Creating Sticker Mockups in Procreate – Tutorial
If you haven’t used your Cricut to create stickers and have been wondering How to make a sticker mockup in procreate? Then you have reached the right spot. Making stickers with your craft machine is easy and can be a great way to add bonus goodies to your orders as freebies. Plus when used WITH packaging, they add a personal touch instantly to all handmade items. I mean, let’s be honest – we all had an obsession with stickers when we were younger.
No matter if you are buying the designs from some amazing sticker creators like shown below OR you are creating your own. In programs like Procreate, there are a few ways to show your sticker designs off without having to break out the Cricut – mockups. Mockups are a zero-waste solution to testing products before you spend the time, money, and resources creating them.
Now while you can purchase mockups to use right away in photoshop with smart objects (I’ll have some links to my favorite sets). You can create mockups using tools you may already have on hand, especially if you create your own stickers. Grab your iPad besties, because I am going to show you a quick way that you can create simple sticker mockups in procreate that will display your design in a fun way.
Preface to the Tutorial
I want to preface this with saying that I sell on Etsy. So this tutorial will be based using Esty recommended size requirements which you can find here. They are 2,000 px for the SHORTEST side with a resolution of 72 pixels per inch and a ratio of 4:3. So what does that mean? Well to sum it up, Etsy wants horizontal photos uploaded to their site with a size of 2666 × 2000 at a minimum. They automatically crop your image, so you want your focal point in the center. *I think that 2,666 is a weird number and if you do to, feel free to use 3000 × 2250. If you want to check out where I came up with these numbers, be sure to visit the 4:3 calculator.
*When you upload the image, you can edit the listing photo to show where you want. But I have returned to my shop plenty of times to find out that they restored it to the default. It’s better to set your image up correctly before you move forward to save yourself fixing issues in the future.
Disclaimer:
This post contains affiliate links, any purchase that you make by clicking on one of these links will not cost you anything, but I will get a small commission on the sale.
Now that THAT side track is done, let’s get back to making sticker mockups in procreate!
How to Make Sticker Mockups in Procreate?
Open up the Procreate app. “Procreate” is a wonderful drawing app that countless designers use. When paired with the Apple Pencil, it’s a heaven sent! If you already own this then you know what I am talking about.
Set up your document sizing using the ratio we talked about earlier (4:3). For this tutorial, I will be using the 3,000 px by 2250 px. and a DPI of 300. Etsy only requires a 75 DPI, however, starting with 300 will allow you to use this photo in other places, giving you the BEST quality that you could want.
Inserting Your Photos
Insert your photo by tapping the wrench icon in the top left and clicking “insert photo”. Select your sticker mockup photo you want to create and the program will automatically place it on the screen.
Changing Your Backgrounds
Most of the sticker outlines will be white. So to help your Cricut machine understand where to cut, you will want to change the background of the document. This will help you to see what we are looking at.
You can do that by tapping the stacked boxed in the top right corner of the screen, tapping on the background color layer, and selecting a darker color.
Duplicating Your Sticker Layer
Now that we can see the background, duplicate your sticker layer a one time and hide the original as this will be your focal point. To duplicate, you can hit the double squares (layers panel) in the top right and swipe swipe left.
Resize the duplicate layer by tapping the arrow icon and using the bounding box to drag it down to a smaller size. Duplicate this layer a few times so we can start to fill the background up with sticker designs.
Now start re-arraging the stickers in the background to overlap each other. (Think of this as a “I just dumped ALL of my stickers on the table photo).
You end up with something like this. To be honest, after I fill up about a quarter of the screen, I merge all of the layers and duplicate that a few times to completely fill out screen. After the dark is covered, I go back and add a few extras to break up some odd repeating patterns until I get the results that I want.
Final Touches
Now that the base layer is done, let’s blur this layer so that our hidden sticker layer will be the MAIN focal point. To do this, you have to tap the magic wand icon in the top left of the screen. Now select “Gaussian Blur” and then layer. Slide your finger across the screen to achieve the desired look. Now unhide your original sticker and BOOM! You are left with something like this. So, this is how you create sticker mockups in procreate.
To make sure customers understand what they are getting. You can add sizes with simple text at the bottom or add arrows to show width by height.
If you are interested in seeing a way to show scale in mockups, check out the next blog post.
Sample Sticker Mockups in Procreate
Some Fave Packing Stickers
