10 Things To Do With Your Purikura

So once you have your purikura what can you do with it? I'm hoping to cover some more creative projects in the future but for now let's see the most common things you can do with your stickers.

1.      Make a purikura album.

After I’ve scanned my purikura (I’m paranoid about losing everything to a fire or earthquake) I usually put one copy of each purikura into my album. It’s a cross between a photo album and a diary, and a nice way to see your purikura in date order.

2.      Stick them in your schedule book.

I keep all my old schedule books so it’s nice to have not only the writing of what I did on a particular day but also the pictures from that day too. And it’s not just me, in the new Egg magazine Gugu shows us her schedule book and she does it too!

3.      Stationery

The most popular thing to do among my students is decorate a shitajiki (a sheet of hard plastic meant to be placed under the page you are writing on to protect the other pages from indentation), then they sit and look at it instead of concentrating in class! You can decorate anything flat, rulers and eraser covers are perfect. Rounded things like pens are ok but will probably peel away faster.

4.      Magnets

One of my personal favourites! I buy magnetic sheets at the 100yen shop, stick the purikura on, trim around and voila! My own personalised magnets! I have them on my desk at work, on my fridge and on my apartment door. Once I had a female delivery person come and she said they were so cute and such a good idea!

5.      Bookmark

If you feel like keeping the pictures intact you can use the strip as a bookmark! If you wanted a sturdier one just stick the entire strip to a piece of thick paper or card and you have a more lasting version. If you are really serious about keeping them nice (and outside of Japan the expense would make me want to keep them forever!) you could laminate a strip at a print shop and trim it down.

6.      Keyring or Keitai (mobile phone) strap

You could add your purikura to the back of any flat keyring or keitai strap or make your own. There are keyring kits where you add a photo to a plastic keyring and seal it shut, pop two purikura pictures in back to back and you are done! If you are in Japan or can get hold on one there are tiny photo albums designed to hold purikura and these usually have a strap to add it to your phone or keys.

7.      Business card

Very common in Japan, if you feel like making cards with your phone number or blog address on them leave a little space in the design and add some purikura after you print them off. If you don’t want to waste your pictures like this, scan your purikura first and add it into the card design before you print. I knocked these up as an example for this post but I like it so I think I'll make better versions and start handing them out!

8.      Decorate Your Electronics

Mobile phones are another opportunity to decorate! If you don’ t want to completely cover your phone in bling (like I did with my iPhone case) you can stick your purikura on for instant decoration. This seems to be the thing boyfriends do with their copies of purikura. I guess it also then marks the guys as taken. haha. Other small electronics like dictionaries work well too. (Pictures courtesy of luxvesperis) My old laptop was also covered inside and out but my new one is too new just yet so I haven't decorated it.

9.     Make Badges

I stumbled across this picture on a google image search, it's from a hair salon's staff blog. If you can get hold of a badge maker (I used to have a cheap one from Toys'R'Us) you can make your purikura into cute and durable badges. Now you can decorate clothes and bags with purikura as well! Genius!

10.   Compact Mirror

Again this is a common enough thing to deco, why not cover a plain one with purikura? Or combine deco and purikura together!

Bonus!!

11. Just keep them in your purse!

I tend not to cut up my purikura for a week or so after I’ve taken them, I just carry them around with me so I can look at the pretty pictures, when I’ve got a few (or my purse is too full!) that’s when I start doing other things with them! Oh and yes, I did choose this style of purse so that I could put my purikura in it safely!