Tutorial on Shrink Plastic

As promised, here's a tutorial on Shrink Plastic......

Hints and tips
There are two types of Shrink Plastic, one is the sort that I am going to use in this tutorial that you use to stamp or draw on or just cut shapes from, the other is the type that you can put in your printer and print out words or use your digi stamps etc, you heat in the same way as normal plastic. 

Please don't try to put ordinary shrink plastic into your printer, it will end up a gooey mess, so unless you need an excuse to buy a new printer (LOL) please don't try!

You may need to "key" the shrink, this isn't essential, but if you are trying this for the first time, I recommend you lightly sanding one side of the shrink plastic, this will help the ink stick to the shrink, rather than slide about. 

You can stamp on either side of the shrink plastic, but I like to stamp and colour on the rough side, or the side that you have sanded, then when you have coloured and shrunk the plastic and turn over, the side that you see is nice and shiny.  Just remember if you are stamping or drawing letters or numbers, you need to print the reverse this way, or your letters/numbers will be back to front!  Of course you can print on the front of the design and colour this way, the effect you get will be different, just experiment.

I will remind you below, but remember to punch a hole in your design before you shrink, otherwise it will be difficult afterwards! 

You can use use shrink plastic as embelishments, jewellery, fridge magnets, lots of things! Have a play....

Tools Required
Stamp
Stazon Ink or Archival Ink
Any colouring medium
Heat Tool (Not essential, you can use an oven, just follow the insructions on the packet)
Scissors
Hole Punch (If required)
A small box (Not essential, but see comments below)
Glass Mat or heatproof mat or something to protect your work surface

Steps

• Choose your stamp, here I've chosen a Mandala stamp (I think it was from Creative Expressions)

• Get your Shrink Plastic ready and ink it up using a Stazon Ink or Archival Ink.  The reason we use Stazon or Archival is because it dries much quicker on shrink plastic, and it won't run when you start to colour.  I think that you could use other inks, but I guess it would take a lot longer to dry, you can have a play with some scraps of shrink plastic perhaps?

•  Choose your colouring medium, here i've used Sakura Stardust pens.  These pens are lovely and glittery.  Whatever you use to colour the print, remember the colour will be different once shrunk, the colour is darker.  I will put another tutorial on here about colouring shrink plastic with different mediums at another time.

• Next, cut out your design, and remember to punch a hole if you need one at this stage and remember that the hole will shrink too, so take this into account when you punch the hole.

• Now you are ready to heat your design! Before you start, put your design on either a glass cutting mat (shown in the picture below), a heatproof sheet (shown in the picture below) or any other heatproof surface, such as a baking sheet. Don't use your self-healing cutting mat, it will warp!

• Until you get used to heating shrink plastic, sometimes it is handy to pop your design into a small box, and hold onto the box as you heat.  The shrink plastic will curl up and bend, don't worry about that, it's normal! If you are really worried about this, or you haven't got a heat tool, put it into the oven following the instructions on the packet.

• Here's the finished design....

• When it is completely shrunk, I like to press an acrylic block over the shrink plastic, this helps flatten it.  Of course if you are stamping a butterfly or something similar, you could try molding the plastic to give it a bit more dimension.

If I can think of anything to add to this tutorial I will edit this post.  If you have any comments, or anything you would like me to add, please ask and I will try and help :)

Thanks for stopping by my crazy Claireabella world folks..until next time.... Claire