What is shrink plastic and how is it used in jewellery making?

Answer 1

Designs is correct. You can use rubber craft stamps for the images but they have to be be large ones because the plastic shrinks to about 1/7th of original size. You need to use either Stazon or Fabrico ink pads to stamp the image. Felt tip pens can be used to colour the image but test first as some of the colours darken as it shrinks . I got a very tanned looking Santa head once & found that the pink from a set of Carioca dual ended pens was the only one I had that held its colour. Shrink plastic is available in clear, white, black & frosted and there are some pastel colours in pink, green & cream - also shrink plastic 'wallpaper' which has various background designs already on it. You can bake it in the oven but it is much more fun to use a cardmaker's heat embossing tool on it and watch it curl up & writhe around until it opens up again and you slap it down quickly with something flat before it cools.

Answer 2

It is a floppy plastic sheet that you can color on with colored pencils and cut out into shapes like flowers, stars, animals, etc. Then if you want a hole in it for hanging you make it with a hole punch BEFORE you bake it.
After baking, the piece will end up about 40% of its original size and through the shrinking process will get a little thicker, which is why holes must be placed before baking. It gets too hard and thick to pierce. It will curl and roll up a bit while baking and will flatten out when it is done.
You can also not make a hole and use a glue-on pendant finding to hang them. It can be a pendant or you could link them with jump-rings to form a chain. It can be used for jewelry, keychains, or Back-pack tags and more.

Answer 3

shrink plastic are pieces of plastic that come in all different shapes and sizes. what you do is decorate the pieces then put them in the oven for a certain amount of time. the plastic shrinks down into a wearable piece of jewelry like a necklace or a pair of earrings. all you have to do then is make a hole and put string or whatever you want through it so you can wear it.

Answer 4

you can get it at michaels, its a thin stiff plastic, i like the frosted type the best, you lay it over any picture you like then use a sharpie fine line pen to draw the lines, with frosted plastic you can use colored pencils to fill it in, cut out , leave room at the top for a hole, punch it with an ordinary paper punch, then put it on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven at the temp and for the time it reccomends on the package, you can use them like charms. they arent super classy but they can be fun, they do shrink a whole lot. and get thicker as they shrink.

Answer 5

Here are some links that will help with understanding what shrink plastic is, and how it can be used:
(there are various brand names for shrink plastic --like PolyShrink, ShrinkArt, ShrinkPlastic, Ultra-Thin by Vesta Abel, etc.)

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general instructions & photos, ideas & lessons on using shrink plastics with powders and molding, etc.
http://www.luckysquirrel.com/galleryhm.html http://www.luckysquirrel.com/info_getinfo.html

Cloud Nine's many tips on working with shrink plastics
http://netnet.net/~cloud9/tips/index_tips.html (...click on Tutorials ....and/or also click on any topic on the left side of page)

...Shrinky Dink's various types of shrink plastic... plus lots of info re techniques, inks, etc.
http://www.goestores.com/catalog.aspx?Merchant=shrinkydinks&DeptID=34365

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There's more info about shrink plastic, and also some ways it can be used with polymer clay, on this page of my site:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/MISC.htm
(... click on the subcategory SHRINKING --under the category Melting, Softening or Shinking Plastics"...)


HTH,

Diane B.