Wednesday, August 3, 2011

An Adorable Shrinky Dinks Project



            As a little kid, I loved so many things with genuine, untarnished enthusiasm. Some of those things – like ball pits – seem unfathomably germy and unappealing now, but there are some – like Lucky Charms – that I can still enjoy decades later. It wasn’t until I was looking for Lucky Charms coupons online yesterday that I was reminded of another thing I loved as a little girl: Shrinky dinks!

            Those of you who have made shrinky dinks will understand, and for those of you who don’t – it’s rather hard to explain. A Shrinky dink is just a piece of shrunken plastic, but it’s got so much more magic in it than that descruiption conveys. To make shrinky dinks, you doodle on a special piece of thin plastic, which you then place in a very hot oven. The heat makes the plastic contract and the original item shrinks to a fraction of its original size.

         Granted, the applications of this particular medium are limited – Christmas ornaments, jewelry, and keyrings are pretty much it. But this project is about the journey as much as the destination, and half the fun of it is watching plastic magically miniaturize in the oven. The other half of the fun is seeing your own artwork shrunk down to an unfathomably small scale. You can make a Lucky charms coupons inspired charms bracelet with this template from Sublime Stitching – how could good luck not gravitate toward you while you’re wearing a pot of gold, a horseshoe, a rainbow, and a four-leafed clover around your wrist? It’s a perfect rainy-day project to do with the kids in your life (or your inner child!). 

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