ISpyDIY
Shrink Plastic Tips from Meander
We featured Meander's 
Shrink Plastic Necklace in this week's episode … here are some tips she posted on the forum for making them. I'm so in love with this project. I remember making shrink-plastic carebears when i was a kid. xoxox c
Hey, ya'll! n … n The tutorial request for my plastic necklace ( http://forum.threadbanger.com/showthread.php?t=691 ) is kind of hard to do, because there isn't much involved, just your own interpretation! But in case you're not familiar with shrink plastic (Or Shrinky Dinks brand) I'll list some tips, instead!
You can find shrink plastic in the children's section of an arts-and-crafts store such as Joann Fabrics or Michaels or online at:
http://www.goestores.com/catalog.asp...s&DeptID=34365
To start out, you'll likely want to get "Ruff 'n' Ready" because you have to have a roughed-up side to color on, and it beats having to sand plastic by yourself. There are also colors like white and black, as well as plastic you can run through the printer, if drawing is not your best skill -- but remember all that stuff about copyrights, when printing images …
INSTRUCTIONS/TIPS::
To color::
*Hand draw your design on plain paper, or get the picture you'll be tracing, and put that under your plastic. Follow the lines -- it'll help avoid mistakes. And remember that this thing starts out BIG and gets small, so draw much larger than you want the item to be.
(View my sketching! D: Anyway, you can see how large he was when he was first colored and what he shrunk into. So keep this in mind! n.n)
*Feel free to put in a lot of detail. The amazing thing about this is that even on pieces I've made that end up even a half inch or smaller, you can still see every little line you draw- unless you're not wearing glasses and happen to need them. Then you're screwed. : ) You can do intricate work and have it stay in the final form. (This also means its prone to show tiny mistakes though, so trace and color carefully.)
*You can use a sharpie to make seriously black outlines- you can also use markers on shrink plastic BUT- if you try to put embossing powder on after, it WILL smear and ruin your piece. My poor Onigiri Man was SO adorable... and now his rice is forever ruined with grey smudging! Don't let this happen to you! If you use a marker, you can't use embossing powder for glazing.
(R.I.P., dirty grey corners of this lil' guy who will never again see the light of day... *Tosses back into the box*)
*It may suck to hear, but the better your colored pencil, the richer the finished colors you'll get. That means if you use Crayola, you'll have decent, enjoyable results- if you cut off your left arm and sell it on the black market for enough $$ to buy Prismacolor pencils, you'll have a great results. ...But the point is, you can still get good things with normal coloring instruments, so don't think you shouldn't try if all you have is the old shoe box of stuff from your kindergarten years, but if you have the option, Prismacolors run 15$-100$+ a box, depending on the number of shades you get.
*Regardless of your colored pencil, be sure to fill in the image with multiple strokes and maybe swirling motions to work in a lot of color.
To cut::
*After coloring, whenever possible, cut as close to your lines as possible. The more detail you put into cutting out each area of your plastic, the more professional your piece will look. Leaving in a lot of blank plastic or making really jagged cuts is a bummer. ;...;
*When cutting, don't snip your scissors all the way shut. When the tips come together, it will crack a line horizontal to what you're cutting in the plastic, and you may just accidentally snap off part of your work.
*If you have access to a dremel tool, use that after you bake to get the stuff that you feel might be too tiny to snip manually. You can use it to drill a hole for attaching to things as well, either before or after you bake. If you don't have one, just cut as carefully as you can with scissors (or maybe an exacto knife... caaaarefully) and use a hole punch to make the hole. It will get much smaller, no worries.
To bake::
*Put your plastic guy or whatnot on a piece of paper or paper sack on a tin or cookie sheet. The instructions say to bake at 325 degrees F.- but bollocks to that! I've found that the plastic shrinks very slowly at that heat and then is prone to being bubbled oddly (such as a completely round piece just turning into a bowl) so I bake them at 400 for less time, but this is your judgement call and obviously you should practice safety at all times.
*If you do get a piece that hasn't shrunk flat, the plastic tends to curl upward, so flip your plastic over and put it back in to reheat. It should try to flatten and curl up to the sky again, so be sure to grab it out JUST as it's getting flat, or you might have to deal with it getting curled upt he wrong way again. You can even do this later, if it's been cold for a while- even days or EVER.
*Don't burn yourself, dumba#%. I've done it, it sucks. D:
To glaze::
*You don't need to glaze, it will be just fine right out of the oven and may work better for your design this way. You can use a spray sealer, like a clear gloss, in the spray paint section of a store, but it won't make it very shiny. It will just protect it -more- even though they tend to hold up very well and don't smear when shrunk.
*To get the super high shine, sprinkle a healthy pile of clear embossing powder onto your item, trying not to pile up too much extra around it. This is basically granules of plastic, which will melt...
