~DIY: Adventures with Shrink Plastic!~

Hi hi hi everyone! Finally my week has settled down and I have time to blog and craft ^.^ Recently I found something amazing at our local Daiso: SHRINKIES!!! I've been searching for these at the craft store for so long but I never seem to find any! Especially this clear kind that I can easily trace on :3 I believe there are some types of shrink plastic that you can print things on with a printer and do it that way but I haven't been able to find that type yet  >__<

If you don't know what a shrinky is (aka Shrinky Dinks) it's this amazing type of plastic that starts out sort of flimsy like paper and when heated shrinks down and hardens into a solid little object! The one I bought at Daiso comes with 2 small sheets and 1 big sheet, and some keychains if you want to make some! I believe this is a new item because I've never seen it it our Daiso before *0*

On the back it says you need oil markers and I found that Sharpies work great! Some people have used colored pencils but I found them difficult to use on this plastic.

Materials:
-shrink plastic (either this lil' kit from Daiso or any other type you can find at the craft store!)
-toaster oven
-Sharpies
-Maybe some jewelry pliers and wire if you want to make danglies
-hole punch if you want to make danglies and/or keychains
-or pin backs if you want to make pins like I did! :D and hot or super glue
-acrylic paint and paint brushes if you have limited colors of Sharpies like I did
-scissors and/or exacto knife and mat if you have them! They would really come in handy ^__^
-Mod Podge for sealing if you use my painting method
-tape

Other than following the instructions on the back, my method was to paint in the pictures from the backs of the pins since I only had three colors of Sharpies. So first I took the plastic and traced over the picture I wanted with a fine tip black Sharpie like so:

I don't recommend tracing from your laptop screen like I did here but I was lazy to print it out lol~ Can you see the shrink plastic?

Hopefully you can see here how I traced over the picture~

I put a piece of paper behind the plastic to check my progress ^.^

It also helps if you tape down the plastic to the thing you're tracing so it stays in place ^.^

One thing to remember with shrinkies is that they shrink! The directions usually tell you how much they will shrink and in this case it said they would shrink to 1/4 of their original size. But just keep in mind when you pick a picture to trace or draw that it will end up being quite a bit smaller!

Before puttin' in the oven

After puttin' in the oven! See the size difference?

Then I retraced to make sure the lines were nice and cut out my picture carefully! This is where an exacto knife would have been nice if I had one T___T You really should be careful when going around corners and things because you might accidentally rip through your picture if your force the scissors around~ If you're making a keychain or charm or dangly now is a good time to punch a hole in the area you want your loop to be.

First trace

Second trace ^.^

This plastic required about 130 degree Celsius oven but my toaster oven only has certain temps and was in Fahrenheit so I set it to about 275 degrees and it worked just fine ^.^ But make sure you check your own oven settings as well as the requirements for your particular plastic! Temps and times can vary sometimes so you just have to keep an eye on your plastic so it doesn't over "cook" and burn. It takes about a minute on average is what I've found and it's so fun to see it curl up and shrink! Once it goes to a pretty much flat state quickly take it out with tongs and place it between two sturdy books or a book and your counter! This will help it flatten out. The first time I tried this I took too long to take the pins out and they look slightly curved:

Whoops >.<

Just know that it takes a few tries to get it just right! Even my fourth batch ended up with completely curled up pins so don't get frustrated and just keep trying until you get the right technique down :D

This happens sometimes T^T And this is from my sixth batch! (Each batch=2 haha)

Now all you have to do is get painting! I used acrylics and a fine tip paintbrush. This was easy to do since the plastic I was using was clear. I sealed the back with Mod Podge because if you get the back wet the paint will easily rub off.

The backs just after painting all of them, before Mod Podge.

When the Mod dries all you have to do is glue the pin back on aaaaand:

Strawberry Pocky, Cherry Coco from Line, Caramel Corn, Peko-chan, Qoo drink (dangly), Barbapapa, Apollo chocolates, Yotsuba, Sailor Moon, K-On!, my Chanrio (Abby-Chanrio <3), and Yakult! I made a few more since I took this one (seen at the top of this post) :3

Yay! You're done! Aren't they cute??? And you can make detailed drawings and still notice all the details when it shrinks ^.^ I'm clearly obsessed with this right now hahaha. Summer is my crafting heaven!!

Hope you enjoyed this little adventure in the land of shrinky dinks! And remember if you're copying someone else's design to ask them for permission to copy their artwork if you can! And don't sell other people's artwork as your own :3

xoxo Abby