*FREE* Shrink plastic!
Did you know that you have ‘free’ shrink plastic in your cubbard or fridge right now? All this time I have spent some money on shrinky dinks and could have saved a bit by doing this.
Go to your fridge or pantry (probally fridge) and grab that container of strawberries.
Step 1.
Enjoy the strawberries.
Step 2.
Clean container and remove any labels.
Step 3.
Cut off as much of the flat parts of the plastic as you can.
Step 4.
Stamp on the plastic with either staz on ink or a good pigment ink. Cut out being sure not to smear the image. I used the heart from stamping ups ‘Happy Heart Day’ stamp set.
Step 5 and its option:
Using a heat gun and a pair of scissors start heating the plastic up. Be sure to keep the scissors flat so the image doesn’t curl up. Heat until it shrinks. This process took a good two minutes for me.
Option 2 — preheat your toaster oven to 375* place the plastic into the oven and leave for about 3 to 5 minutes. I do a bunch at once so I get the plastic smell out of the way. I only use my toaster oven for crafts.
Use reasonable caution when experimenting. Watch your project carefully and don’t burn down your house! Remove from oven using oven mitts.
Other plastics I have tried include the packaging of sizzix dies (they wrinkled but I’m still experimenting, also they did not shrink as much as the containers did).
The shrinking is not as much as your standard shrinky dink plastic, but they are definitely smaller and make great accents for scrap book pages or cards!
I hope you will have fun experimenting!
Stamp Happy!
