Saturday, November 3, 2018

My First (And Last) Sticker Album

my first
(and last) 
sticker album


When I was 3 my mom handed me a dark blue photo album and some stickers and said, "You should start a sticker album! Your cousins do this for fun, and you should too!"

Um, okay. Putting things into an album where they can't easily be moved around & played with? Talk about the antithesis of Things I Liked To Do At Age 3.

Still... stickers = shiny....

And so I began my collection. I seem to have regularly added to the album from ages 3-7, then taken a break until some years later.

Today I'm revisiting that album. I'll go in page order, which incidentally is not chronological order. Some of the stickers I do remember receiving, others may have just materialized on the pages for all I know. 


PAGE 1


Well, clearly by the looks of Dale (?), Scrooge, Minnie, the frog and the ice cream cone, I at least attempted to move these stickers around before realizing that was a poor choice.

The "dinosaur in tar" one is a bit morbid.

And in case there's any confusion about who this album's owner is?

It's MOLLY.

That's me.


PAGE 2


Puffy stickers.

Arizona stickers. We did visit that state in 1984 so that's likely where I acquired them.

Happy St. Pat-Rick's Day! from Woodstock.

Those leaping leprechauns do seem happy.


PAGE 3


Springtime has come to the sticker album! 

Bunnies! Bluebirds! Flowers! Rainbow Jesus! And good old St. Pat-Rick making off with a load of gold.


PAGE 4


Did I have a something against Chip & Dale? Oh well. More birds. Fall stickers. Indianapolis Colts sticker. I seem to recall sports stickers being given away in cereal boxes at the time. 


PAGE 5 & 6


More birds, sentient tree, unsettling Santa... but the guy in the pink sweatpants is really the creepiest... also, why is he there twice? And who's the lady singing? What does it all mean?


PAGE 7


Some award I got in elementary school, maybe, and a random tiger gazing lovingly at it. 

I'M SUPER!


PAGE 8


The stickers on this page were added by me around age 13-14. It must have been a blank page that I thought needed to be filled.

The yellow & blue bear stickers came with a Barbie or Skipper doll, I think.

The red dinosaur was from Highlights magazine sticker set.

The school photo is of me. Dork alert.

The Stacie heart was also a Barbie thing.

Suzanne was a friend of mine.

The bubblegum machine may have been a Lisa Frank sticker.

The giant cat sticker, I believe, came out of a toy machine at a grocery store or SkateWorld or somewhere.

The green circle is one of those garage sale price stickers, and I love that my 13-year-old self thought that was important enough to include on this page.


PAGE 9


The WOW Sticker was of something called a Happy Moodie, from 1984. (I had to Google it.)

Ah, look, Woodstock & his friends are up to no good.

Upside-down rainbow bird.

Pioneer Clubs sticker.

Christmas tree.


PAGE 10


The full-bodied people stickers came out of my creative writing notebook from 3rd grade. My teacher used to comment on our stories with not only words but stickers that related to our stories. It was a great method for keeping us (well, me at least) writing. I wish I'd left these IN that notebook though. 


PAGE 11


Now it's called the Oregon Zoo. I have no memory of which animal I explored in order to receive this sticker.


PAGE 12


More puffy stickers, one of those Color Kids from Rainbow Brite flying a kite, and then this...


Okay then.


PAGE 13


Hey it's those stickers that look like they're moving! Motion stickers? 

Fun fact: Bugs Bunny turned 50 in 1990.

Other fun fact: You are old and so am I.


PAGE 14


Fuzzy stickers! And a random elephant throwing (or catching?) an apple!


PAGE 15


I know it's hard to read, but that sticker on the bottom says ALOHA HAWAII, which I probably got when we visited there in 1985. 

The rollerskating gingerbread man was a scented sticker. My kindergarten teacher would give out a sticker after carpet time to someone who had been particularly good that day. I always tried to be on my best behavior, but no stickers came my way for several months, until finally, one day, I was handed that sticker, and the pride I felt could not be contained. 


PAGE 16


Stamps! Captain Power stamps, to be precise. And a purple Color Kid skateboarding, wheee!


PAGE 17


More stamps. Birds and a random POWER ON! stamp.


PAGE 18


Those monsters were made up of multiple stickers which you assembled to make a beast of your choosing. I remember getting these circa 1985 from my mom, who had some kind of "Be Good" chart going for me at the time. The prize was these stickers.

She would organize several of these incentive programs over the years. 

I admire her optimism.


PAGE 19


Another set of monster stickers, two more scented stickers (the mouse and the horse), three more Color Kids having fun, and...



Wait, is that Marvin? He's been around that long?!? 

And yet these jokes are so clean, so pure... Does not compute.


PAGE 20


No stickers on the second-to-last page of the album, just postcards plucked from inside Highlights For Children, where I'd written my parents' first names, and signed MY name, possibly hoping to send away for these amazing things...

and then I just stuck the postcards in this album instead.


Legit 7-year-old signature, there. Take my money.

Or not.


PAGE 21


So uhhh apparently this was supposed to be the first page in the album, with directions on how to go about inserting photos. But three-year-old me said nope, I'm starting this sticker album from the other direction! BECAUSE I CAN.

Still, I did eventually use this page to keep track of... something....

1, 00, 600, 67

1, 00, 60, 66

Molly Patton

Stan - 1

Stickers


Clearly this is a code I must crack.


Until then...




1 comment:

  1. Ooooh! I had that sticker (the pierrot one)! It's from a set of stationary, that I think probably came from scholastic? It had paper for writing letters that folded into thirds, with matching stickers that sealed the letter up when folded. There were unicorn ones and horses and I don't remember what all else... I used to send them to penpals. If I ever unearth *my* old sticker books I bet whatever I have left of them is in the same box.

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