Time machine or iCloud ?

I suspect with the app you went too far back in time to when you had a demo version or when you bought it you had to enter a code to activate it.

With Stickies the notes are stored in a "StickiesDatabase" file the User/Library folder. To find the Library folder open Finder then click the Go menu in the Menu Bar. Press the Option key on the keyboard to make Library appear. Enter Time Machine and roll back to the time you wish to recover to and select the StickiesDatabase file. You can not select separate notes, only all notes so any newer notes will be removed.

iCloud and Time Machine are 2 completely different services. Time Machine is a back up program. It can be enhanced by using another back up program such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Even though Time Machine can be super simple to use at times it still requires digging into the file system to find the data you need to restore. Using one of the other programs will require the same process at digging into the file system to recover files with out some of Time Machines trick of simplifying the process. Their benifits are the ability to create a bootable drive incase something goes wrong with a full system update. Creating an extra back up to a different drive with the other programs also enhances you back up in case something goes wrong with the Time Machine backup.

iCloud is not really a good place for backups. It does keep an iPhone, iPod or iPad back up but does not keep a computer back up. iCloud is best used to keep the iOS devices in sync with each other and a computer. The computer should still have a proper back up routine. If you delete something from Contacts, Notes, Reminders Calendars it is gone from all devices shortly after. For the most part the only way to get it back is using the computers back up.

carbon copy cloner

This will help you sort this out. https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4056 and this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4190995

iCloud does not back up a computer but is more intended to share information to other devices in real time. iCloud can contain a back up for an iOS device although the media must also live elsewhere. iCloud can hold your data but it is easily over written or erase by many different methods. For this reason it is not a good back up.

Time Machine will create a good and complete back up of your computer on an external drive. Sometimes it is easy to find the data you need to recover, sometimes it is not, you just need to know where to look. A common problem is the User Library folder which contains a lot of your data is hidden from you. It is still there you just need to find it. 3rd party programs will backup the same data as Time Machine, but the User Library folder will also be hidden when you try to view it. It just gives you another copy and another way to explorer your back ups for lost data. Mostly it is just another copy which is a good thing.

"carbon copy cloner" is great. ! I thought Apple would have come up with something similar by now, since they no longer give you a copy of your OS on CD/DVD, and it's not even stored on a separate partition. I have not found a way to automatically create and save images of the system on a regular basis, so I can always restore it to an earlier state, like before my computer starts acting up, or before I downloaded some program I don't want anymore, without affecting my documents, media, etc... or even back to factory settings. This is probably one of the best things about Windows 7. It has saved me countless hours of unnecessary troubleshooting. Apple needs to implement something similar. If they have, then it should be easier to find, because I haven't yet.

iCloud would be perfect to store these images because they don't take much space.