ShrinkyDinks

Do you remember making ShrinkyDinks as a kid?  You'd get a kit with the sheets, colored pencils or markers and there were very basic instructions to bake them. My mom would only let us make them once in a great while - mostly because they made the whole house smell (though not as bad as the Make-It Bake-It Stained Glass kits).  An acquaintance on Twitter had recently posted making some and I thought I'd look into it since much of the artwork my daughter creates would look great as little glass ornaments or cell phone danglers.

I picked up a 6-pack of the specialty material while at a local craft store recently and when it was too rainy to go outside, my daughter and I made a couple of sheets worth.  The material I picked up was called Shrink Film and it's also available in a 50-pack (if you're really into this). 

I hadn't actually read all the instructions inside the package until just before I was ready to bake them so based on what I read from the outside, we used Sharpie and Shuttle Art markers to color ours.  My daughter drew her ideas out on paper and then traced the outline of the final drawing on the "rough" side of the film.  I used images from some Salesforce-themed coloring books and an old watercolor painting of a butterfly (Florida Atala) that I did many years ago.  I then cut them out leaving some space around them and smoothing/rounding edges.  I also used a hole punch because I remember that after they bake, you really don't want to have to use a drill to add a hole.  I used parchment paper on my cookie sheet and also put a piece over the pieces too.

This picture is over the pieces before they were cooked.  We used pretty small pieces.  The largest is the butterfly which is about the size of my hand (fingers included).  I baked them at 350 degrees for 2 minutes.  I did use a spatula while the upper parchment paper was still in place to help ensure they were "mostly" flattened (or at least no big curling bumps).  When finished I added some cell phone lanyards that we got in Japan a few years ago.  My daughter can't wait to give one to her Grandma (the one she says in her in a purple kimono).  They shrunk way more than I expected but they turned out super cute and I can't wait to make more!

The end pieces looks really awesome in the sunlight.  The picture below is of the butterfly I did handing in my office window along with the original watercolor that I used for tracing when I created it.  As mentioned the watercolor is about the size of my hand and the finished ShrinkyDink is a little smaller than a square Post-It.