Sure it's cheating... But as The Duke says, "If ya ain't cheatin' ya ain't tryin' ". I did something along the same lines with my printer, printing out a German SS dot-pattern... I'm too cheap to buy decals, but I get printer ink cheap and paper for free.
It takes a little work to soften up the paper to fit tightly over the figures wrinkles and folds, but it's a fairly good alternative... I think the sleeve-cuffs turned out exceptionally well...