Sealing your Shrinky Dink designs with a clear coat of varnish or resin can help protect the colors and prevent scratching or fading over time. While colored pencils can be used on Shrinky Dinks, markers provide more vibrant and long-lasting results. No, permanent markers are designed to be fade-resistant and will maintain their color saturation even after shrinking.
- Keep an eye on it the entire time- if it starts to curl up, use a spatula to flatten it.
- Shrink plastic is my new favorite craft material.
- It’s so much fun to watch recycled plastics shrink to a fraction of the original size and show the bright colors of what you created.
- With the circle selected and the lock icon closed, change the size to .75” to make the outer edge of the hole.
Watch ’em shrink!
Place the plastic on a thin cookie sheet (not the insulated type) covered with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Our 2″ circle became about 3/4″ when shrunk. You can purchase the special plastic sheets (affiliate link) and follow manufacturer instructions. Your email address will not be published. This should help to uncurl the shrinky dinks. This is great if you are just getting started.
Using permanent markers, draw your desired design on the outside of the plastic cup. When they are done baking, they might not be laying completely flat anymore. Put another piece of parchment paper on top of the shapes. Line your baking sheet with some parchment paper and place the shapes on top. The colors will get darker when they shrink. Follow the instructions on your packet to print the coloring pages on your shrink film.
Decorate your bookmarks with fun colors, traced drawings of book characters, or personalize with someone’s name. Another method would be to color the pet tag, then use your printer or a cutting machine such as a Cricut to create shrinky dink crafts a small vinyl sticker of your pet’s name. A standard size hole punch created the perfect sized hole for jewelry after it shrinks. When you make your own jewelry, you can create something that perfectly matches a specific outfit.
Supplies for Rainbow Earrings
They’re the perfect way to keep your big kids and tweens busy in the days before school starts, with a relaxing craft that’s functional and fun! Some artists melt similar colors together in metal molds to create marbled cabochons rather than wasting material. Bake the charm until it flattens, then apply a UV resin dome for glass-like depth and scratch resistance. Bake, flatten, and seal the piece before slipping a split ring through the hole. Beware- if you read this you will start compulsively checking plastic containers to see if they can be made into homemade shrinky dinks! It only took a couple minutes for it to flatten back out.
Shrink! Shrank! Shrunk!: Make Stylish Shrink Plastic Jewelry
You can also follow your favorite themes while doing such projects. Trust the process and they will flatten. Your artwork will shrink significantly, so start with a large drawing. Once fully shrunk, press it lightly with an offset spatula to flatten.
Shrinky dinks don’t tend to turn out perfect though. So, if you need perfectly straight lines or corners to fit into a tiny frame or something that might be tricky, but you could sand it down (with fine grit sandpaper). I will say, they probably aren’t perfect rectangles. So, if yours are curled, they may have needed to bake longer.
These Mother’s Day keychains using shrinky dink sheets are perfect, and so much fun to do! Once they are completely flat give them about 20 more seconds and then take them out to cool. Line the cookie sheets with brown paper grocery bags, making sure they are laying flat. • extra fine-tip Sharpies • colored pencils • cording- This can be found at your craft store as well. These Shrinky Dinks bookmarks might be one of my favorite projects!
Watch the video in this post
Trace or freehand draw anything using permanent markers. Preheat oven to 300 degrees, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. So check the plastic for a #6 in the recycling arrows. We started out tracing things to make our shrinky dinks.