Make Your Own Shrinky Dinks!

Have you guys tried out shrink dinks?

I’ve wanted to try this fun, cute, and easy craft with the kids at daycare, but haven’t because the kits are pretty expensive. Especially when you consider what they actually are... pieces of plastic that you colour and heat to shrink. 

Then I read on this blog that you can make your own shrink dinks out of any #6 plastic! That’s the type of plastic most take-out containers are made out of. I picked up a few containers for free from the Meals-to-Go section at my local grocery store. Just ask the person behind the counter, they should be ok with giving you a couple containers... unless they’re a jerk... then I suggest you find a new grocery store. 

I used the lid from one container, which was large enough to cut out four rectangles to colour and shrink. Each rectangle was about 2”x3.5”. I used a standard single hole punch to punch a hole at the top of reach rectangle. 

You can cut out any shape, really, I just did rectangles because I’m slightly lazy that way. I read that you should round any corners because they become sharp once shrunk, but I did not try any non-rounded corners, so I don’t know how sharp they would really be. 

The technique I tried out at home was drawing a design on one side with a black Sharpie, then flipping it over and colouring in the design with coloured Sharpies on the back. My reason for colouring in the back is because when you touch one colour to another, or a colour to black, they can smear and blend and look terrible. 

After colouring in your design, put your shrinky dink(s) on a piece of parchment paper. Pop it in your toaster oven (or regular oven if you’re making a lot) at 250°F. Preheat the oven first. My toaster oven took about one minute to preheat, so that wasn’t a very difficult wait. 

The time is not exact; in fact it’s probably slightly different for every piece of plastic, but it only took about two minutes for the plastic to shrink. More important: watch the magic as it happens! 

First it will be mostly flat, 

 (Don’t laugh at my filthy toaster oven. It gets a lot of use.) 

Then it will start to curl, 

Then it will curl some more, 

Then it will start to flatten out again, 

Then is will be flat, and small, and thick, and awesome. 

Carefully take it out of the oven – it hasn’t been in there long, but it will still be hot. 

As it cools it may start to curl a little bit again. To avoid this possibility, use something flat to press down on the plastic immediately after removing it from the oven. Press it for about 30 seconds. 

As you can see, the fully shrunken shrinky dink will be about half the size of your original piece of plastic, and it will be much thicker. 

I used a piece of plastic with embossed words, to see what would happen. You can still see the marks after it has shrunk, but it’s not too bad. You need to be looking pretty close to see that the marks are words. 

Pre-shrunk

Post-shrunk

It will only take about a minute to cool down enough to handle. Then you can add some jump rings to the holes that you punched at the top, and use them as awesome little charms for whatever strikes your fancy. I put a key ring on one of the ones I made. 

Or you can use it for a necklace, zipper pull, tiny sun catcher, etc. Make two matching shrinky dinks for completely custom earrings. Ooo!! How about personalized name tags for gifts!! They can be used for so many things! 

Word of caution: these shrinky dinks are just coloured with Sharpies. If you’re going to be using your shrinky dink for something that will cause wear, you will want to coat it with some sort of sealer. I haven’t tried anything, but my first thought would be to use a spray on poly. This is the top coat I use on anything that might come in contact with water: 

I’ve used it on my homemade canvas wall art, painted rocks for the garden, and some of my cheap jewellery to prevent them from turning my skin green. 

I plan on bringing this craft to my daycare class in a couple of weeks, and I will post again to let you see how it turns out. Stay tuned!