Sticker And Collage Books That Make Art Journaling Easy (And Fun!)
Spark your creativity instantly. These 9 curated books deliver pre-designed images, vintage ephemera, and ready-to-use layouts for effortless creative flow.
Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
Key Takeaways
- Discover 9 curated books that provide pre-designed images and layouts for effortless creativity.
- Consider top choices like the John Derian Sticker Book and The Collage Compendium to inspire art journaling.
- Use these books to spark creativity with stickers and collage elements that elevate your journal pages.
- Mix different materials, including stickers, cut paper, and paint, to make personalized artistic expressions.
- Remember, there are no strict rules in art journaling; your unique style and playfulness matter most.
Okay, friend, pull up a chair. I need to show you something you are going to love.
Here’s a little secret professional artists know: you don’t have to dream up every idea from scratch! Great art often starts with a little spark of inspiration, for example, a photo, a color, a shape, or something that simply catches your eye. Find inspiration that excites you, and suddenly creating feels easier and a whole lot more fun.
That’s exactly what sticker and collage books deliver. Pre-designed images, vintage ephemera, quirky illustrations ready to cut, peel, and layer into your journal pages. Use them as the focal point of your page or add them as the perfect finishing touch to bring everything together.
IF YOU ONLY WANT MY TOP THREE BOOKS
For stickers, I grab the John Derian Sticker Book and John Derian Sticker book ii more than anything else. For cutting and collaging, The Collage Compendium is my happy place when I need a spark.
Here are the 9 books that make art journaling feel less like work and more like play.
The Sticker books I Can’t stop using
1-The Art Lover’s Sticker Book
If you’ve ever wished you could add masterpiece-level art to your journal, this book hands you 400+ removable stickers pulled straight from famous paintings and classical art.
What makes this book different from generic sticker packs is the curation. You’re getting high-resolution images from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection. They’re actual pieces of art history shrunk down and made sticky.
The stickers range from tiny accent pieces to full-page focal points, so you can layer them into corners, build entire page around them, or use them as background elements. You don’t need to plan your layout in advance. Just peel and reposition until it feels right.
This book is perfect if you want an elevated, gallery-quality aesthetic. Use a single sticker as your focal point and build your journaling around it, or scatter smaller pieces across a spread as finishing touches that tie everything together. Peel, stick, and suddenly your journal looks like something curated by a museum archivist.
2-John Derian Sticker Book
This one is my absolute favorite. John Derian’s sticker book gives you access to his entire aesthetic library in one place.
You get 375 full-color stickers featuring Victorian botanicals, antique illustrations, surreal animal portraits, and nostalgic ephemera pulled from 19th-century archives. The imagery has that aged, hand-selected quality that adds instant character to your pages.
- Floral and botanical elements for nature-themed spreads and garden journal pages
- Quirky animal portraits that add personality and surreal humor as focal points or accent pieces
- Vintage typography and labels perfect for adding texture as finishing touches without overwhelming your page
If your aesthetic leans vintage or whimsical this book gives you endless combinations without ever feeling repetitive. Create an entire spread around one central image, or use smaller stickers to add those final details that make a page feel complete.
3- John Derian Sticker Book 2
The second volume keeps the same visual integrity as the original.
This edition leans heavier into surreal, and hand-colored engravings that feel more dreamlike than decorative. If the first book felt vintage and grounded, this one feels like it was pulled from a Victorian fever dream in the best possible way.
The big shift here is scale. You get more oversized statement stickers that can anchor an entire page, plus smaller accent pieces that let you build layered compositions without needing multiple books. The mix makes it easier to create depth and visual hierarchy.
Use this book when you want to build moody, surreal, or narrative-driven journal spreads.
4- The Collage Compendium by Roomytown
This isn’t a sticker book. It’s a full-color sourcebook packed with 300+ collage-ready images designed specifically for cutting, layering, and gluing into mixed-media projects.
