The day before a flight to Baltimore last year, I stumbled onto these stickers at a local kid store and realized I’d landed on a travel toy goldmine.
These Melissa & Doug vinyl stickers are actually vinyl decals, using static to adhere to smooth surfaces. There’s no sticky adhesive. (Actually, the smoothness — and not actual static cling — is the reason for its adhesive properties, but we can talk about the particulars of the science behind them another day.) You’re meant to stick them to a few laminate scenic pages in the back of the sticker pad, but the stickers also adhere wonderfully to glass, mirrors, or anything smooth.
Each pack comes with 5 pages of vinyl decals with 5 matching laminate scenes. We have the Habitat, Vehicles, and Play House sets. (And I really want My Town …maybe for myself more than for the kid.) All the stickers are cute and well-made. We’ve lost a lot of stickers, but none have stretched out or ripped on us. The pack is small enough to fit into a backpack, so it also win points for being compact. Before a trip, we slip a couple in behind our magazines.
Bean can spend hours on a flight peeling the stickers off, making her way over to an airplane window and sticking them. Once all the stickers are stuck, she works on taking them off the window and putting them back onto the sticker page, almost like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Because they aren’t actually sticky, there’s the side benefit that they don’t stick to themselves and send her into a spastic vortex of toddler frustration.
And, most hotels have full-length mirrors or windows, so the fun continues once you’ve arrived as well. Bean can usually be found adhering things to surfaces as she waits for us to finish getting ready in the morning or before dinner at night. It’s the perfect travel toy.