(I'm using "Ultra-Thick Clear")
(See how thick it gets? It adds a professional look that you don't get with the spray sealants ...If you haven't guessed, I only have a cam built into the comp, so deal with my head shot. D: )
*I suppose you can use a heat gun or one of those embossing supply things that looks like hairdryer (Don't try a hair dryer! XD not hot enough, and you'll get granules everywhere) but I've never tried it because I don't have one. This is when I put the oven on broil and transfer the tin under the element. Crouch down and watch- you'll see the plastic melt and unfurl. When it's liquified, pull it out. The nature of the powder is that it will crawl over the surface and glaze even the delicate parts amazingly well, but if you don't have enough on, you'll notice a 'bald spot'. Sprinkle on more just in that spot, and re-heat.
*If you've heated it too long, you may heat your plastic again enough to get it to curl. This won't likey happen, but if it DOES, you troubleshoot by just flipping the piece as before and getting it to flatten. Pull it out, flip it embossed side up again and let it cool down. **THIS is when you MUST be ESPECIALLY careful not to burn yourself. I've done this too. Having melted plastic on your fingertips will burn worse than a high heat glue gun** Then you can put it under the broil for a few spare seconds to soothe over any squishing of the embossed layer that happened by putting it that side down before.
*To keep from needing to trim gloss later, when your piece is fresh from the heat, pick up the paper that it's on and carfully curl the paper away from it. Try to get it unstuck as much as possible while it's hot but without touching it. Besides the pain, you'll get finger marks, if you do. Bah! Then give a blow to cool it, and peel it off the paper, fully. n.n Hopefully, if you DO have any glaze that is stuck from your piece and peeled off the paper, you might be able to chip it or possibly nail file it away or trim with a razor blade. Just watch out for sharp edges- likely this shouldn't happen, it's just a troubleshooting tip...
Notes on drilling::
*A dremel tool bit will spin fast enough to re-melt your embossing powder or melt the plastic you're trying to trim. What that means is that as you work, you'll likey get the plastic sliding up the bit and hardening. This won't ruin your bit, but you might want to pause and peel it off here and there.
*Your bit may make your glaze look a bit rough, or if you've drilled a threading hole before glazing, the hole may have closed and when you re-drill it, it will look a little raw edged. Just a few seconds under the broiler to remelt it, but stopping before it fills in the hole again, takes care of that trouble.
======================
You can find shrink plastic in the children's section of an arts-and-crafts store such as Joann Fabrics or Michaels or online at:
http://www.goestores.com/catalog.asp...s&DeptID=34365
To start out, you'll likely want to get "Ruff 'n' Ready" because you have to have a roughed-up side to color on, and it beats having to sand plastic by yourself. There are also colors like white and black, as well as plastic you can run through the printer, if drawing is not your best skill -- but remember all that stuff about copyrights, when printing images …
INSTRUCTIONS/TIPS::
To color::
*Hand draw your design on plain paper, or get the picture you'll be tracing, and put that under your plastic. Follow the lines -- it'll help avoid mistakes. And remember that this thing starts out BIG and gets small, so draw much larger than you want the item to be.
(View my sketching! D: Anyway, you can see how large he was when he was first colored and what he shrunk into. So keep this in mind! n.n)
*Feel free to put in a lot of detail. The amazing thing about this is that even on pieces I've made that end up even a half inch or smaller, you can still see every little line you draw- unless you're not wearing glasses and happen to need them. Then you're screwed. : ) You can do intricate work and have it stay in the final form. (This also means its prone to show tiny mistakes though, so trace and color carefully.)
*You can use a sharpie to make seriously black outlines- you can also use markers on shrink plastic BUT- if you try to put embossing powder on after, it WILL smear and ruin your piece. My poor Onigiri Man was SO adorable... and now his rice is forever ruined with grey smudging! Don't let this happen to you! If you use a marker, you can't use embossing powder for glazing.
(R.I.P., dirty grey corners of this lil' guy who will never again see the light of day... *Tosses back into the box*)
*It may suck to hear, but the better your colored pencil, the richer the finished colors you'll get. That means if you use Crayola, you'll have decent, enjoyable results- if you cut off your left arm and sell it on the black market for enough $$ to buy Prismacolor pencils, you'll have a great results. ...But the point is, you can still get good things with normal coloring instruments, so don't think you shouldn't try if all you have is the old shoe box of stuff from your kindergarten years, but if you have the option, Prismacolors run 15$-100$+ a box, depending on the number of shades you get.
*Regardless of your colored pencil, be sure to fill in the image with multiple strokes and maybe swirling motions to work in a lot of color.
