Magical Shrink Plastic

I learned to appreciate the versatility of shrink plastic early in my crafting career. Its magical stuff - watching your design become a miniature of itself never gets old for me.

At the request of a friend, I'm going to be sharing the shrink-plastic brain-dump. (had to make sure I had my hyphens in the proper place, because I am NOT sharing a shrink plastic-brain dump...)

Basic tools & Supplies:

• crafting heat gun / teflon craft sheet / chipboard clip board
• toaster oven
• bamboo skewers, knitting needles or any  pokey craft tool 
• paper towels
• dollar store paint brushes 
• rubberstamps with well defined patterns or the type that outlines and can be coloured in
• Glossy Accents glue 
• cyano-acrylate glue (E6000 or Crafters Goop) for gluing your finished pieces onto a surface.

And colouring agents:

• pigment powders (see last blog entry)
• Dye inks, alcohol inks, colour sprays, acrylics, colour pencils, markers (water or alcohol based) - including Copics, Tombows, Tim Holtz Distress Markers, etc.
• metallic wax paste (many water or solvent based brands)

 I like to break down the distinctive techniques to 4 different types:

1. STAMP-DECORATE-HEAT

This technique is wonderful for those who like to colour and make their images small

(Examples above: piece on the left was stamped with a Magenta stamp, coloured with markers and heated. The image on the right was created by my daughter - drawn, coloured with prismacolor pencils and then cut out and heated in the toaster oven.)

a)    stamp on either translucent shrink plastic (after sanding one side) or pre-sanded transluscent. Stamp with permanent inks such as Brilliance (which takes a while to dry) or Stazon (which dries almost immediately but should not be used when colouring with Copic markers).

b)    Colour in the stamped image, use colour pencils (the softer the better), tombow or Copic markers, alcohol inks, or  acrylic paints (these will give the piece a texture once it has shrunk). Note that these colours will all be intensified once the piece has finished shrinking.

c)    Optionally cut the piece of shrink plastic to a desired form (die cut machines can be used on shrink plastic, but depending on the type of shrink plastic, one may have to make use of a lot of shims to get the desired cut)

d)    Shrink with heat gun and teflon mat or toaster oven.

One can also stamp on a piece of shrink plastic without the decorating step (i.e. metallic StazOn on black shrink plastic).

Note: if the piece is large, has been coloured with wet media, or is of an unusual shape, it should be put in the toaster oven, as the heat distribution is much better than a heat gun.

2. STAMP-HEAT-DECORATE

(Examples, were made stamping (using stamps from Outlines) with metallic inks on black shrink plastic) 

a)    stamp onto a piece of shrink plastic using Brilliance or Stazon ink.  Optionally cut out the design. If you wish to hang them as jewellery be sure to use a punch to make a hole before you shrink.

b)    shrink the piece with a toaster oven or a heat gun over teflon sheet.

c)    Use dimensional paints (Ranger liquid pearls or Adirondack dimensional acrylic paints) and apply with a tooth pick to the desired areas to decorate.

3.  DECORATE-HEAT-STAMP

(Example: stamped with stazon ink and coloured with ink. After shrinking, while still warm. used the same stamp to make a texture. Edged with gold paint marker.)

a)    Optional first step is to colour or paint the shrink plastic.

b)    Shrink with heat gun and teflon mat (you may also shrink it in the oven for this step, then at a later time warm it up again with the heat gun so that it is soft), anchored with your “stick”. Once it has shrunk it will not shrink further

4. HEAT-STAMP-DECORATE

This is the technique I shared in the last blog entry:

This method is fabulous to use with any scraps of Shrink Plastic that you may have after a project.

a)    Heat the scrap with a heat gun – anchoring it with your stick.

b)    Wait until it is completely shrunk, then, like the step above, stomp down with an inked rubber stamp, pressing hard.

c)    Once you have removed the piece of molded plastic from the rubberstamp, you may choose to glaze or antique it. Remember that the piece of shrunk plastic is a glossy non-porous material some paints or inks may not dry. Here are some recipes and combinations:

Recipes that can be put into the little containers:

•    adhesive + alcohol inks
•    adhesive + dye inks (use ranger dye ink reinkers)
•    adhesive + pigment powders
•    adhesive + mica powders (perfect pearls, pearlex, primary elements)
•    water  + Acrylic paints (Lumiere, etc)
•    Copic markers (there will be a bit of streakiness, but this can be a feature!)

•    Krylon leafing pens in any colour (or another brand of paint pen, but I always go back to these).
•    Metallic gilding paste, or brilliance ink pads for highlighting.

Adhesive can be: Ranger Glossy Accents (may not dry very quickly; try wiping it after application and/or adding perfect pearls on top of it), Ranger Studio Medium, Perfect Paper Adhesive, Judikins Diamond Glaze.

 

General Notes:

Shrink plastic can be most commonly found in clear, transluscent, pre-sanded (clear with one side roughed up to give it tooth for colouring agents such as coloured pencil), white, black and coloured (as solid as white or black;  almond, brown, and now Grafix now makes bright colours).

There is an ultra thin version (no longer manufactured), and a version that is able to go through your ink jet printer.

Shrink Plastic Brands:

Aleene's Shrink-It 
Shrinky Dinks
PolyShrink (Lucky Squirrel)
Grafix Arts Shrink Film
Ranger Ink Essentials Shrink Plastic
Klutz Books Shrinky Dinks

Best quality is probably Lucky Squirrel or the Ranger brand, and the easiest to get is the Shrinky Dinks (go to Michaels with a coupon!)

► There are a number of Youtube videos for projects.

► If you wish to use stamps on the shrink plastic, I would strongly recommend you work with the pre-sanded type. They look cloudy before shrinking by they get pretty clear once they have shrunk completely. They are probably the best type, they don't "warp" and have the tooth to receive colouring agents.

► When you are shrinking the plastic, depending on its shape, and what colouring medium is on it, it may distort. If you find two corners are sticking together, cool the piece until you can “snap” the stuck pieces apart, and then continue to heat. If you are going to be stamping a rubber stamp on it as in our project, you can just “shmush” the whole thing together. Shrinking the plastic is not a science! It will not always shrink exactly the way you want it. Always make more, so that you can use the best pieces.

► Many brands have a “weave” that is to say if make several designs on a piece of plastic to shrink, you should make them all going in the same direction, or they will turn out somewhat different in dimension from one another when they shrink. I find that the crystal clear type is especially prone to this warping.

► Remember that when you are shrinking a design, the colours will be brighter when you shrink it. So, go light on the colour, or in some cases your finished work will be darker than you like it.

► If you use a thick medium to colour the shrink plastic before heating (like acrylic paint), experiment first as the different brands will yield a different texture.  Here is an example with Lumiere paints.

► You can always remelt your shrunk pieces – this way you can add texture and dimension by: stamping on it for a relief look; heat it over a curved surface to make it curved (like a post for curtains or banisters)

Here are some good crafting books:

The first two are Design Originals Books and the one on the right is available on Amazon.

Here are two sampler frames with different pieces on them

So that's it. Play with it - watch your hands while it is melting - and have fun.