How-To: Transform Take Home into Shrinky Dink Jewelry

Happy Monday and Happy Valentine's Day! 

Email coconutheadjewelry@gmail.com to enter to win a pair free earrings!

Since today is the day to celebrate love wouldn't it be great to share the love of shrink plastic (Who says V-day has to be about sharing your love with people?). So, I have read of various forums/websites that take home food containers are made with plastic that shrinks in the oven. Say what?! Yes, its true!!

Outline of Steps

1. Find a clear plastic take-home container
2. Clean container
3. Use permanent marker to draw designs onto plastic
4. Heat Oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, cut out design and hole punch 
5. Bake plastic on paper for 1-2 mins
6. Enjoy your miniature creation!

Now you don't have to spend a nickel on shrink plastic if you have a container like this in your fridge :) 

Be sure to wash out the container removing all food particles.

I just used the lid (I didn't want to spend time cleaning it if the project ended up failing). But it works!

Be sure to use permanent marker when drawing your designs and coloring them in.
NOTE: Flip your design over before coloring in the lines. The marker will smear with whatever colors  you're using. It happened to me on the next photo...

I'm not sure if it's easily visible, but I wasn't careful and the yellow and blue markers smeared. Fortunately the smears were integrated into wing veins.
Be sure to heat your conventional oven, toaster oven, but no microwave oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place a piece of plain paper (brown paper bag, graphing paper, printing paper, card stock) on a baking sheet. Make sure there is no ink printing on the paper or else it will end up on your creation.

Remove baking sheet from the oven, let cool and then pop off your shrunken creations!

This plastic has a lovely transparent quality to it that creates a stained glass look.

I hope you try this at home, and let me know how it works out!