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