Shrink Plastic Fun

The boys wanted to make things with the shrink plastic, or rather, they wanted ME to draw them things on shrink plastic. So, I did. Monsters and swords, of course. I’m always up for a monster drawing challenge and I’m rather proud of that scary creature.

Such is the life with boys. Long gone are the days of cute and sweet, although they sometimes do surprise me.

So, to get the gruesome monsteriness out of my system, I pulled out a sheet and made a pretty butterfly. Ahhh, now that’s much better!

It is truly insane how much this stuff shrinks up! And it’s a little nerve wracking, especially if you use a heat gun (I hate turning on the oven in the summer). But it gets all crazy and spastically crunches into a ball before it spreads out all nice and flat. Sometimes it doesn’t cooperate and you need to flatten it with a popsicle stick and force it into submission. Stressful when you’ve just spent so much time drawing your pretty little design.

I use this artist grade Polyshrink (sample pack). You sand one side (or both if you want to draw on both sides) to rough it up a bit and then I used Prismacolor pencils to draw on my designs.

I Love Prismacolor pencils because they are soft and blend beautifully.  I’ve never used any other kind, so I can’t say if there is anything better, but I am totally faithful to Prismacolor.  I bought my first box of 72 colors when I was 17 years old for $72!! That’s right, one dollar per pencil! I lived in a smallish town with non-existent internet shopping and price comparison.  It took me a few weeks to save up for them.

Anyway… I thought I would try to make these little plastic pieces into fancy jewelry. I bought some really cool shrink plastic earrings a long time ago and I loved them. They were white circles with simple flowers drawn on with marker. I lost them and might try to recreate them too.

These are fancy because I painted the sides with liquid gold leaf and then coated the tops with glass glaze (diamond glaze or ice resin would work too).  I also added beads and now they are all pretty and ready to wear. I love them! BIG, bright and very light.