Stickers!

One thing I loved about growing up in the 80’s was… stickers! I started collecting stickers when I was about eleven.  There was this little store called Fluff ‘N’ Stuff that had a ton of Hello Kitty stuff strewn throughout the aisles of the little cove in the Neshaminy Mall.  Among the Hello Kitty garb and shiny, glittery things were… stickers!

Now, these stickers were not prepackaged for anyone to just go up and pluck from the rack.  No, no no… These stickers were on rolls behind the counter.  We had to really give it a lot of thought.  Did we want the scratch ‘n sniff or the puffy sticker?  Did we want Strawberry Shortcake or that other pickle sticker to complete our fruit/veggie page in our beloved sticker book?

Sometimes the pickle stickers were scratch and sniff and that was not really a great smell.

Here is a link for an 80’s Sticker Albums! group on Facebook.  Insane peeps (I can only speak for myself here) trade stories and pictures of stickers from yesterdecade and I really don’t know what else to say about it.  For some reason  I am feeling a small amount of shame right now.  Sounds like someone needs a banana sniffy sticker!  😉

In the 80’s, stickers kept us kids busy for hours. The meticulous choice (sometimes we’d buy two of the same if we really liked it and knew someone else would want one) was at times painstakingly tedious.  The thought process was something like, “I’ll get two of these Smurfette stickers.  I remember Mary saying she needed one and I know she’ll give me that Rainbow Brite sticker I had my eye on.”  This was followed by a quiet moo ha ha along with a wringing of the hands.  As long as I had the best stickers (which I most times did because my grandmother spoiled me rotten) Mary was mine!  The puffy ones were the most fun along with those round shiny ones that often times had unicorns or Pegasuses on them.

I almost bought my daughter a sticker album and a sheet of stickers for Christmas this year.  That was until my boyfriend reminded me that she was sixteen and not that interested.

“Trust me,” he said.

I choked back the tears.  Then had some ice cream and got over it.  Almost.

Did you collect stickers when you were a kid?  Maybe you collected something else then or now?

I’d love to hear from you.

All images courtesy of Branded In The 80’s