Icy, Snowy Shrinky Dink Flair

Do you remember coloring on Shrinky Dinks as a child and making little plastic charms?  How about we use the same material in crafting some flair-ish type buttons with an icy, snowy feel.  Come on...I'll show you how.

I had some shrink plastic from long ago in my stash, but also noticed it is sold in the stamping supply aisle as the Shrinky Dink brand in my local Michael's, in case you don't have any on hand.

I used a 3 inch punch to cut out a circle.  Remember, your image will shrink by about 50% once heat set, so consider how large you'd like your finished piece to be.   Using a fine grit sandpaper, I sanded the side where I wanted to put the image.

I thought I may have had a snowflake stamp in my stash, but no such luck.  I also knew I would need a special kind of ink (like Stayz On) if I wanted to stamp on the shrink plastic, and I knew I didn't have anything other than black.  In the spirit of using what you have on hand, I experimented using my Uni Ball white gel pen and drew the snowflakes free hand.  Since doodling and drawing  aren't my forte, I used Google images and searched for "hand drawn snowflakes" and used that as my guide.  There, that wasn't too hard.

 If you'd like to thread your flair with twine (or in my case, tinsel), you'll want to hole punch before shrinking.

  As I child, I recall putting my Shrinky Dinks in the oven, but I discovered online that your heat tool (like the kind used for embossing) will also do that job and give you greater control during the plastic transformation.  You'll want to be sure to have something to keep the "dink" in place while you are shrinking.  I used a metal skewer.  I also used a non-stick frying pan since the heat gun does make the surface hot.

Now for the transformation...

 I had to stop mid-way to take a picture as I was doing this solo, but you'll want to keep the skewer lightly on your piece or it WILL become a hot flying piece of plastic!  It will bend and curl and almost seem like a lost cause, but just keep applying the heat and use your skewer to help it become flat again.  Total shrinking time is less than a minute.

I used something hard and flat (like this canister cover) to flatten out my flair as soon as I turned off the heat.

Next, let's add a little bling to our icy flakes.  Some silver and diamond Stickles should do the job.

A little tinsel from my January Counterfeit Kit, "Lingering Season" and I'm ready to add my flair to a scrapbook page.

Here's another up-close look...

Had enough of snow and ice?  No problem.  Get out your shrink plastic and make your flair suit your fancy.  

Thanks for stopping by!