How-To Tuesday: Shrinky Dinks

Hi this is Ruth from Nice Day Designs, it been a while since I posted anything here on the team blog, *waves* to all the new readers.

It was about 2 months ago that I first spotted 'Shrinky Dinks' in some craft tutorial online. I was totally fascinated by them, and the more research I did they seemed too good to be true. Basically they are a plastic that you draw on, stick them in the oven for a couple of minutes and they get 7 times smaller and 7 times thicker!! They go from a thickness like ascetate to a sturdy clear plastic. There are endless possibilities, from earrings, card embellishments, ornaments etc etc. Apparently they are huge in the US and all American kids play with them, but I had never heard of them before or seen them in any craft shop here.

I tried to order some directly from the website but they were going to charge me $40 shipping on a really small item. Instead I had a look on ebay and found 'Shrinkles', a 'shrinky dink' substitute, the same product but with far more affordable shipping.

I got the transparent and opaque versions, both in packs of 50 for a total of about 20 euro. To get a decent sized image I used an entire sheet per piece. For the transparent shrinkles I had to use 'Sharpie' markets, I was able to get a set of these in my local craft shop Silkes for 10 euro. But for the opaque ones regular colouring pencils are fine.

I was delighted with how they turned out, shrinking an image always makes it look way better as the detail is condensed. I included a euro coin in the photos so you can get an idea of the change in scale. Also since they are transparent they would be very easy to trace images if you are not that confident at drawing.

After making lots of them I've decided I prefer the opaque ones as you can get more detail and texture with the colouring pencils. Recently someone saw the cards I made with them and I've been commisioned to do a large scale artwork with them pieces lots of panels together...I'm excited to get started on it soon.