This weekend I got to play with some Shrinky Dink paper. You remember Shrinky Dinks right? You color on plastic and then it shrinks down in the oven and you have a charm or pendant? Yeah, that stuff. You can buy unprinted sheets of it in clear, white, black, brown... Then you can cut out shapes and stamp, draw, or color on them. They shrink in the oven or with a heat gun. They even make some sheets that will go through your inkjet printer (though they cost twice as much!).
So, I bought a pack of multiple colors and had some fun this weekend. I mostly used stamps, though I did color one in with gel pens before shrinking. I tried shrinking in the oven (works well) and shrinking with a heat gun(problematic as those suckers will blow right away!) when I didn't want to wait for the oven to heat. I am really loving the silver ink on the black shrinky dink paper, I will have to make more of that!.
Things to consider if you want to try this: 1) The paper shrinks to about 1/3 it's original size. So, the circle one below was traced from a 125yrd roll of fireline and shrank to just over an inch. The black one, I traced one of my ink pads, again just over an inch. I used a 1.5 inch circle punch on the small ones in the group shot and they turned out tiny... but that is ok, I will make earrings!. 2) You may need to seal them. With the stamped images I used a black Stayzon ink and a silver/gold pigment ink, and both of those seem pretty well permanent. But I noticed that the one I colored with gel pens wants to rub off. I will seal with a coat of clear glaze. 3) The children in your house WILL steal your shrink paper. Buy extra. 4) If you are in a recycling mood, don't buy the paper at all! Instead, collect the plastic food containers that the local grocery deli uses for salads and such (it will be marked with a number 6) and lightly sand it. You can then use it just like you would the purchased paper!