Roomytown’s aesthetic sits somewhere between mid-century modern and contemporary graphic design. You get bold color blocks, retro typography, abstract shapes, and illustrative elements that feel more like art direction than craft supplies. The images are printed on thick, high-quality paper that holds up to glue, tape, and repeated handling without falling apart.
The images are organized by theme, which makes it easy to pull coordinating elements without flipping through the entire book. You can build an entire spread using just one section as your central theme, or mix and match across categories for more eclectic layouts. Either way, the visual consistency keeps your pages from looking random.
5- Collage Kit by Free Period Press
Free Period Press designed this kit for people who want instant creative inspiration without hunting for materials across multiple sources.
You get 500+ tear-out images, patterns, and textures across 100 pages of thick, uncoated paper. The aesthetic is playful, colorful, and slightly retro, with a strong emphasis on graphic shapes, bold typography, and illustrative line work. It feels more like raiding a designer’s scrap file than using a generic craft book.
Here’s what makes this kit different: everything is designed to work together. The color palette is cohesive, the line weights are balanced, and the visual style is consistent enough that you can grab random pieces and still end up with layouts that look intentional.
6- Extraordinary Things to Cut Out and Collage by Maria Rivans
Maria Rivans is known for surreal, humor-driven collage work, and this book gives you 80 pages of her signature imagery to cut apart and reassemble however you want.
The content is weird in the best way. You get vintage portraits with bizarre props, retro advertisements reimagined with absurd contexts, and oddball juxtapositions that instantly spark creative ideas. It’s the kind of imagery that makes your journal pages more interesting, whether you use a single image as your focal point or add smaller elements as unexpected finishing touches.
What sets this book apart is the intentionality behind each image. These aren’t random clip art collections. They’re curated pieces designed to spark ideas and invite unexpected combinations.
7- Magical Things to Cut and Collage
This book takes a more whimsical approach to collage imagery, with 80 pages of enchanted forests, mystical creatures, celestial elements, and dreamlike landscapes that spark creative magic.
Use it for when you want to add some magic into you your art journal spreads. For example, choose larger imagery as your central inspiration, then layer in smaller elements as those perfect finishing details. The imagery is detailed enough to stand on its own but flexible enough to layer with text, paint, or other collage elements.
8- Amazing Things to Cut and Collage
This book flips the tone from magical to bold and graphic, with 80 pages of retro-inspired imagery, pop art elements, and mid-century modern design motifs that ignites your creative energy.
The art here is bright, colorful, and confident. You get geometric patterns, vintage advertisements, bold typography, and illustrative elements that feel more like graphic design than traditional collage material. It’s perfect for journalers who want pages that feel energetic and visually punchy, whether using bold pieces as focal points or adding smaller elements as finishing touches.
9- Surreal: The Cut Out and Collage Book
This book is so much fun it is like you are stepping into dreamlike world. There are many unexpected imagery with 80 pages of surreal compositions and abstract elements designed to spark your creative experimentation and make your journal pages unforgettable.
The imagery is weird, beautiful, and impossible to categorize. You get floating objects, impossible landscapes, distorted perspectives, and visual mashups that feel like they were pulled from a fever dream. It’s not whimsical. It’s not vintage. It’s just deeply, unapologetically strange in a way that ignites creativity and makes your journal pages infinitely more interesting.
I am sure there are many other great books out there, as a matter of fact, I use many other resources such as magazines and catalogues. But these 9 books are now on my art studio shelf and I use them all the time and I thought to share them with you.
How to use these books
1- Pick an “ooh” image If it makes you pause. This is the one….
3- Glue your image and try to overlap it with different smaller images.
5- Know when to stop Leave some breathing room.
2- Give it a cozy home. Create a background by using watercolor or torn paper.
4- Add marks, words or outlines . make it yours.
Stay curious. There’s no “right” image, and your page never has to be like anyone else’s.
