How to Rice: Stickerbomb!

What is stickerbombing? Well stickerbombing is slapping a ton of stickers to cover a grungy old surface. While it seems quite straight forward it is important to carefully plan out your sticky attack. This technique can be used on car parts, laptop covers, binders, any flat or slightly curved surface you can stick some stickers on to.

This has become a fad in the import circles. My friend has a 1996 Integra LS that he had planned to swap a black GSR dash into. Instead of this, I convinced him to go full RICE and stickerbomb his dash. He accepted this and bought a ton of stickers. Let the games begin.

Step 1: Parts Needed

You might be asking yourself: "What tools do I need to do this awesome stickerbombing? How ever could I manage this without a ton of tools?" This step will answer all your questions and more!

Tools Needed:

Dash Cleaner (Not Armor-All wipes)

Microfiber Towel

Stickers

Hands

Exacto Knife

Oh yes, with all of these expensive and elusive tools you can sticker bomb your car to be baddest guy or gal at the KFC on a friday night.

Step 2: Starting Out

Well you now know what parts and tools you need to undertake this very complex task. First you must wipe down your surface. Since we are doing this on a dashboard, I used some automotive wax and grease remover. DO NOT USE AN ARMOR ALL PRODUCT. They leave a residue on the dash that prohibits the stickers from sticking well.

Next bring out your box of stickers. We purchased 50 for $6.00 on ebay. We had 150 for this project and quickly found out that this was way too few. Sort the box of stickers for duplicates. Duplicates are fine in a project like this, you just want to make sure to not put the same on the same level or in the same region.

Step 3: Base Layer

The base layer of stickers is easy. Just lay down stickers and do not overlap them. Overlapping at this point is unnecessary. Put many of the stickers you do not like or are not interesting to you on this base layer. Square stickers are also the best for this portion because it fills a lot of space quickly. You can have a few air bubbles at this stage with no problem as it probably can't be seen.

Step 4: Middle Layer

The middle layer is where you start building the overlapping look. Only overlap about 1/8-1/4 of a sticker at this point. You are still trying to build volume and fill up space. Your fingers will not be hurting yet, but the floorboard will be filling up with sticker backing. Start stacking in more interesting stickers at this point, but not your favorites. Hold on to those.

Step 5: Last Layer

This is the time where you put your more interesting stickers. Fill in all the gaps (where you can still see your original surface) with smaller stickers. You want 100% of the original surface covered or else it ruins the effect. Only what is inside of the black square is completed at this point.

Step 6: Keep Being a Slapping Fool!

Well this is about 100 stickers into the whole ordeal. Just keep slapping it until you cannot see any more spaces.

Step 7: Out of Stickers :C

Well at this point we ran out of stickers, but you can see how it works as you continue on working. We ordered 200 more stickers to finish off the dash. You do not need to remove any of the trim pieces, Use a screwdriver to push the stickers into the cracks and go around the cracks with an X-Acto knife or scissor blades. This gives you a very even look. I know, I didn't add these into the tools. I'm sorry that I am a very very bad man.

To seal them you have two choices. We went over the top with an acrylic sealer that is used for paint and a brush.. Be careful not to touch it prior to it fully curing, you will smudge the ink off of the sticker. another way to seal it is to take a rattle can full of clear coat and spray over the dash. It would be more uniform than the brush, but you will need to mask things off. You can also leave the stickers bare, but they may sunfade quicker.

Want to see that bitchin' steering wheel installed? Head over to my page and take a looksie. Will be wrote up 8/12

Comments

[killhalley]

I stickerbombed my dash like this and a lot of the stickers started peeling up. Is there something I can use so they’ll stay down? I saw you said the clear coat but I don’t know if you just used that to protect them from the sun or if that actually holds them down I don’t wanna try it and mess all the stickers up. Help!

[Schizorussian]

The clear should hold them together while also protecting them. They might be sticking up due to the sun and maybe you didn’t clean the surface and or the quality wasn’t good

[OkayOkayer]

Hey I recognize this interior, it's a 3rd gen Integra! Shame it's auto

[blkadder]

Love it, love everything about it.

[tomatoskins]

This is great! I love how it looks. I might just suggest cutting around the air bag so that in the event of an accident your awesome sticker creation doesn't hider your cars safety features.

[390v8]

Yeah if it was my car I would. But since the steering wheel that was installed had no airbag capability, he decided to disable all airbags so he wouldn't have an SRS light flash. Once again, I would do it differently if it was my vehicle, but ultimately that is the owners decision.