From the Studio: How Finley Became a Sticker

The sticker maker wasn’t actually purchased for Finley.

I originally bought it for my real estate business, thinking I could use it for logos, open-house items, and client drop-by gifts. But once it arrived, naturally, I had to see what else it could do.

I’d made stickers before with my Cricut, so the idea wasn’t new. The much easier process was.

Around Easter, I started experimenting. I made a few things for myself, then dinosaurs, Easter eggs, and construction equipment for a little one in my life. More experiments followed: stickers for an auto shop, custom sheets for gifts, and whatever other excuse I could find to play with the machine.

Eventually, the obvious question occurred to me:

Why wasn’t I making Finley stickers?

By then, I already had an entire collection of Finley illustrations from the children’s books and coloring book. Turning those images into stickers felt like a natural extension of the little world that was beginning to grow around her.

The first Finley sticker sheets became something I could tuck into gifts alongside the books. For one former student’s baby shower, I signed the three Finley books I had published at the time, added the coloring book, a sticker sheet, and a magnet.

For the first time, it felt less like I had written a few books and more like I was building a little Finley collection.

That’s been one of my favorite parts of this whole creative experiment.

One drawing became a book. The book became a series. The series inspired a coloring book.

And somewhere along the way, Finley wandered right off the page and became a sticker too. 🐾