have dedicated waterproof stickers sized for cups and helmets.

Just upload your design as a PNG, PSD, PDF, or AI file at 300 DPI, and we will take care of the printing, lamination, and cutting.

Our low MOQ makes it easy to test a new design before committing to a bigger batch. Orders start at 10 stickers per design, and pricing gets better the more you order, so it works whether you need a small batch for you and your friends or a large run for a shop.

Every sticker is built to handle water bottles, laptops, tumblers, and other surfaces that regular stickers can't survive, and larger orders get a proof before production so you can catch anything off before it's printed.

We handle the details that are hardest to get right at home, so every sticker in the batch comes out looking the same.