DIY Shrinky Dinks.

By Chrisjob

My parents are both science teachers: which means they always ruined the secrets to magic tricks, they forced me to identify every tree by leaf and bark type, and we always created our own versions of ‘science-y’ toys. We used to cook our Easy-Bake Oven meals with foil and a light bulb, and created our own slime with cornstarch and food coloring.
And, when we wanted our own shrinkable art, did we get the sweet pre-printed HeMan or Strawberry Shortcake sheets? Nope. We freehanded it on blank sheets of plastic, and copying the designs from coloring books. (Luckily, neither of my parents could draw, or else we might have had hand drawn versions of those, too.)

    The process is simple. I don’t know what kind of Shrinky Dinks are available, if any, but I’ll always be able to make some on my own… I guess my parents actually taught me something. Nuts.

Ingredients:
    Clean #6 Plastic
    Permanent Markers
    Scissors
    Aluminum Foil
    Oven and Tongs or Oven Mitt

1. Obtain a piece of #6 plastic (polystyrene). Most clear containers at salad bars, delis, and grocery stores will work. Just flip it over and look for a “6” inside the recycling arrows. If you ask nicely, they’ll usually give you a fresh one.

2. Cut any excess plastic away to make a flat sheet (use both the top and the bottom), and recycle the excess.
3. Draw or write your desired image or text on your plastic canvas using permanent markers. The total image will shrink to about a third of its original size, and five or six times its original thickness. (My parents, of course, would make us measure before and after, and figure how much it had changed.)

4. Pre-heat your oven to 350°, and place a rack in the lowest position. Create a “tray” out of the aluminum foil by bending up the sides. Technically, you could cover a baking sheet with foil, but the thinner surface allows for more direct heat and quicker shrinking.
5. Place your art in the tray, then use the tongs or an oven mitt to place the foil on the bottom rack.
6. At first, for the first minute your art will curl up all crazy like. Then, it will flatten itself out. Once it is finished, take it out. If you have an oven door through which you can see, then just keep an eye on it. If your door is solid, open it just slightly (as you would do when broiling) after 90 seconds. Total time for a large piece (5-6” starting size) will be about 3 1/2 minutes.

7. Using the tongs or oven mitt, remove the tray. At this point, it’s still plyable, so if you want to flatten it more, or add waves or bend the corners, do so CAREFULLY within the first ten seconds.
8. Now, you can do as you please. It’s still cut-able, sand-able, drill-able, glue-able, and plenty more. Attach it to jewelry, make a luggage label, or even a guitar pick!

Please include more application ideas in the comments below. Cheers.

Tagged:
shrinky_dink how-to diy art nostaglia Toys childhood 70s 80s

August 08, 2007

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speedogirl2

September 19, 2007

Not to rain on the party, but could this potentially release toxins from the plastic?

siera104

September 12, 2007

This is a great instant gratification craft! The post suggests punching holes in the plastic after you shrunk them I didn't have much luck with the hot things. Instead I used a regular single hole punch, it shrunk down to a great size hole to make jewelry and such. Plus if you have plastic that had a sticker on it and you cant seem to get the glue off all of the way, no worries just draw on the the other side and after you shrink the plastic the glue comes off much easier when its been heated.

BrokenFingersArt

August 28, 2007

What a cool post! I use shrink plastic to make jewelry. Check it out www.brokenfingersart.etsy.com . The way to get the best color is to take really fine sandpaper and sand the heck out of your plastic before you draw. Also really soft pencils work great.

megrockstar

August 18, 2007

i love this! how cool

stephee

August 13, 2007

My daughter and I tried this over the weekend. Wow - I forgot how much fun - and how easy - it is! And re-using the #6 polystyrene (that we can't even recycle in this area - only #1 and #2 are accepted) was a great bonus. We are sold on this and can't wait to do more and more! I will say, though, that I think ours shrunk down smaller than 1/3! Tiny, tiny! I will try to remember that next time!

Thanks for the tutorial! :)

locamama

August 10, 2007

Okay, I was inspired to play. I used the shrink plastic I already had. I used a guitar pick template from this site http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/guitar_picks. I stamped a dragon in black stazon ink. I colored the outside of the image using metallic pencils and punched a hole before shrinking. After shrinking I sanded the edges and edged with a silverleaf pen. Then I added a layer of diamond glaze to give it a shiny look. Just make sure that you don't seal the hole with the glaze. Now it's drying and tommorow I will make into guitar pick necklaces for my boys. This is a great project for my middle school boys.

Caya123

August 10, 2007

Now I have an excuse to buy a set of those cool colored permanent markers. I always avoided buying those, because with small kids around, it's just asking for trouble-

stephee

August 10, 2007

This is great! I can't wait to try it. The first thing I thought of, application-wise was zipper pulls and cell phone charms. Ooh - are they thick enough to use for buttons? That could be fun, too.

Do you have a pic of the finished product?

locamama

August 09, 2007

Oh, I also use a heat gun instead of the oven and flatten it using the back of a wood mounted rubber stamp when it is done shrinking but still warm.

locamama

August 09, 2007

I love the idea of making a guitar pick. My son would love that. They have been making necklaces using the Lucky Squirrel shrink plastic but your method is cheaper. I'm a stamper so we rubber stamp with Staz on ink and color with colored pencils.

_xhan

August 09, 2007

ahh shrinklets! They rocked!

Caya123

August 08, 2007

I never did that as a kid. I have no idea why! Looks fun- yay, I got kids of my own to do this with!!

DIY Maven

August 08, 2007

Very cool. I love revisiting crafts I used to make as a kid to see how I can apply them to things I'm into now. I'm thinking I could make embellishments for beading and paper arts using this technique.