Santa Thinks Your List is Funny!

I made yet another altered canvas.  Because I have a problem.  “Hi.  My name is Mary and I can’t stop putting crap on canvas.”

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Shrinky Dink Christmas Tree!

Shelby and I made this Shrinky Dink Christmas Tree this week.  Well, the tree came from the store.  We made the shrinky dinks.

First we colored on some shrink film and some pieces of number 6 plastic with permanent markers.  You can get shrink film from any hobby store and number 6 plastic is the clear plastic that you buy cookies in at your grocery store deli.

The number 6 plastic doesn’t shrink as much, but it makes a very pretty creamy white.

I hope it’s okay that I drew the Baby Jesus on Shrinky Dinks…

After we got all the plastic colored, we cut them with my Sizzix machine.  There were a few scraps that were too small for my dies, so I just cut them into squares.  I also cut out the little birds with my trusty scissors.  I tried to do mittens, but I didn’t have a pattern and, as it turns out, I can’t draw!

If your kids are older, you’ll probably want to cut the shapes and then color them.  But Shelby is 2 so it made more sense for us to color first.

Once you have your shapes cut, put them on a piece of cardboard on a cookie sheet and bake at about 250-300 degrees until they are shrunk.  Don’t panic if they curl, they should flatten themselves out as they continue to bake.  If they don’t you will have a few seconds to work with them after they come out of the oven.  Just be sure not to touch them with your bare skin because they will be hot.

I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch the holes in the ornaments after they were cooled.  Then I tied a ribbon through them.

Because these are so hard after they shrink (the number 6 plastic doesn’t get as hard), if you don’t have a Crop-A-Dile, you’ll probably want to punch the holes before you bake your shrinky dinks.

You can do so much more with these than make ornaments.  They make great wine glass charms (or, if you’re like me, beer bottle charms), gift tags, jewelry charms, zipper pulls … the possibilities are endless!

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