Pssst….. you don’t need all of them
Please don’t feel like you have to buy the whole shelf! As always start with what you have and only if you need something new start with just one that fits the pages you love making
| Image | Product | Features | Price |
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1
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John Derian Sticker Book (John Derian Paper Goods) |
Ofers a curated collection of over 500 stickers that allow adults and children to add a touch of beauty to any surface with these beautiful images of blooming flowers, charming critters, and darling forest animals. |
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2
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John Derian Sticker Book ii (John Derian Paper Goods) |
Decorate your world in the style of beloved home goods designer and New York Times bestselling author John Derian with this 320-page sticker book, featuring fantastic images of flora and fauna adapted from John Derian Picture Book II. |
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3
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he Art Lover’s Sticker Book: 350 Stickers from Artists Throughout History |
Experience the fascinating world of art like never before with 350 stickers featuring beautiful pieces from throughout history. |
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4
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The Collage Compendium: 2,000 Images to Cut Out & Collage
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Inside, you’ll find a carefully curated collection of 2,000 vintage images ready for you to cut, layer, and transform into your own works of art. Luxe materials―including 16 pages printed with shimmering gold ink―mean that each page cuts, handles, and glues like a dream. |
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5
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Collage Kit Vol. 2: 1000+ Images for Junk Journaling, Vision Boarding & DIY |
1,000+ Images Across Diverse Themes – Including nature, food, architecture, vintage photos, abstract patterns, and backgrounds, making it perfect for vision boarding, journaling, and unique DIY projects. |
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6
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Extraordinary Things to Cut Out and Collage |
If you want to discover the fun of collage then this fabulous book is the perfect kit. Highly respected and successful collage artist Maria Rivans has gathered hundreds of beautiful, quirky, and downright daft images, and they’re all here for you to cut out and stick. |
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7
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The Cut Out And Collage Book 300+ Magical Things To Cut & Collage: Fairies, Gnomes, Dragons & Unicorns, Botanicals, Woodland Animals, Mythical … Ephemera For Collage and Mixed Media Artists |
The Cut Out And Collage Book Magical Things To Cut & Collage will provide you with precisely what you have been searching for! |
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8
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The Cut Out And Collage Book 500+ Amazing Things To Cut & Collage: |
The Cut-Out And Collage Book 500+ Amazing Things To Cut & Collage will provide you with precisely what you have been searching for! |
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9
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Surreal Cut Out and Collage Book: 500+ Strange, Bizarre, and Dreamlike |
This book features a striking curation of over 500 weird, unusual, and surreal illustrations designed to spark your imagination. Inside, you’ll discover ordinary and extraordinary art pieces, surrealist-inspired illustrations, faces, objects, backgrounds — everything you need to craft your own world of juxtaposition art and visual paradoxes. |
Sticker & Collage Books: My Favorite Tips & Tricks (Q&A)
Sticker books and collage books are such happy creative tools—but they can come with one tiny dilemma: what do you do when you love both sides of a page? I have definitely paused over a beautiful sticker sheet or collage page, wanting to use the image on the front and the artwork hiding on the back.
Here are a few of the real-life tricks I use in my own art-journal practice, along with some extra ideas to make the process easier, sturdier, and more playful.
This is one of my favorite little sticker-book dilemmas. The stickers are easy to use—but sometimes the back of that sheet is just as beautiful, and I do not want to waste it.
My trick is to gently lift the stickers I want to save and temporarily place them on a piece of thick wax paper or a smooth sealed nylon/plastic file. Then the reverse side of the sticker sheet is free for me to use in my journal or collage. It is such a simple way to enjoy both sides of the page.
Little tip: Keep the wax paper or file clean and smooth so the sticker backs stay as tidy as possible. If you are trying this with a new sticker book, test it first with one small sticker to see how it behaves.
A sturdy sheet of wax paper works beautifully, and a smooth sealed document file is another handy option. The important thing is to use a clean, non-porous surface that lets you keep your stickers together while you work with the sheet underneath.
You can even keep a few different sheets: one for florals, one for animals, one for little words and labels. Think of them as your temporary sticker palettes.
