Friday, April 29, 2011

Shrink Plastic Jewelry

With Easter being so late this year, Mother's Day seems to be sneaking up on me a little faster than usual. It's just a week from this Sunday which means it's time to start gathering my cardmaking supplies, and, lucky for me...we had an influx of gorgeous card samples from our stores to inspire me.

Although it's easy to run to a store and grab a ready-made gift or a bouquet of flowers, I decided to go DIY for Mother's Day this year and turn to something a little more meaningful, budget friendly and something that will actually provide me with some entertainment while I wait for the sun to come out (hopefully this Sunday)!


We already taught you how to use Shrink Plastic a few weeks ago in this post. I thought it would be super cute to take photos and print them on the paper to make personalized charms and jewelry for Mother's Day. You will need Ink Jet Shrink Film - each pack comes with six sheets (I was able to fit about six photos per page). I used an embossing heat tool, but you can also just pop these in your oven.

Start by picking your photos and printing them on the the shrink paper, then cut the image down to size. You can use a punch to create different shapes (like the circle and tag punch I tried below), you can round the edges, or even use decorative paper edgers to make a scalloped border. Finally, punch holes in your image where you would like to place the ring to hang your pendant.

Now...the fun part! Using your heat tool, point the heat at the image until the edges start to curl up. Keep doing this until the piece shrinks up completely and starts to lie flat. You can take the back of a rubber stamp to flatten it out completely. If you'd like, this step can also be done using your oven (bake on parchment paper or cardboard at 300 degrees for 2-3 minutes).

Now, using jump rings, attach your pendant on a pretty ribbon or chain to create your personalized necklace. These would also make really cute earrings or a key chain charm (see the key chain I made of my daughter, and yes - my daughter is a dog!)I like to host wine tasting parties for my girlfriends, and I came across this picture of Golden Girls wine charms made of shrink plastic - how funny are these? I am now inspired to take pictures of my friends, turn them into wine charms and have them ready to hand out next time I host a wine tasting party - my friends will love it, and no one will ever wonder whose glass is whose.

There are so many fun things you can do with shrink plastic, play around with it and get creative! I came across these cute project ideas below - you can make rings, stamp pretty images on the paper and color them in with copic markers, create cute magnets for the fridge - the possibilities are endless. Happy {almost} Mother's Day! --Lauren


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10 comments:

  1. Awesome post! I'm definitely putting this on my list of things to make this year. Thank you!

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  2. Thanks for the post! One question for you though. I tried doing a charm in the shape of a tag, and it came out kind of lopsided (it looked like a melted tag, lol). Any suggestions on getting it straight? Maybe the oven would work better? I used the heat tool as per the instructions from your shrink charm post, but maybe that doesnt work as well for certain shapes?

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  3. Sara (Shoreline PZ)April 30, 2011 at 10:29 AM

    I laughed so hard at those wine charms...

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  4. In my experience with the shrink plastic the oven works better because it's a more even heat. But I like the idea of using the embossing tool!

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  5. Thanks for all your comments! Angela, the oven does make it easier to help to keep the shape of your piece so you could try that. If you are using the embossing tool, be sure to flatten out the piece with a flat object when it is still malleable (I used the back of a rubber stamp). Let me know how it goes! --Lauren

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  6. I'll give the oven a shot--I got it flat on the top and bottom (by flattening it with a clear stamp block), but the sides are weird shaped still. It's hard to see in the picture, but I'm going to keep working on it:)

    http://min.us/mvnEyQZ#1

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  7. The napkin rings look like a great idea for my wedding! I have used the shrink plastic before but not sure how to make the even curl for the napkin rings or what size i should cut out to start with.....................

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  8. where do you get the shrink plastic at for the printer? Thats a great Idea and I can make them into dog tags since my nephew is in the service

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  9. You can purchase the shrink plastic at Paper Zone. :)

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  10. Lisa - the Shrink Plastic shrinks to about half its original size, so you can keep that in mind when creating your piece. For an even curl, I would find something round that you can mold it around while it is still pliable. For example, if you were creating a ring for a finger, you could use a marker to mold it right after you heat it. So, just search your house and find something that looks to be about the size of a napkin ring, heat your piece and be sure to mold it quickly since the plastic hardens fairly quickly.

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