If you’re wondering whether you need to laminate your printable vinyl stickers– yes, you should always laminate them – especially if they will be exposed to liquids, rain, or direct sunlight.
With printable vinyl sticker paper, although the vinyl material itself is waterproof, the ink used to print is generally not (unless you’re using a laser printer).
For that reason, after you print an image on your printable vinyl sheet, the ink or laser toner will take a few minutes to dry before locking into the vinyl material.
However, with inkjet printers the ink may run or bleed if it comes in contact with water.
It will not only waterproof your stickers, it will also make scratching, tearing and even fading from direct sunlight much less likely.
In one instance we left our Royal Elements printable vinyl sticker outside for nearly 7 years with a Royal Elements laminating sheet over top before we noticed any fading.
So although just printing out a sticker on printable vinyl, slapping it on, and calling it a day is easier and cheaper – taking a tiny bit more effort to laminate them will allow your artwork to last much, much longer and will give you the peace of mind that your printed sticker is not going anywhere for a long time.
Happy crafting,
Michael from Royal Elements