Shrinky Dinks

As a kid, we would make shrinky dinks from kits with Strawberry Shortcake, Cabbage Patch Kids, and others, so when I saw this DIY Shrinky Dink on Pinterest I just had to try it.  Now a few hours, some burns, and lots of deformed pieces of plastic later I made a couple kinda okay looking things.

Peacock pendant

The cool thing is that you can use a plastic container, like those ones you get salad in at grocery stores to make these shrinky dinks.  (Yay, for recycling!)  You just cut shapes out of it and draw whatever you'd like.  Sharpies work the best or use colored pencils by using sand paper to give a little texture to the plastic.  When coloring remember that any part that you leave clear will turn white.

The white part was clear before shrinking.

Once you color and cut your plastic place it on some foil in the oven set at 350.  I learned from trial and error that you should check on it every 20 seconds.  They start curling up and you can take them out and push them back down.  Once out you have about ten seconds before it cools too hard to change.

Some that didn't shrink so well.

The Shrinky Dinks are supposed to shrink to about a third of their size but, mine didn't seem to shrink that much.  I may not have been using the right type of plastic.

It didn't shrink as much as I hoped.

Interesting project, but don't think I'll be doing it again.

Total Time:  Only a few minutes of baking but I spent lots of time adjusting what I was doing.
Total Cost:  $0 WooHoo!