Creating Shrinky Dink Trading Pins For Stake Girls Camp: A Quick How To

Here's just a quick tutorial on creating Shrinky Dink Trading Pins for Stake Girls Camp. I'm going to start with using clear shrinky dink sheets and then cover the differences when you want to use white shrinky dink sheets.

Materials:

Shrinky Dink Paper found at craft stores (I found mine at Micheal's)
A good pair of scissors
Printer or Markers (the only markers I have tried are sharpies and they worked great). Using the printer comes with it's own challenges
Baking sheet
Parchment paper or a piece of brown paper bag big enough to cover your baking sheet
Oven
Spray paint ( I used a metallic silver paint)
E 6000

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees (Follow the baking temperature guide with your shrinky dink instructions).

2. Start by transferring your images to your shrinky dink sheets. If you are using the printer I recommend flipping any wording horizontally so that it reads backwards. The reason for this is because the printer ink tends to smear A LOT, even after it has baked. So you will end up painting on top of the ink to seal it and then flipping your shrinky dinks over to "look into" the image. I also recommend putting a filter on top of images that have a lot of color. When your shrinky dinks bake and shrink the colors darken and become very intense. It can be hard to see the image if it isn't lightened first. This can be done in photo shop or by masking it with a white square and setting it to 70% opacity. This is what one of my shrinky dink sheets looked like when I was done. Notice the wording is all backwards.

3. Very carefully do a rough cut around each of your images. You can go back and fancy cut, but I noticed that when I didn't rough cut everything first I ended up with smeared images all over the place.

You can also use punches or trace frames to come up with some interesting shapes.

I wanted to have pictures of of my kids to carry around with me so I also created some photo shrinky dinks. This one was created using the white shrinky dink paper, but I also made a few with the clear paper. The clear paper with the silver backing creates a sort of antiqued vintage feel.

4. After everything is cut out just the way you want it, place your images ink side up on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Place it in the oven and watch as your images shrink and mutate and then settle back down. I've noticed that some shapes are not ideal. They tend to bend and fold into themselves and melt together. It's best to give up on a shape if after 2 or 3 tries it just won't work. Shapes that tend to give me problems are long and narrow. After your images have settled down and flattened (2-5 minutes) wait 30 seconds and then take them out of the oven. Don't attempt to touch them until they have cooled awhile (about 3 min) otherwise they may warp.

5. Now for the fun part! If you have printed your images you are going to spray paint on top of your image (ink side up). Start by adding a piece of double sided sticky tape to the back of your image (the side without the ink). This helps to keep your shrinky dink from flying around under the force of the spray paint. I used a metallic silver I had laying around the house but you could use any color you like. Place your images on a work surface and lightly spray paint over the images. Some spritzes of paint will surround the edges and tops of your images, but I think this is a pretty cool effect. Notice how much darker my giraffe is now.

6. If you are working with marker drawn images you can spray paint the backs (ink side down) to add a back ground color or just leave them transparent.

7. After any and all paint has dried you can add your pin back with just a little E6000.

8. Voila you are finished!

For working with the white shrinky dink sheets:

Don't invert images.
Use a clear coat over the tops of your shrinky dinks to seal the ink if you have printed your images.

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