Tutorial: repurposed stickers

I know letter stickers are SO passe now that electronic die cut machines have come into vogue.  That said, I still use them on my scrapbook pages and sometimes on my cards.  The leftover alphabet soup of letters that are seldom used is always a frustration.  I ended up spelling "btw u r gr8" on a card tonight to use more letters after running out of the letters A, E, and O.  I hate throwing away the leftover letters.  Maybe I will have a use for copious amounts of the letter Q one day.  For now, I want to repurpose the leftovers into something I can use now. 

I started with a sheet of epoxy letters circles.  These are by KI Memories from a kit given to me by a friend. 

Once I made a few titles and sentiments, I was left with alphabet soup or a license plate number, your pick. 

Would the driver of the car with license plate HPSZZ456 please report to customer service? 

After I'd used everything of value, I used a Sharpie to recolor the extra letters and numbers.  I tried a few colors, but only black was able to completely cover the print.  (Black Copics may work too, but my colors are too pale to test out.)  I applied three layers of ink, letting each one dry.  The first coat had the stickers covered, but left streaks.  You may do more or less coats to get the effect you desire.  Within a minute or two, I checked the pieces and found that they had dried to a nice shine and weren't at all sticky.   

You don't want to know what this part of the sticker sheet used to spell.  Time to black out those letters.  ;)

I used the new embellishments like we would use brads on a card.  It's easy to apply them since they're stickers and they're FREE since you were going to throw them away anyway!  I used them on a Mother's Day card, but I think they'd be great for masculine designs as well. 

The letters FLQ wouldn't make sense on this card, but black accents do!

Have you tried this or something similar?  If you try this technique, I would love to see a link to your card.  :)

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695