If I love the image on one side but also want to use the other side, I make a photocopy of the side I plan to cut from. That way, I can use the copy freely while keeping the original page intact for another project.
It takes away that “What if I regret this?” feeling. You can cut, tear, layer, and experiment without worrying that you have lost the original image forever.
Start with the one that makes you pause. You do not need to know the whole plan; just choose the image that makes you say, “Ooh, I want to play with that.” Let it become the main character of your page.
Then choose two or three supporting pieces that either match its color, repeat a shape, or make you smile. That is plenty to get started.
Try making a small “pull pile.” Choose only three to five images from a book, place them beside your journal, and work with just those. Limiting your choices keeps the page from becoming overwhelming—and often leads to more creative combinations.
Another helpful trick is to cut loosely at first. You can always trim closer around an image later, but you cannot put paper back once it has been cut aw
Give it something to lean on. A simple watercolor shape, torn paper, a patch of paint, a pencil circle, a little bit of pattern, or a few scribbly lines behind an image can make it feel grounded.
You do not need a complicated background. You are simply giving your sticker or cutout a cozy place to land.
I like to cover my finished collage with gel medium because it helps hold the pieces together and gives the page an extra layer of protection. It is especially helpful when a page has lots of small pieces, raised edges, or delicate collage elements.
A thin, even coat can help secure the collage so you do not have to worry as much about corners lifting later. Always allow the page to dry fully before closing your journal or adding another layer.
Yes, it really does. A good-quality glue saves you from so much extra work later. When collage pieces are attached well from the beginning, you are less likely to find corners peeling up, bubbles forming, or pieces coming loose after the page is finished.
Use a glue that works well with paper and your journal surface, apply it all the way to the edges, and smooth the piece down gently. For tiny pieces, a small brush or glue pen can help you reach the corners without making a sticky mess.
This is the hardest question for many of us! Step back from the page and look at it from a little distance. Ask yourself: Can I still see my main image? Does the page have a little breathing room? If the answer is yes, it may already be finished.
Sometimes the best finishing touch is one small word, three paint dots, or nothing at all.
Sometimes I do. A light coat of gesso on the paper page before gluing can give you a lovely fresh surface to work on—especially if you want to soften a busy page, cover writing or color underneath, or create a more matte, paint-friendly background for your collage.
Let the gesso dry completely before you begin gluing. A thin layer is usually all you need; too much can make a journal page stiff or wavy. Once it is dry, you can add paint, paper, stickers, and your collage pieces right on top.
A gentle note before you close your journal where the magic happens:
mix stickers, cut paper, paint, add your own handwriting on the same page. Stickers can give you an instant focal point, cut paper brings texture and shape, paint adds color, and your words make the page feel personal.
If it starts to feel a little busy, try to cover parts of the art journal with one color. This will give the page room to breath.
And if you are having a low-energy day, keep it very simple: give yourself ten minutes, choose one sticker or cutout as the main character, add two supporting pieces, make one quick background shape with paint or torn paper, and finish with a word, tiny phrase, or a few favorite marks. No perfect composition. No pressure to fill a whole spread. Just ten minutes of playful making.
Before you put your journal away,
First take a minute to check that all of the paper edges are glued down,
Then, check if the page is dry before you close it, add a thin coat of gel medium would help protect the collage.
Finally, pause and ask yourself whether the page needs one last sticker, paint dot, or handwritten word or whether it is already finished just as it is.
Most of all, remember that your books are not too precious to use. They are there to spark ideas, help you begin, and bring a little more play into your creative time. Use the pages that call to you, save the pieces you love, protect your finished work with good materials, and let your journal be a place for experimenting. There is no right way to make a collage page only your way.
Okay, your turn!
Have you tried any of these? Is there a book you reach for again and again?
I’d love to know what’s on your creative shelf. Email me with your favorite book, or tell me what kind of imagery you love most in your journal: florals, vintage ephemera, animals, bold color, magical creatures, or something totally different.
Happy creating, friend!
Salwa
Artful Haven