YOU GUYS!!  Did you know you could make your own temporary tattoos from doodles you already HAD?!?  …Okay, well I didn’t.  But I experimented with them, and here’s how it went down.

First off, I’ll warn you that I only tried two brands–one was HORRIBLE and the other was not too shabby.  But neither one of them came out like the ink ones you get at the store or in a pack of gum–instead of transferring the ink, they both had an adhesive backing to them, so it’s basically like putting a very very very thin sticker on your arm.  Or like letting Elmer’s glue dry on your skin.  (I have super sensitive skin that doesn’t like adhesives, so for freaks like me, that might be a problem.)

I used this brand, which says you should use it with this special die-cutting machine, but you TOTALLY don’t have to (Sorry, Silhouette).  You take your images, flip them, and print them out.  There’s a plastic sheet you rub onto it once it dries, to sort of hold the adhesive down.  Then you have to cut out your “tattoos.”

I’ll warn you that NOT cutting closely around the image means you’ll get adhesive everywhere there’s blank space, as you can barely see in this closeup picture:

Not cool.  So take my word for it, and just cut closely around your image.

The rest is like a regular temporary tattoo:  peel off the plastic sheet, and place it face-down where you want it on your skin.  Again, a word of warning:  You’re essentially putting a very very very thin adhesive on your skin, so if you have super hairy arms, you might want to opt for a less-hairy spot.

Wet the back of the “tattoo” and peel it off.

And temporarily cover yourself in your own awesomeness!   Woohoo!