Tips for Using Grafix Shrink Plastic To Make a Shaker Card

Remember Shrinky Dinks? They're back and for grown ups!  I can remember as a kid, watching through the oven door, as my creations magically shrunk. Now you can get that same exciting feeling with your heat gun.

Using our Grafix Shrink Film, you can use your stamps or markers to make fun bits for your shaker cards that actually match your card perfectly.  

But first, here's a tip I learned years ago to help with the shrinkage.  Take a one inch strip of your shrink plastic and use an alcohol marker (or Sharpie) and make your own ruler.  Then SHRINK that ruler.  Now you will know exactly the size of your shrunken image. 

Looking at the teapot stamp, it is 1 1/2 inches in real life, but will be less than 3/4 inches when shrunken.  Just store your shrink plastic ruler with your sheets of shrink plastic for future use.  

Now, onto the card. I used Stazon ink to stamp my teapot image onto the white Shrink Plastic.  VERY CAREFULLY use alcohol markers to color the teapot. 

Now, onto the card. I used Stazon ink to stamp my teapot image onto the white Shrink Plastic.  VERY CAREFULLY use alcohol markers to color the teapot. 

Two important tips to remember: 

1-The colors you choose will be more intense when shrunken, so choose lighter colors than you think you need.

2-Do NOT color over the Stazon ink.  Alcohol ink will smear the Stazon.  I found it best to dab my alcohol marker around the stamped lines.  The surface of the shrink plastic is slick so dabbing or dotting the image with color seems to work best.  If you use the clear shrink plastic, you can color on the back of your image to avoid any ink smearing (but for the teapots, I used the white shrink plastic).