To cut::
*After coloring, whenever possible, cut as close to your lines as possible. The more detail you put into cutting out each area of your plastic, the more professional your piece will look. Leaving in a lot of blank plastic or making really jagged cuts is a bummer. ;...;
*When cutting, don't snip your scissors all the way shut. When the tips come together, it will crack a line horizontal to what you're cutting in the plastic, and you may just accidentally snap off part of your work.
*If you have access to a dremel tool, use that after you bake to get the stuff that you feel might be too tiny to snip manually. You can use it to drill a hole for attaching to things as well, either before or after you bake. If you don't have one, just cut as carefully as you can with scissors (or maybe an exacto knife... caaaarefully) and use a hole punch to make the hole. It will get much smaller, no worries.
To bake::
*Put your plastic guy or whatnot on a piece of paper or paper sack on a tin or cookie sheet. The instructions say to bake at 325 degrees F.- but bollocks to that! I've found that the plastic shrinks very slowly at that heat and then is prone to being bubbled oddly (such as a completely round piece just turning into a bowl) so I bake them at 400 for less time, but this is your judgement call and obviously you should practice safety at all times.
*If you do get a piece that hasn't shrunk flat, the plastic tends to curl upward, so flip your plastic over and put it back in to reheat. It should try to flatten and curl up to the sky again, so be sure to grab it out JUST as it's getting flat, or you might have to deal with it getting curled upt he wrong way again. You can even do this later, if it's been cold for a while- even days or EVER.
*Don't burn yourself, dumba#%. I've done it, it sucks. D:
To glaze::
*You don't need to glaze, it will be just fine right out of the oven and may work better for your design this way. You can use a spray sealer, like a clear gloss, in the spray paint section of a store, but it won't make it very shiny. It will just protect it -more- even though they tend to hold up very well and don't smear when shrunk.
*To get the super high shine, sprinkle a healthy pile of clear embossing powder onto your item, trying not to pile up too much extra around it. This is basically granules of plastic, which will melt...
(I'm using "Ultra-Thick Clear")
(See how thick it gets? It adds a professional look that you don't get with the spray sealants ...If you haven't guessed, I only have a cam built into the comp, so deal with my head shot. D: )
*I suppose you can use a heat gun or one of those embossing supply things that looks like hairdryer (Don't try a hair dryer! XD not hot enough, and you'll get granules everywhere) but I've never tried it because I don't have one. This is when I put the oven on broil and transfer the tin under the element. Crouch down and watch- you'll see the plastic melt and unfurl. When it's liquified, pull it out. The nature of the powder is that it will crawl over the surface and glaze even the delicate parts amazingly well, but if you don't have enough on, you'll notice a 'bald spot'. Sprinkle on more just in that spot, and re-heat.
*If you've heated it too long, you may heat your plastic again enough to get it to curl. This won't likey happen, but if it DOES, you troubleshoot by just flipping the piece as before and getting it to flatten. Pull it out, flip it embossed side up again and let it cool down. **THIS is when you MUST be ESPECIALLY careful not to burn yourself. I've done this too. Having melted plastic on your fingertips will burn worse than a high heat glue gun** Then you can put it under the broil for a few spare seconds to soothe over any squishing of the embossed layer that happened by putting it that side down before.
*To keep from needing to trim gloss later, when your piece is fresh from the heat, pick up the paper that it's on and carfully curl the paper away from it. Try to get it unstuck as much as possible while it's hot but without touching it. Besides the pain, you'll get finger marks, if you do. Bah! Then give a blow to cool it, and peel it off the paper, fully. n.n Hopefully, if you DO have any glaze that is stuck from your piece and peeled off the paper, you might be able to chip it or possibly nail file it away or trim with a razor blade. Just watch out for sharp edges- likely this shouldn't happen, it's just a troubleshooting tip...
Notes on drilling::
*A dremel tool bit will spin fast enough to re-melt your embossing powder or melt the plastic you're trying to trim. What that means is that as you work, you'll likey get the plastic sliding up the bit and hardening. This won't ruin your bit, but you might want to pause and peel it off here and there.
*Your bit may make your glaze look a bit rough, or if you've drilled a threading hole before glazing, the hole may have closed and when you re-drill it, it will look a little raw edged. Just a few seconds under the broiler to remelt it, but stopping before it fills in the hole again, takes care of that trouble.
======================
You can get a shrink plastic item in only a few minutes by coloring, cutting and baking. Taking the extra steps to cut the detail, glaze, touch up and things like that can take a few minute project and make it an hour or more project but you just might be more pleased with your results from the extra details your effort has bought you. : )
If I've missed anything in my patented LENGTHY description or I didn't make something clear properly, just ask. And post pictures of your stuff here or in the projects section, where I can seeeeee! <3333
If I've missed anything in my patented LENGTHY description or I didn't make something clear properly, just ask. And post pictures of your stuff here or in the projects section, where I can seeeeee! <3333
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