Shrinky Dinks Project

This time was my second attempt to make magnets and charms with Shrinky Dinks inkjet printable sheet. The first time was partially successful - the coating I used over the finished works smeared some of the pictures.
After searching for a while, I found a great coating idea from this wonderful blog, and decided to give it a try.

I created several designs using my collage works and printed them out on the Shrinky Dinks sheets. The colors on the sheets have to be adjusted to kind of "faded look" in order to maintain the original colors after shrinking, so I used Photoshop to modify the colors 50% less intensity.

Then I cut all of the images out of the plastic sheets with scissors.

I asked my husband to draw my favorite of his 'space man' on a blank space of the plastic sheet :)

I needed to punch a hole to make a charm before baking.

 

All the pieces cut out were placed on a cooking sheet that is covered with a parchment paper.

Then they were baked in a 300º F oven for about 6 min.

Curling and shrinking....

Done.

Next is the coating. From here I followed the instruction on the blog mentioned earlier.

I covered top of the each piece with UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel), and arranged them on the same cooking sheet covered with a parchment paper.

Then they were baked in the 300º F oven for another 6 min and done.

I decided to give them another UTEE sprinkle and bake in order to make the top of the pieces look smoother.
Voila! The top is smoothly enamel coated.

They shrunk 3 times (or more) smaller, and got 50% stronger colors than the originals, like this.

The Shrinky Dinks inkjet printable sheet can be found on the company's online shop, some craft stores, or some online shop giants like Amazon etc. if you are interested:-) And this is a very concise instruction I referred to make magnets and charms: http://content.photojojo.com/diy/shrink-plastic-photo-jewelry/