Shrink Plastic Adventures, Part 1

Shrink plastic, Shrinky Dinks. Whatever. They are super-cool.


I like to put charms on my notebooks, which is simple when you use a game board to make a notebook...just drill yo-self a hole in one of the game pieces and there's your charm.

For my laminated notebooks, I was using store bought silver colored charms when I could find good ones, but I really want handmade charms to put on my notebooks. The answer has to be Shrink Plastic.

I'm no stranger to Shrinky Dinks and have made lots of boo boos with them. Specifically, I have found that the inkjet ones are susceptible to loosing their ink.

I am trying to learn how best to seal the "shrinked" image to preserve the design AND to give it a glossy finish.

I read all over Craftster to get ideas. Craftster is great.


I tried some of the ideas, and probably due to my lack of attention to detail (ie, don't read directions), I got disappointing results.

Some folks say use a spray acrylic clear gloss. I didn't have that hanging around but I did have two of the items suggested on Craftster:

1) Triple Thick Gloss Coating by DecoArt
2) Glossy Accents by Ranger

Note: Other suggestions were UTEE and clear nail polish.

So post shrinking, I slathered on a really thick layer of each of these. Here's what it looked like immediately after applying the goo:


Next, I check back 4 hours later and...


Darn. Ink bleedage. Close up...



Neither product was really designed for the purpose of sealing ink onto shrink plastic, and the directions on the ink jet Shrinky Dinks specifically recommend Krylon Acrylic Coat spray.

Now I am going to try this again, with Krylon spray underneath and photos of results will follow....